Strength Indeterminate
by Erdekais
Summary: When Flavia coerces Robin into taking a vacation across Ferox and Ylisse despite a looming war with Valm, he and his newfound travelling companion Kjelle dedicate themselves to growing stronger in anticipation of the battles to come. As they learn to grow their strengths and accommodate their weaknesses together, they begin to uncover their true natures and those of their worlds.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem, or any of its related property, which all belongs to Nintendo/Intelligent Systems/whoever actually owns it. I'm not going to pretend to know who or what owns it, I just know that it's not me.**

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 **So, this is my first attempt at writing... well, anything, really. This story is going to be focused on the relationship between Robin and Kjelle over the course of a modified version of _Fire Emblem Awakening_ 's story, both of which will hopefully interest you enough that you decide to keep reading. Please, message me if there are any errors at any point in this story, or leave a comment so that I can address whatever concerns you have.**

 **I would also like to mention right now that I don't really have any idea what I'm doing on this site, since this is the first (second maybe?) time I'm even looking at the non-mobile version. I don't know what my formatting should look like, or if I'm doing any of this properly, so please tell me if I've messed anything up.**

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Chapter 1

* * *

Spears of lighting faded out of existence as Robin ceased his magical attack, Chrom's broken body lying unmoving on the ground before his feet. The last of the spears dissipated in a magnificent rainbow of colour, though it appeared as grey as ever to the only two onlookers remaining.

Robin raised his hand anew and cast another burst of magic at the fallen form, Chrom's corpse evaporating into nothingness as a purple-tinted flame consumed him, an ethereal light from his remains wafting toward Robin in followup. Above all else, all of the fear and hatred that had plagued him for so long, Robin was now delighting in his kill - in having the sheer power to kill. He basked in the power to destroy, and to decide anything and everything. Power over others.

Another unique but same him, the true Grima of a future past forgotten, stood across from him with an unceremoniously dropped jaw. Their wide eyes darted rapidly between the spot where Chrom's corpse had been impaled only seconds ago, to Robin, and back repeatedly.

Grima-Robin's mouth bobbed open and shut several times before they were able to properly form words, their voice as high pitched and shrill as their complete and utter shock entailed. "What the fu-!?"

* * *

Rays of early morning sunlight filtered into Ylisstol castle, dimly illuminating the grand palace's halls. A skeleton crew of knights stood in vigil at various locations, periodically scanning their surroundings or following a predetermined route through the castle as they awaited their relief. Many of the Shepherds who had fought in the Plegian war one year prior had taken up residence in the castle, and the early risers among them slowly began to filter out of their rooms, making their way to the kitchens for a small breakfast before heading off for Frederick's daily training regimen at the barracks.

A shaft of light snuck through a gap in the heavy blue curtains that lined every window of Ylisstol's grandmaster study, falling upon the face of a sleeping figure slumped over the arm of their chair. Robin shifted slightly in his sleep, his unconscious mind trying its best to keep the man in his rest for a few moments longer. Soon, the unmistakable scent of parchment and ink filled the tactician's senses, rousing him from his slumber and reminding him that he had fallen asleep before leaving his workspace. Again.

Groaning, Robin rose from his chair and stretched. He stifled a yawn as he began working any muscle that felt sore, then clapped his hands down on the edge of his desk and stared at the missive he had begun writing the night before. Blinking twice, he tried to remember where his line of thought had been leading him when had fallen asleep. He reached for the quill that had rolled toward the edge of his desk, using it to jot down a few more sentences before he rolled the paper up and shoved it roughly into one of his coat pockets.

Dozens of bookcases lined every wall of the study, and Robin considered pulling a tome from one of the shelves before he recollected his wandering thoughts and remembered the vast number of weapons and occasional potions he concealed in the gold, black, and purple cloth folds of his cloak. He stretched his back a final time, then slid past the side of his desk toward the room's unnecessarily grandiose door. Opening it, he squinted as he stepped into the noticeably brighter hallway.

The grandmaster study, as with Robin's room and all the Shepherd's living quarters, opened into an elevated hall that held a view of the castle's central garden, with a guardrail and several pillars preventing any drunken Gregors from falling over the one-story height. This garden, in turn, held several arches that connected to the barrack's open-air training grounds, as well as several pathways which fed into various other points of interest, most of which lined the exterior of the castle. The gardens, grounds, and their interconnected paths had been a remnant of Emmeryn's rule, designed to ease the burden of the castle staff and bring a shred of beauty to the otherwise bland stonework.

Robin frowned. _Of course, none of that really helped when she was nearly assassinated._ The pathways had been a nightmare to plan strategies around, and Robin had actually made a request to block them off entirely after Chrom was crowned Exalt. Chrom immediately denied this request, of course; he had vowed to preserve as much of his late sister's legacy as he possibly could.

The tactician sighed inaudibly as he ran a hand through his snow-white hair. That statement alone had led to an irrationally long monologue on Chrom's part, detailing the castle's defenses and, as always, somehow ending with a powerful statement about fate and the power of bonds. Now, not even the Vaike-est of Shepherds would even dream of damaging the gardens or their passageways.

"Heya, Robin!" a too-loud-for-this-time-of-morning voice suddenly shouted out.

Robin winced, then broke into a smile as he recognized the caller. "Hey, Vaike." _Well, think of the devil…_ "What's up?"

Vaike ran up to Robin, stopping a little too close for the other man's comfort. "Frederick said you'd need a wakeup call, and I thought that I may as well drop by, so here I am!" he grinned. He also began to raise his eyebrows in such a way that left Robin slightly uncomfortable, but the grandmaster tried his best to ignore that part, knowing how common of a feeling it was around the other Shepherd.

Robin stepped back slightly before speaking. "Um… thanks, I guess? At least it's nice to think that Frederick may actually care about my wellness for once." Robin smiled, even though it was obviously hollow.

"Heh, the ol' teddy bear probably just wants you out of his hair sooner!" Vaike laughed, with Robin soon letting out his own low laugh before breaking into another yawn. The pair stood in silence for a moment, Vaike sizing up Robin's appearance as the other Shepherd massaged his throat.

"Pleasant dreams?" Vaike asked in an unusually melodic tone of voice, his eyes still scanning his friend.

"Actually, yeah." Robin replied truthfully, the moments he had experienced having faded fully before he had awoken. "I can't for the life of me remember what it was, though." he followed up as truthfully as before.

Vaike flicked his eyes back up to meet Robin's equally curious and tired gaze. "So… you get laid last night, or what?"

Robin blinked. "W-What!?" he eventually sputtered out.

"I mean, you're wearing the same stuff as yesterday and you look pretty wiped out." Vaike was still grinning, and was now nodding as if to confirm his own statement. "And, seriously, there must have been a pretty damn good reason for you to miss your own going-away party. So, what's she like? You gonna introduce her to us? ...It wasn't Tharja, was it?"

"What are you even saying? Wait… was there actually a party yesterday?" Robin scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion. He had received a letter from Chrom a while ago, informing him of a party, but Robin had dismissed it as a test of dedication. _Of course Chrom wouldn't do that… Why would I even consider that Chrom, of all people, would do something like that?_

"Oh, I get it, you must've got some ladies as a 'special gift' from Chrom, huh?" Vaike was grinning even harder now, if such a thing was even possible, and somehow managed to ignore Robin's narrowed gaze. "Well, there's no shame in having your first time go like that, especially considering if it was with the blessing of an Exalt!" he laughed, before taking on a surprisingly somber tone. "And… yeah. There was a party yesterday. Everyone got together to wish the three of you a good journey, but things died down pretty fast when you didn't show, Lon'qu refused to drink or mingle, and Virion left with a barmaid in about five minutes."

"Huh…" Robin rubbed his chin with the palm of his hand, straining his mind in an attempt to avoid the earlier unsettling part of Vaike's statement. "Seriously, five minutes? That's gotta be a personal best for him."

Vaike's smile immediately returned. "Ha! Well, it didn't really go much further, considering that Libra had to carry the big baby to a guest room." The smile faded again. "So, ah… you were working last night?"

Robin grimaced. "Yeah. Sorry, I really should've made an appearance, things just... got a bit out of hand."

"Yeah, man, no need to worry. We get it." Vaike was being sincere; of that Robin held no doubt. Still, the uncharacteristically calm way in which the usually loud Shepherd spoke pulled at something inside of him. "At least you aren't wasted on the big day, right?"

"Yeah…" Robin sighed. "Hey Vaike? I still have to hit the baths, could you deliver this to Chrom and get him to read it over? I'll meet him in the roundtable room as soon as I can." Robin pulled the missive from one of his pockets and held it out for Vaike.

Vaike took the paper from Robin's hand in a manner the grandmaster considered almost too eager. "Sure, I'll pass it along. Not a problem."

"Thanks." Robin and Vaike turned in opposite directions, heading for the baths and Chrom's bedchamber, respectively. Robin paused for a moment before pirouetting around to face Vaike's shrinking backside. "Be careful with this one!" he shouted to the retreating figure.

"Yeah, yeah! It'll be fine! It's like a two-minute walk!" Vaike yelled back.

* * *

Chrom squinted, trying his best to read the barely-legible text on Robin's missive. _It's hard enough to read his writing normally,_ the Exalt thought to himself, _now he has to tear it up and run it through a stream as well?_

The ex-prince leaned back in his seat at the roundtable, setting the text down as he took a break from his analyzation. He looked around his surroundings, searching for some kind of answer on the walls and ceiling that would somehow aid his attempts at interpretation. It was a surprisingly gaudy room; Emmeryn had removed the throne that was once the focus of the entire space and had replaced it with a roundtable early in her rule, but left the elegant carvings and gilded paint that coated every orifice after learning that removal would be in no way cost-effective. The dark brown table itself was simple, but utterly massive - it needed to house any amount of nobles or civilians who sought an audience with their royalty, after all.

Chrom sighed, glancing back to the document as his wife began her attempt to skim over it. "Sumia? Who did you say delivered this again?"

Sumia looked up from her work as she tapped the side of her chin in an attempt to remember. "...It was Miriel, I think? She said she found it outside the barracks, impaled to a wall and completely drenched."

Chrom rubbed his temples with his right hand. "What do you think the odds are that Vaike was supposed to bring this to us, damaged something Sully-related as she was training, and got into a fight?"

"Pretty high, in all honesty." she pursed her lips. "Although, I don't think Sully would stab the missive if she recognized what it was. The cut was also clean and avoided hitting any text, so maybe Cordelia?"

"I don't know, doesn't that seem a bit aggressive for her?" Chrom pulled the text back to him, being careful not to tear it any more than it already was. "...Maybe it was Frederick, angered by Vaike's… uh, Vaikeness?"

"It was Frederick, milord." Kellam informed. Chrom jumped in his seat, then immediately coughed and attempted to act as though he had known of Kellam's presence the entire time. "And I was the one who brought it to you, milady. Not Miriel." Kellam stated for Sumia, fading back into his apparent state of non-existence.

"Ah, right, of course." Chrom muttered in an attempt to calm his nerves from the man's sudden appearance. "Thank you, Kellam. You are dismissed."

"I think he left already, dear." Sumia enunciated slowly, reaching out to hold her husband's shoulder and finding an odd amount of humour in the man's confusion.

Kellam turned around from his spot under the exit door frame, weighed his options of either telling the king and queen of his presence or just leaving, thought better of it, and left. He passed Robin in the hallway and considered saying his goodbyes then and there, but the grandmaster was still towelling off his face and would likely only be startled by anything Kellam would do. So, the armoured knight began his trek back to the training grounds.

Robin hung the towel he was using around his neck and knocked on the door in front of him. Receiving confirmation from inside, he pushed the door open and greeted the two royals within before taking his seat on Chrom's unoccupied side.

"Robin, do you mind going over what you wrote here quickly?" Chrom asked as he gestured to the paper in front of him, relieved to finally have a proper interpreter with him.

Robin's eyes followed Chrom's hand, his face visibly falling when he noticed the parchment's condition. "Sure thing," he breathed out, distaste evident in his voice.

He paused for a long moment, collecting his bearings, then continued. "Essentially, it's a request for a status report from many of the more troublesome regions of Ylisse and Plegia. Shepherds are to be given missions in Plegia if there are any major issues and their new leader consents, and the best recruits from Ylisse are to be sent to Ylisstol to train under Frederick and whichever Shepherds are on standby. It's my attempt at keeping security here in the castle up, and hopefully making a friend of an old enemy."

Robin closed his eyes before speaking again. "Of course, I realize that Plegia may not be open to any Shepherd operations, and people may not be keen on guarding a castle that was invaded and lost over half its garrison, but hey, I figure it's worth a shot." His voice was calm but cold, as if he expected his plans to fail before they were even put into action and didn't want to get attached to them.

"Ah, right." the Exalt nodded. "I asked you to draw this up a few weeks ago, before you were to leave. Thanks for getting it to me."

"Not a problem." Robin lied. In actuality, he had spent an absurd amount of time cross referencing laws to ensure that the Plegian government wouldn't shut the entire plan down without a second thought before writing the first draft, and he had then needed to ensure that Ylisse was left protected without the full force of the Shepherds. He hadn't even been able to address Ferox, a move that was certain to earn him disfavour with the Khans, though his standing with them was absurdly positive. "Just don't let this stuff take up too much of your time, alright?"

Chrom smiled. "Of course. If you could rewrite a copy of this before you depart, I'll sign it and pass copies along to whoever is necessary. Thank you, Robin." Unlike the grandmaster, Chrom's voice was warm and inviting; he obviously believed in the plan's ability to succeed.

 _Of course he does, this is Chrom!_ Robin berated himself. _He's never been anything but supportive of you; why would you ever doubt his assistance?_

Robin opened his eyes again, keeping them trained on the missive. "Sure, Chrom. I'll drop by again in about an hour or two."

"So, Robin, are you ready for your vacation?" the queen asked, preventing him from rising out of his chair for a little while longer.

"It's not every day that a grandmaster goes on a sightseeing trip." Chrom added on. "I'm glad you're taking it, though. You always seem to push yourself further than I would like. A vacation will treat you well." The Exalt moved to clap his hand on Robin's shoulder.

Robin reflexively shied away from his friend, causing Chrom to frown slightly as he lowered his hand back onto the table. He looked at the wall across from him, his gaze unfocused as he thought of what he should say next.

"I hope so." Robin interjected, breaking Chrom out of his reverie. "Things have gotten fairly calm recently, and I guess I just need some time to wind down, too."

The 'vacation' - or rather extended escort mission, as its name would properly be - had been planned months in advance, after Virion had requested a convoy and several Shepherds to accompany him to Port Ferox. Supposedly, the archer was awaiting something of critical import in the city, although he refused to divulge what. He had actually plied for the aid of every Shepherd, Chrom included, but that request hadn't even passed Frederick or Robin, let alone the hordes of nobles that always required Chrom's aid in some matter or another.

Eventually, an agreement was reached: Virion would be accompanied by Robin and Lon'qu, the latter of which would act as a personal bodyguard and guide for Virion during his stay. Robin would settle whatever business Chrom was needed for, then would spend some time in the Feroxi cities and countryside as he awaited more information from the port, which he would either handle himself or relay back to Chrom.

Robin reached out for the missive, carefully attempting to lift it with both of his hands. _I really shouldn't stay away for too long, though._ The nation needed its grandmaster, after all, just as it needed its king and queen. _Maybe I shouldn't even go…_

Chrom reached out to hold the tactician's wrist. Robin blinked, only now realizing that his hands had been shaking up to that point. "...I guess I really do need some rest, huh?" he asked sardonically. "Sorry, I'll get out of your hair. See you guys later."

"I'll be at the barracks if you need me, Robin. Please… enjoy this time to yourself. I wish I could go with you, but…" Chrom released his friend's arm as he trailed off.

"It's not a problem, Chrom. I think I'll enjoy having a few memories unique to myself, but I could never pass up on time with any of you." Robin gave a weak smile, glancing back to Chrom. He immediately regretted it, though, as the Exalt's sincere expression gave rise to a well of fear Robin had been actively avoiding since his first day of memory.

Chrom's very face brought Robin back into his nightmares, visions of dying Shepherds dancing in the recesses of his mind. Failed strategies, future and past, leading to a horrific downfall. Flashes of crimson in places Robin knew he had never seen before, the finest soldiers of Ylisse falling in droves to an unknown foe. Then, the crimson shifted to purple, and what few friends Robin had left fell.

Then, it was just the two of them, Robin and Chrom, facing a single enemy. The shadow of a person melted away, and Robin felt a sense of ease wash over him as the nightmare version of Chrom looked back, smiling. After all of the loss, all of the failures, all of Robin's own weakness getting the better of him… everything would somehow turn out okay.

The memory of a near-forgotten dream twisted once more, becoming oddly familiar yet still unknowable, and now Robin felt dread permeate every shred of his being. He didn't know what was happening, but he knew that he had failed, that Chrom had been wrong to believe in him, that Robin had lost in every way imaginable. Just as the final dregs of his memory faded, Robin's ears were filled with a haunting sobbing that caused his real-world variant to shudder.

Worst of all, even accounting for the numerous unseen deaths he somehow simply knew occurred, was the perverse sense of joy mingled into the sorrow that had accompanied it all.

Robin rose from his seat, hastily maneuvering to the door and leaving his friends in peace. If not contact, then hopefully distance and time would be able to break him from the nightmare's hold. _I promise you, Chrom, I won't be a liability. I won't fail you._ Robin thought as he began the walk back to his study. _I won't allow any of the Shepherds to fall. I just… need to get over whatever this is._

Sumia cocked her head to the side as she watched the tactician practically flee from the room. Several moments later, she turned to face her husband. "Did he seem… I dunno, out of sorts to you?"

Chrom shook his head. "No, or at least, I hope not. You know him; he's always been serious and dedicated to his work." The Exalt leaned back into his seat as he rubbed his chin, pensive. "He's probably just weary but doesn't want to push his work on anyone else."

"...He'll be alright, Sumia, I guarantee it." Chrom added after a moment, speaking as much to himself as his wife.

"But what if this is something he can't handle?" Sumia questioned, unwilling to relent. Suddenly, her eyes lit up and she leaned further in toward Chrom, whispering. "What if it's a matter of the heart, and he doesn't know how to deal with it?"

"A matter of the heart… with Robin?" Chrom deadpanned. "I don't think we have to worry about that."

Sumia slapped her husband's chest, scowling. "Come on, it's possible! Practically everybody else has been pairing up; maybe he's lonely." She knew Chrom couldn't refute that truth, regardless of how dense he could be. Sully and Stahl, Ricken and Miriel, Gaius and Panne, she and Chrom - hell, even Frederick never seemed to be far from Cordelia! There was no way he could deny this…

Chrom squinted at her. "What do you mean, 'everybody else has been pairing up'?" Sumia blinked once, dumbfounded. "We as Shepherds are bound by the high moral standards and etiquette typical of a royal military outfit," Chrom continued, "and I know that such upstanding friends and warriors such as the Shepherds would not even dream of breaking the fraternisation protocols that are clearly outlined in each and every contract."

"Oh, sweetie…" Sumia took on a placating tone. "You don't think that people actually read those things, do you?"

Chrom recoiled, aghast. "Of course they do! The Shepherds are Ylisse's strongest and brightest, the absolute paragons of humanity; all of their actions reflect upon Ylisse, its people, and us as its leaders." Chrom nodded, having reassured himself. "It's impossible to even think that any of them could be so careless."

"Did you read yours?"

Chrom sat perfectly still for several seconds, expression unchanging. Eventually, he spoke up once more, but not before catching his wife's growing smirk out of the corner of his eye.

"Okay, so let's pretend for a moment that Robin is, hypothetically, lonely. What could we possibly do about it?"

Sumia beamed, jubilant once more. "We should absolutely set him up with someone!"

Chrom smiled, happy to forget his blunder. "How about Tharja, she was always… interested in him?" he grimaced, trying not to remember the days where he found her constantly stalking his amnesiac friend.

Sumia shook her head. "That's a no-go. Robin has always refused her, and we shouldn't completely force this." A smile crept onto her features. "Plus, rumor is that she's putting hexes on Virion whenever he tries to seduce someone. Those two could be a cute couple, right?"

The Exalt sighed, closing his eyes. "Just how many people are getting together now?" His eyes immediately shot open. "Wait, what do you mean 'whenever he tries to seduce someone'? Virion isn't the type of person to do such a thing, is he?"

 _How is it even possible to be so oblivious?_ Sumia, the decidedly wiser of the two, wondered. "Anyway, I think we may have to go beyond the Shepherds for this. Robin may very well have been one of the few people to actually read and adhere to his contract, and regardless, I think almost everyone in the Shepherds is paired up already."

"Almost _everyone_!?" Chrom practically shouted, his head in his hands.

"Naga above, you're actually blind, aren't you?" Sumia pondered aloud. "...But yes, I believe that any Shepherds that Robin may have any amount of interest in are already in relationships."

"So what are we to do? Just wander around the capital until we find someone eligible?" Chrom slowly removed his hands from his head, placing them instead on the table before him. "I do genuinely wish to help him, Sumia, but I really don't know how."

"Aww, that's actually kind of adorable." Sumia cooed. "Ooh, I can see it now: you and Robin, searching through the finest corners of the Halidom for the perfect bride, day in and day out. Until, finally, the two of you come across a beautiful scene on the rooftops of Ylisstol, the moon tracing its way up the dark night night sky, illuminating your faces. You lean in close to one another, the distance between you far too great..." She sighed, a blush beginning to dust her cheeks.

"Er, Sumia?" Chrom snapped her from her doldrums, brow thoroughly furrowed as he attempted to follow her train of thought. "Are you telling me to wingman in Robin's romantic life, or are you asking me to become his romantic life?"

"I, ah… y-yes?" She responded confusedly. "W-What were we talking about again?"

"Robin's love life" Chrom stated plainly, exasperated. "Maybe we're going about this wrong. After all, this could be the entire purpose behind the vacation." The king brought one hand to the side of his face as the other began a rhythmic tapping on the table. "Not to mention that he may not even care about love at all. I mean, the one time I ever heard him even mention marriage was when he asked if he was allowed to wed the troop reports Frederick and Cordelia began drawing up in tandem."

 _And Cordelia's already in a relationship…_ Sumia thought. _Not to mention what she talked to me about in Plegia regarding Frederick, after Emmeryn…_ she shuddered, repressing those memories for another day.

"Don't worry, Chrom, I'll find his perfect match before he gets back." She flashed a genuine smile. "And if he does end up finding someone in Ferox, well, all the better for him, right?"

Her husband smiled back at her. "Alright, then. Would you like any help? I could always make time for something like this."

Sumia's eye twitched involuntarily as she considered what exactly Chrom's 'help' in her warpath of matchmaking would entail. "...I think I'll be fine, dear."

* * *

Robin shrugged his towel off of his shoulders and onto the corner of his desk before lazily walking behind the behemoth, sitting once more on the unbearably comfortable chair. He stretched his hands, settling down to rewrite a legible copy of his damaged work.

Approximately one hour later, the tactician rose from his seat, proudly hoisting the new and improved missive to momentarily rest at eye level. He smiled, unceremoniously shoving the parchment into a coat pocket as he wandered out of the study and toward the roundtable room.

Opening the door to the roundtable room, Robin removed the partially-folded partially-crumpled text from his pocket and threw it callously into the empty space beyond the door, barely pausing to check if it landed properly before closing the entryway and making for the dining hall. The single carriage of a convoy was set to leave soon, and Robin wanted to catch lunch before his departure. Breaking into a light jog, he swiftly arrived at the double doors that closed the mess hall off from the rest of the castle, the scent of a myriad of foods enveloping his senses as he pushed the doors open with both hands.

Robin closed his eyes and inhaled as the dining room's warm light fled into the rest of the castle, savouring the decadent variety of smells. Rather than the cacophony of noise he expected to hear from Shepherds and staff, though, Robin was met with a solitary voice.

"Oh, hi, Robin. You here for lunch?" The voice was calm and relaxed, its descriptors and circumstances allowing Robin to instantly place it as Stahl's, the most likely Shepherd to both arrive early and stay late at any meal.

"Uh, hey, Stahl. Am I early or…?" Robin trailed off, not wanting to consider that he could have missed both another meal and another social event.

Unfortunately for the grandmaster, Stahl shook his head. "Nope, you're a bit late. Sorry, I kinda cleaned up in here." the evergreen Shepherd smiled nonchalantly. "There's a care package for you in the kitchen, though. We aren't heartless, after all."

"Thanks!" Robin shouted out as he dashed to the connected kitchen, almost breaking down the door as he pushed his way in. He scanned the room, eyes soon falling upon a wicker basket full to bursting with baked goods and a few pieces of what remained from the day's meal. He ripped into the basket immediately, worshipping the remnants of feasts past and the golden-brown baked goods, barely even taking note of Stahl as the other man leaned against the now slightly damaged door frame.

Having consumed almost half of the basket's easily expirable items, Robin left the remainder to sit on the non-perishable packages of food that lay hidden lower in the container, instead turning to face Stahl.

"You had your fill?" the paladin asked, slightly before Robin had finished chewing the most recent pastry in the pack.

Robin merely nodded, spinning to grab a croissant and tossing it to Stahl as as a distraction while he processed the food. The rider gave an easy smile in gratitude, tearing into the gift before Robin even had a chance to swallow and startling the tactician.

Dusting crumbs off of his fingers, Stahl once more attempted to open a conversation. "I'm guessing that, when Frederick asked Vaike shortly after dawn to wake you, he didn't actually spend almost three hours 'discussing strategy' with you, huh?"

Robin shook his head, finally swallowing the last of the food he had begun consuming. He would have been angry or at least annoyed with Vaike, but he could barely process such emotions over his intense focus on the tastes lingering in his mouth.

Stahl bowed his head. "Didn't think so. And neither did the commander, apparently. He almost killed the poor guy."

Robin quirked his head at this, thoroughly not understanding Frederick's actions. "Doesn't Frederick… you know… hate me?" he finally managed to ask through bouts of savouring.

Stahl raised his head back up to meet Robin's gaze and shrugged. "Not as much as misconduct, I guess. And he doesn't hate you _that_ much. He's even repped for you a few times when you missed training!"

Robin stared blankly at Stahl, who began to rub his shoulder and broke his lock on Robin's eyes.

"Okay, that may have been a lie." Stahl began smiling again regardless. "But seriously, your relationship with him could be worse! ...Probably?"

Robin rolled his eyes. "In all honesty, it couldn't get much more rough. I'm fine with it, though - at least it means he won't be blinded by his trust in me."

"Uh… right." Stahl muttered, wary of the tactician's choice of words and unusually grim tone. He then broke from his position in the doorway, maneuvering beside Robin to access a cupboard. "Hey, wasn't your group supposed to leave, like… a while ago?" he asked as he knelt down to search a cabinet.

Robin tensed before running a few quick calculations, attempting to update his concept of today's time frame. "Ah, crap, you're right! Sorry Stahl, I have to go!" he said as he bounded back into the dining hall.

"Wait, Robin!" Stahl called out, standing up. "Your food!"

"Right, right!" Robin turned and rushed back into the kitchen. "Thanks again, Stahl."

The paladin shrugged once more. "It was Lissa's idea, not mine. Thank her."

"Got it." Robin said, pausing momentarily to examine the basket. Seconds later, he turned back to Stahl. "Did Virion and Lon'qu not get one of these?" he probed, although he believed that the cavalier's knowledge about the baskets spoke to their most likely fates.

Stahl rotated away from Robin, although the grandmaster still managed to discern the splash of red on the other man's face.

"Um… no?" Stahl squeaked in a barely audible tone.

Robin raised an eyebrow. "What happened to 'not being heartless'?"

"I managed to spare one, though! That's a massive improvement over last time!" Stahl groaned out.

"Yeah, I suppose." Robin said quietly, beginning to move once more. "Thanks, Stahl."

Stahl nodded. "See you in a few months, bud."

* * *

Lon'qu tapped his foot impatiently against the damp cobblestone path, annoyed but unwilling to step out of the light rainfall. He crossed his arms, glancing to the hordes of Shepherds that stood, leaned, and sat under various sections of the castle's arches. Robin was running behind schedule, forcing Virion and himself to wait by their carriage as the vast majority of Shepherds sought respite in the castle's rear courtyard.

Ominous clouds loomed overhead, blanketing the sun and preventing any light other than a soft grey to touch the earth. The rain had begun only recently, and yet puddles were gradually forming as the ground rejected more and more water. Soon, anyone and anything in the open would be drenched - something Lon'qu would undoubtedly despise, yet obstinately refused to address.

The swordsman scanned the crowd once more, searching for Robin and another face in particular. Virion interrupted him, sighing loud enough for half the courtyard to hear in an attempt to draw their waning attention back to him.

"By the gods, how long does that man intend to draw this out?" The archer asked, incredulous that he was being made to wait. He sat in the carriage's open doorway, guarded from the falling rain. Attempting to lean out further, he recoiled and jolted back into his original position upon feeling the cold touch of water droplets on his hair.

"I'll tell you when he appears." Lon'qu stated, his voice even more flat and serious than normal. "However long that may take." he added tersely.

Chrom stepped forward from his bench, approaching the pair in the centre of the road. "Again, I take responsibility for this; it was I who asked Robin to wrap up some of his work earlier today. Had I-"

"Yes, yes, Chrom. We understood the first time." Virion interjected, purposefully excluding the other man's honorific. "Please, do not waste our time with needless repetition. We will await Robin's arrival; there is no reason to attempt to reinforce our convictions with your ceaseless prattle."

The Exalt glared at Virion before acquiescing, returning to the safety of his seat. The group sat there in silence for several minutes more, until Robin finally appeared out of a side entrance and ran to the carriage, covering his basket of food and two bags of personal belongings with the cloak he had removed from his shoulders, leaving him only in the unremarkable and unenchanted clothing he wore underneath.

"Hey, everyone, I'm so sorry for being late, I-"

Whatever Robin had been about to say died in his throat as he, and every Shepherd in the area, - sans Sumia and Cordelia, who were nodding to one another - stared in astonishment at the sight before them.

Fixated solely on Robin's appearance, only a single Shepherd had noticed the concurrent arrival of a slender, pink figure from within the castle. As Olivia sped through the rain to reach the carriage, Lon'qu opened his arms to embrace her, an act which garnered the attention of a few of their friends.

The true shock came a moment later, as not only did the two successfully embrace, but the gynophobic swordsman followed the act up by willingly cupping her cheek in his hand and remaining pressed against her body. While public displays of affection were not unheard of from the Shepherd couples, next to no one was able to predict such a feat from those most shy and most terrified of women, respectively.

Sumia rubbed her husband's back as he propped his elbows up on his knees, then sank his head into his hands. Frustrated, Chrom pushed off of the bench and moved toward the carriage in order to give a final word to his friends.

"Alright, now that you're finally here, Robin, I believe we can-" Chrom stopped himself as he caught sight of Lon'qu leaning down to place a kiss on Olivia's exposed cheek. The Exalt turned away from the couple, staring stone faced at the small amount of horizon visible through the castle gates.

A moment later, he resumed speaking, although he didn't dare to look back at his friends. "...As I was saying, I believe we will all be able to say our goodbyes now, and then you three may depart."

Robin handed his food basket off to Virion and placed his cloak back over his shoulder, not bothering to protect himself from the steadily increasing rainfall. Then, he turned to face his ruler, accepting the proffered handshake and allowing himself to be pulled into a brief hug. He squeezed his eyes shut the entire time.

"I'll see you soon, friend." Chrom whispered during their embrace. The Exalt pushed himself back, smiling and patting the sides of his friend's arms. He eventually took notice of the other Shepherd's presences as they neared the carriage, and backed away to give the others their time.

"Have you guys already said your goodbyes?" Robin asked Virion passively, rotating his head to see the sniper.

Virion plucked a biscuit from the top of the care package and reached into the carriage to set the basket down in safety. Without turning to face the tactician he nodded, keeping his eyes focused instead on his snack.

"Several times over, in fact." he affirmed. "Please, for all that is good, make your pieces with them brief." Virion angled his head toward the clusters of other Shepherds, then retreated backward into the carriage.

Robin rubbed the back of his head, taking note of how damp his hair had become, and looked back over to the first of his approaching friends - Sumia. He gave a soft smile, succumbing to another hug as he mentally prepared himself for the next few moments of his life.

Sumia gave her parting words and stepped away, giving Lissa room. Robin slipped out of focus for the majority of his goodbyes, his attention too centralised on not trying to make any mistakes in front of such a large group. Instead, he tried to remember the general aspects of each encounter, ensuring no one was forgotten.

Two handshake-hugs, from Chrom and Gregor. Ricken also attempting to give his best attempt at a proper handshake, but not quite succeeding. A two-handed handshake from Panne.

Four hugs, from Sumia, Lissa, Cordelia, and Nowi, although the last of those was closer to a tackle than a hug. He barely remembered to thank Lissa for the care package.

Three sets of bows and nods, from Maribelle, Libra, and Miriel. From the corner of his eye, Robin also managed to catch a wave from Kellam, although the knight disappeared soon after.

A slap on the back from Vaike, and a furtive salute from Gaius. Each encounter included its own variation of generalised and generic parting words. _That's almost everyone._ Robin slowly returned to his full faculties, no longer concerned with blunders as more and more of the Shepherds left the premises.

 _There are… what, five more people left in the entirety of the Shepherds who aren't coming on this trip? Four not counting Stahl… Yeah, I'm almost in the clear!_ the tactician thought.

Seeing that there were no Shepherds immediately approaching him, Robin walked up to Lon'qu and Olivia, who were no longer embracing yet remained within arm's length of one another. The couple were giving their own personal farewells, taking no notice of their drenched clothes.

Robin paused, realizing that he was probably in a similar state as he slipped his coat back on. One of his miscellaneous enchantments would shield him from the rain, although his companions couldn't say the same of their clothing.

"-sh I could come with you, but apparently, this is a major mission. I didn't even know about it until you told me a few days ago." Olivia was speaking, her eyes still locked onto Lon'qu.

"I'm sure if I were to just speak with Robin or Virion, they would-" Lon'qu halted immediately upon sensing Robin's presence, quickly turning to face the tactician.

Robin held his hands out to his sides as he gave the most easygoing smile he could muster. "Sorry to eavesdrop, but there's no problem with her coming along." He faced Olivia. "We'd love to have you."

Olivia's face brightened, the forlorn look from seconds before already being erased entirely. "T-Truly? Oh, thank you, Robin!"

She took hold of Lon'qu's hand, guiding him to the carriage before breaking off to give her news to the few Shepherds remaining. As he passed Robin, Lon'qu gave the other man a concise smile and tipped his head in acknowledgement. Seconds later, Olivia dashed out of the courtyard to gather a few of her belongings, leaving the others to wait a short time longer.

 _Space and money shouldn't be a problem for her,_ Robin thought, _considering that she'll probably stay close to Lon'qu and is still a Shepherd._ He lowered his hands to his hips as he fell deeper into thought. _Hopefully there won't be any major conflict; she wouldn't do well in a situation of intense combat with so few allied fighters._ He internally shrugged. _There's probably no need to even consider this, Virion was fine with having just one Shepherd as protection, despite his first attempt at getting everyone._

Sounds of harsh movement brought Robin's attention back to the opposite side of the courtyard, near to where he had emerged from a short time ago. His surroundings were still easily visible in spite of the midday rain, and a red pallette soon denoted the arrival of Sully.

"Hey, everyone!" she gasped out, bending down to catch her breath. "Sorry, I just ran around half the damn castle looking for Stahl, only to learn that he's already met with each of you." She heaved a few more times, quieting her ragged voice.

Robin walked up to Sully, allowing her to regain her proper breathing pattern before gesturing to an alcove the two could speak in without being rained on. Sully remedied her posture, standing slightly smaller than the tactician at full height, glancing between him and the newly reappeared Olivia before she nodded and dipped into the safety of the alcove.

"She leaving too?" Sully asked, still sounding somewhat out of breath.

"Olivia?" Robin asked. Sully nodded, an action Robin copied in response.

Sully angled her head quizzically before speaking again. "She gonna be okay if you guys get into trouble at the port?" Robin opened his mouth, about to voice a similar concern before changing his stance, deciding to feign indignation at her doubt in him in an attempt to alleviate her fears. He was cut off, however, when Sully raised her hand to stop him.

"Ah, who am I kidding? She'll be fine, as long as you're with her." she pointed to Robin unnecessarily, her facial features decidedly happy as she attempted to dry her hair with her free hand.

Robin frowned. "You really shouldn't put that much trust in me. I'm not that good, and I wouldn't be anything without the rest of you." This time, the words he had planned were genuine.

"Enough of that." Sully rolled her eyes. "You almost single handedly guided our asses through the war of a lifetime, managing to keep all of the Shepherds alive. Every single one…" Her eyes lost their focus for an instant before snapping back onto Robin. "So you don't get to say that you aren't 'that good'."

"There are guaranteed to be better people, though." Robin scowled. "You know, soldiers who are stronger or commanders that are more capable. Just because they weren't in the Plegian army doesn't mean they don't exist."

Sully winced. "You can be a real downer sometimes, you know that?" Robin shrugged, causing Sully to shake her head. "Still, you've been a damn fine commander and one hell of a friend, too. I'll miss you, alright?"

"I'll miss you too, Sully." Robin echoed the sentiment. Sully lightly punched his arm in a sign of her friendship, then stepped out of her cover to walk with him back to the carriage.

Olivia had set her small package of belongings on the carriage floor, and was now speaking with Chrom and Sumia. Robin ignored the trio, waving back at Sully as he climbed into the carriage's driving seat. It had been agreed that Robin would guide the carriage through the Ylissean territories, thanks in no small part to the grandmaster's desire to learn the lay of the land, before transferring the reins to Lon'qu in Ferox.

Seating himself on the thoroughly wet wood, Robin gave silent praise once more to his enchanted cloak as he watched droplets roll harmlessly off of the dry fabric. Waiting for Olivia to finish her conversation, he leaned forward to pat the horses that would carry them all the way across the continent.

"Sir Robin." A deep voice called out, almost causing the man in question to jump.

"Frederick." Robin sat back up, turning sideways to meet the great knight.

Sure enough, Frederick stood next to Robin's seat, easily ignoring the rain that fell in exponentially increasing quantities. Instead, his features were as sharp and serious as ever.

"I hope you remember your promise, yes? I have not forgotten mine." Frederick said, expression almost unreadable.

"I remember, Frederick. Thanks." Robin confirmed, still attempting to read the knight's face.

 _He seems… tense?_ Robin thought after replying. _No, that's not right, he's always tense. Maybe… tired? Stressed?_ The tactician scoffed internally. _No, there's no reason for him to be stressed. He'll have an easier job now that I'm gone, since he won't be constantly monitoring me. Unless it's the fact that he can't_ _moni-_

"And do you realize the fine line you walk by taking this… 'vacation'?" Frederick cut off his line of thought, the disdain placed on the final word very poorly hidden.

Robin feigned a sense of merriment, something he found himself doing often in Frederick's near-omnipresence. "I know that you hate not being able to watch me, Frederick, but I'll be a nation away from any of your wards. I wouldn't be able to harm them if I tried."

"That is not what I was referring to, tactician." Frederick said sternly. Something about the way the knight commander had addressed him disturbed Robin - either Frederick was seriously annoyed, or he was defaulting to his wartime personality out of an inability to express himself.

 _Gods I hope he's annoyed._ Robin silently mused. _Otherwise, this is going to get really awkward…_

The grandmaster's confused expression prompted Frederick to continue. "It is my understanding that lord Chrom and lady Lissa would not be benefited by your absence. They believe you to be a friend, a sentiment in which I believe they are not mistaken."

Robin blinked, his comprehension of the situation he found himself in rapidly decreasing. "What are you trying to say, Frederick?" He hadn't realised it, but his own voice had grown apprehensive. He saw where the conversation was headed, and he feared the outcome.

Frederick sighed, gathering his thoughts before recommencing. "Your absence may harm the psychological or emotional wellbeing of my superiors. Your death, even more so." His eyes grew hard, staring deep into Robin's own. "For that reason, I refuse to uphold my oath to you any further. You are free to do as you wish, and I know that you will not cause those you consider your friends harm."

Despite the warmth provided by his cloak, Robin began to freeze. The feeling crawled throughout his body, almost petrifying him. "What!?" he exclaimed, instantly thankful that the rain had grown so heavy that only Frederick would be able to hear anything he said.

Robin continued in a lower register. "Frederick, you swore on your honour that-"

"I swore on the lives of my lieges!" Frederick responded in turn. His voice was harsh, demanding silence from the world around him. "If you truly seek your own demise so readily, then you may fall by your own hand. However, I refuse to be party to it in any way." The knight spun on his heel, ending the conversation before the tactician could form any rebuttal.

Robin stared at the knight's retreating form, sheening armour and wet footsteps fading through the rain. The grandmaster's face slowly began to contort, the desire to call after the great knight rising with his rage. Frederick was a coward, a craven - too weak to do what was necessary, to save his royalty, his friends. Too weak to save Chrom. And now, more than ever, Chrom may actually be in danger, danger that Frederick could prevent if he weren't so… so…

' _So' what?_ Robin contemplated. _So trusting? He isn't weak, I've spent all of my known memories learning that friendship and unity make us strong, not just individual power. So why does that not sound right?_

Robin slowly began to calm himself, still watching where Frederick was disappearing. _Why does this feel so wrong? Why won't he… take responsibility…_

Realisation struck Robin, and he leaned to rest the back of his head against the carriage's front wall. _It's because it isn't his responsibility. It's mine; it's always been mine. I tried to pawn it off on him because I was weak, not him. I couldn't face what I really was… so I didn't._ His eyes traced a path back to Frederick, the knight barely visible now through the rain.

 _He's actually strong. He had a problem, so he faced it head on… he faced me head on. Meanwhile, I keep running from my issues…_ He began, for the first time in weeks, to actively search for Chrom's face. If the Exalt was still present, Robin was unable see him through the downpour. _I'll become stronger, then. I'll face the nightmares and Chrom without hesitating. I'll help my friends in any way possible, and save them all from anything that could possibly harm them. I'll become the strength people rely on, not the other way around._

Looking back to Frederick, Robin smiled, not even noticing how the other man had stopped moving. _And that can all start here, with this journey. I can help face every struggle with them, guiding and aiding them in the best way possible so they break through every obstacle together, and I can ensure that no one dies. That's the least I can do, right?_

"Robin." It was Frederick again, voice measured and careful, breaking the tactician from his line of thought. "Know that I will never, through any direct action, harm my lieges. I will do all that I can to protect them, even if it means that a Shepherd must fall."

Frederick turned to face Robin, his silhouette barely visible at only a few metres away. "I refuse our promise because I know what you are, and what you are not. I refuse to humour such… baseless superstition." His expression remained as cold as his voice, but Robin was beginning to pick up on a light that hid just below the surface of both.

Robin was growing happier by the second, and began feeling the need to thank the other Shepherd, but allowed him to finish. "I hope that when you return, we may treat one another differently, without the weight of the promise over our heads. As… friends." Frederick concluded.

An alien warmth was spreading through Robin - or at least, alien when a result of the stoic knight commander. "Thank you, Frederick. If I may, I'd like to make a new promise with you."

Frederick said nothing, allowing the tactician to continue. "I promise you that while I'm away, I'll get stronger. Strong enough that I can do what's best for Chrom and the Shepherds, no matter what. And that I'll be a friend worth having."

Frederick stepped toward the carriage, holding his hand out for Robin to shake. "You already are, Robin. You have been for a long while."

Robin took the other hand in his own, holding it more than shaking it. After a moment, both Shepherds released their grasps, Frederick stepping away once more.

"May your 'vacation' find you well, Robin." Frederick smiled.

"Stay safe, Frederick." Robin waved, the two newly formed friends finally parting. After Frederick left, Robin found himself staring at his right hand. The hand that had both saved and ended so many lives. The hand that he had used to shake Frederick's, a man who Robin would have sworn absolutely hated him mere minutes ago.

The hand which bore the Mark of Grima.

Just as swiftly as the warmth had filled Robin's body, it died out, leaving him cold by comparison. A feeling he could only describe as 'grey' pressed in on him, rubbing itself into his skin and crawling through his veins until it became an integral part of him. Exactly as it had done many times before, ever since Robin had learned of the mark's meaning.

All of a sudden, the castle courtyard seemed dimmer, as if the rain itself had grown dark. Robin fixated solely on his hand, no longer even noticing the world around him as he lost himself to his thoughts. The Mark of Grima, the nightmares, his potential and past failures… it was once more too much to cope with, a sea of dark futures and losses that had haunted Robin every step of his life so far. And yet, somehow, he found it almost reassuring, as though it were a reminder that he truly was himself, in some twisted way.

It was several long moments before Robin remembered the sound of raindrops hitting stone and grass, and several more before he was able to see beyond his hand. He leaned back into the carriage's hardened wood once more, losing himself to the sound and sight of the rain. He waited longer than he needed to, hoping the grey would somehow leave him, although it never had in the past.

Eventually, Robin sighed, bringing his attention back to the patient horses before him and equally patient friends behind him, awaiting their departure within the carriage. Breaking himself out of his thoughts, Robin reached down for the reins at his feet.

He paused a moment before touching them, instead whipping around to his side to face one of the carriage doors. Reaching around the side of his seat, Robin slammed his hand repeatedly against the framework nearest the door handle.

"Hey, Lon'qu?" he called out, having to strain his voice to ensure that he would be heard.

A fraction of a second later, Lon'qu's head appeared through the opening door, under the carriage awning. The swordsman looked around, perplexed by the apparent lack of movement.

"What is it?" he asked gruffly. Actually, in a normal voice, as far as Lon'qu himself was concerned.

"I have no idea how to drive a carriage."

* * *

 **And that's the first chapter! I just copied this entire thing from docs and it's probably more messed up than I first thought possible formatting-wise, so yeah. Seriously, please tell me how to do this stuff, because I'm mostly lost. I don't even know if my spacing is correct anymore... Also, please feel free to give criticism on my content or writing style at any time. I am using this fic as a means of learning, after all, since I have some ideas I eventually want to make into an actual story.**

 **Anyway, on to some other stuff that's relevant to the story content: It's a slow start, and an even slower buildup to the main events. Kjelle doesn't even appear until chapter 3, and the relationship building is slow, but hopefully it's moderately realistic and well made.**

 **Updates should happen about every 20-30 days, but that's only a rough estimate, since I don't know how long each chapter will take to make. I'm actually a fair way into the story already, and as of 04-12-17 (when I made these notes, as well as my account; turns out there's a 12 hour waiting period for new user publishing I never considered) I'm partway through chapter 11, but much of what I have needs to be edited still, so the update schedule will probably stick close to what I said above. I'm trying for writing a chapter at least every 15 days, at an average of about 1k words per day, but again I don't know how long everything will take. If I ever don't update for a very long period of time, you can probably assume that I'm dead, since I have no intention of abandoning this story unexpectedly. In that case, I would appreciate it if someone were to at least give the story closure, because I've seen how horrible it is to come across an unfinished fic that hasn't updated in years.**

 **Again, please message me if you spot any errors at all, especially in regards to continuity or characterisation. I'm trying to make this story fairly airtight, and while events like the absence of Donnel and Anna in the Shepherds and other differentiations from normal Awakening canon will become progressively more common, I want to make sure that everything still makes sense in the end. I hope you enjoyed the story so far!**


	2. Chapter 2

Lon'qu allowed his eyes to relax, the shadows creeping toward the carriage becoming less and less concerning the nearer he came to Ferox. Hours had passed since leaving Ylisstol, Robin having grown increasingly detached from his 'lessons' in cart operating as time progressed. Now, the tactician was focused on some other matter, more or less leaving Lon'qu alone to navigate.

Glancing to his left, the swordsman listened intently for any signs that the rainfall from earlier had persisted so far north. Familiar sounds from Ylisse had long been absent, the rustling of leaves falling to the sharp whistle of pine needles in northern winds and the tapping of hooves on cobblestone fading to a dull thud as the roads turned to mud and dirt. A chill had taken to the air, becoming increasingly piercing as the night progressed.

Once he accepted that the rain had halted, Lon'qu unclipped the enchanted cloak that had been protecting the carriage drivers - or driver _,_ more accurately - from the elements, bundling it up one-handed and moving to toss it to its rightful owner. He hesitated, seeing his friend being transfixed by something in his oddly exposed hand and not wanting to break their concentration. Lon'qu knew from experience how such an interruption could be infuriating.

Squinting through the darkness, Lon'qu allowed his curiosity to propel him as he searched for what the grandmaster was holding. It wasn't in his nature to snoop, but whatever was in Robin's hand had caused the regularly devoted and focused man to drift into a state of unawareness. Surely it would be something of incredible import, yes? Something he would eventually have to know about?

Peering harder at the other man's hands, Lon'qu's attention darted between the road and his newfound task. Slowly, he began to realize that there was no object in Robin's palms, and that the tactician was instead staring at the back of his right hand, supporting it with his left. While the lower hand still sported its typical glove, the pair to it sat alone on Robin's lap, the skin on his right hand bare before the night's bitter cold. In what little moonlight wormed its way through the heavy clouds overhead, Lon'qu saw the tactician begin to slowly trace a pattern around his skin, cautiously avoiding a purple tattoo in the centre of his hand's back.

The tattoo disturbed Lon'qu, bold lines of ink practically writhing under his gaze whenever he dared to look at it. He knew he had seen the mark or something like it before, but simply couldn't place where.

Closing his eyes in a brief moment of concentration, the swordmaster scanned through his memories for any records of tattoos. Somehow, he knew that insignia, and he was filled with a burning desire to remember why.

 _There's Chrom's tattoo, the one he shared with Lady Emmeryn…_ Lon'qu calmed himself, putting his mind into overdrive. _The brand of the Exalt - the Mark of Naga._ He glanced back at Robin. _It's oddly similar, but still vastly different. It can't be the same._

Lon'qu finally set down Robin's cloak, pulling on the reins with two hands to avoid a hole that would undoubtedly cripple any unfortunate horse. _What about the brandings given to criminals? Ylisse, Ferox, and Valm all use that practice, and it's possible that Plegia does as well._ He began to run through a mental checklist, disqualifying each nation. Although he did not know exactly what any of the brands looked like, he knew that none were purple, and none were quite so… unnerving to behold.

 _It doesn't match any of the Valmese dynasties' banners, nor is it anything I saw living in Ferox…_ The swordsman racked his mind for answers until, several seconds later, one finally came to him.

 _The Grimleal._ Lon'qu knew that Robin was at least Plegian, now that the mandatory introductory biographies Frederick had beaten into his head began to come back to light. Civil worship of Grima was almost unheard of in Ylisse, Ferox, Valm… anywhere that wasn't Plegia.

 _So why does he hide the mark that codifies him?_ As far as Lon'qu could recall, only high ranking members of the Grimleal bore the Mark of Grima, in a similar way that only those closest Naga bore her mark. The only people Lon'qu had seen those marks on were commanders and leaders, not common fighters, and each of those he had fought showed the marks openly on clothing or weapons. Robin was a military commander, which could explain his possession of the mark, but there would be no reason for him to hide it were that the case.

 _Perhaps he, as a follower of Grima, doesn't wish to expose himself to followers of Naga?_ _Does he fear ostracisation?_ the swordsman pondered. _No, the Shepherds have had no dilemmas with Tharja… at least not due to her faith._

Lon'qu swiveled his head to the edge of the carriage, staring back down the path where, while no longer visible, he was certain the dark mage was still following them. She had trailed after the carriage ever since the castle, initially allowing herself to be bold under the cover of rain. Of course, Lon'qu had become aware of her presence almost immediately; the sorceress was a surprisingly poor stalker. _How does Robin never notice her?_

Shaking his head, Lon'qu prevented himself from growing distracted. Wondering for a while longer, he became frustrated with trying to understand his friend and the mark. Rather than bother himself with more questions that would only confound him further, Lon'qu elected to be direct: he would simply ask Robin about the matter and resolve it accordingly.

"Robin." No reply. "...Robin?"

* * *

Robin's inner self was standing on a poorly lit balcony, boisterous laughter and the smell of alcohol slipping through the curtained glass pane doors behind him. Beneath him, the snow-capped roofs of Feroxi homes and businesses sprawled out into darkness, a whitened forest that eclipsed the horizon. The atmosphere he had walked out of was that of a party, the Shepherds celebrating after their victory at Arena Ferox in the customs of the land. Robin, however, felt no desire to gloat after what had been such a near failure.

Shivering in a gust of cold wind and loose snow, the tactician recalled the last few days' progression of events. The Shepherds had come to Ferox to ply for aid, and were roped into a life or death tournament - oddly, that part didn't concern him; he was quickly realizing the normalcy of such events with his new friends.

Then the fighting actually started. 'Marth', the enigmatic swordsman later to be revealed as a swordswoman, was commanding the enemy forces. Despite the fact that she was clearly stronger, faster, and more skilled than any Shepherd except maybe Frederick, Robin had planned his entire strategy around having Chrom confront her. She had nearly destroyed the prince until, in a surprising moment of hesitation, she allowed herself to be sidelined by Sumia and was swiftly defeated.

Several days earlier, when the Shepherds had taken time to rest in Ylisstol, Robin had treated himself to bouts of essentially restless study in the castle's royal library. Having practically no memories, he was eager to glean as much information as possible, and was pleased to learn that giving most subjects cursory readings was enough for him to recall many of their specifics.

It was there, in the libraries of Ylisstol, where Robin first learned about the Mark of Grima. It was then when he first began to doubt the strength of his allegiance to Chrom. It was because of what he learned that Robin became unsure of his own tactics and strength. And it was there where the grey first appeared, to seal away the evil he wished to annihilate.

When the time to march had arrived, Robin set out alongside his newfound friends and disregarded what he had learned. He held nothing but the best for each and every one of them, and he would never fulfill the prophecies the books had detailed. So much death, so much suffering… all due to some mythical dragon 'god'. The Shepherd found himself scoffing and chiding his own beliefs during the march, as truly only a fool would give those legends any merit, and only a fool would betray the people they loved.

Yet when it had come time to fight, Robin hadn't hesitated to place Chrom in an obscene amount of danger. Out of pure luck, Sumia was close enough to intercept 'Marth' and save the day - although Chrom had already spun it into a tale of how their bonds had led her to his side.

 _Am I going to end up killing Chrom?_ Robin wondered. He was sickened by the thought, but his body only grew weak when he realised that he was actively repressing excitement. It was almost as if he subconsciously wished to kill Chrom, a small sensation in the back of his mind encouraging darker and darker thoughts until a vision flashed before his eyes - him, standing over Chrom's corpse in some grand hall that began to fill with laughter. With Robin's laughter, albeit twisted and deranged.

Almost collapsing to how severely he was shaking and how weak his legs had become, Robin leaned into the polished guard rail before him. _Even if I don't want to, I may end up placing Chrom in danger… I may end up killing him due to Grima's influence._ That was, without a doubt, the most horrifyingly comforting thing the tactician had ever considered.

Robin stood there in the night for far longer, unflinching in the cold air. Even as the party behind him tapered off as Shepherds began to retire for the night, Robin stood in solitude. That was, until one of his companions decided to join him on the balcony.

Chrom's ever-stoic guardian angel knight stepped out from the celebration, easily acclimating to the drop in temperature as he closed the doors behind him. He started slightly when he realised there was already a person on the platform, the obfuscating curtains having led him to believe that he would have a moment's respite outside. Hopefully, this person would not mind brief company; the prince's drunken attempts at flirtation with Sumia, while endearing, were slowly eating away at the knight's uninebriated sanity.

Robin checked the new arrival over his shoulder, not bothering to rotate his body away from the Feroxi cityscape. He eventually greeted Frederick, his voice uncharacteristically measured.

"Hey."

"Er… hello, Sir Robin." Frederick greeted in turn, clearly offset by the tactician's presence. "My apologies, I had believed that you were already resting and that I would be alone out here."

"Are you hiding from someone?" Robin inquired, only now turning to face the other Shepherd. Neither person realised how long Robin had been outside, although the barely visible frost that had begun to form on the trim of his cloak and hair was a distinct reference point. He was genuinely curious; however, the more he spoke, the more he feared that his trepidation would be noticed.

"Not exactly." Frederick responded easily. _Almost too easily..._ Robin thought. _It's as if he isn't wary of me as he always is. As he should be._

"I simply decided that lord Chrom could use some privacy, although I must remain nearby in case he is ever in need of assistance." Frederick was almost smiling. Not his typical 'I hate what's happening and smile out of necessity' smile, but a genuinely carefree expression of happiness.

 _It's almost like he actually trusts me._ Robin struggled to suppress a frown as he studied the great knight's face. _He shouldn't._ _He really, really shouldn't._ Robin repeated the statement to himself over and over again, a note of desperation growing louder in his mind every time.

 _...But I can remedy that right now, can't I? I can ensure that Frederick knows who - or what - I may actually be, what I may do. I can ensure that he reacts to anything that happens properly…_

"About that battle earlier today, Robin…" Frederick had to admit, he was authentically surprised by the tactician's capabilities. Facing such insurmountable odds, the man had managed to secure victory, allowing Chrom to grow stronger without relying on constant aid from himself, a comparatively overpowered knight commander.

While Frederick knew that he himself could provide exceptional aid, he was also realistic enough to know his own limits - and he knew that Chrom would, one day, become far more powerful than he could ever hope to be. Surely, if Robin continued forming strategies like this, then Chrom would become strong enough that none would ever be able to pose a threat to him.

Granted, Frederick was consistently concerned with placing his prince in such danger, but he also knew that active combat experience would be one of the best means of strengthening him. He ultimately believed that the tactician would do anything to aid Chrom, and the amnesiac had earned his thanks… perhaps even his trust.

"I really messed up, didn't I?" Robin asked, though not necessarily to Frederick. "Chrom nearly died, and I could do absolutely nothing to prevent it."

Frederick tensed, his lighthearted mood from earlier falling out of existence instantly. "I beg your pardon?"

"I'd like to show you something, Frederick." Robin continued. "But before i do, I want you to know that I have never wished for Chrom to fall in harm's way. Do you understand?"

The knight commander nodded hesitantly. Robin stepped in toward him, pulling off his right glove and stuffing it in his coat pocket. Then, after a momentary pause, he conjured a small flame over his left hand to illuminate his right.

The Mark of Grima thrashed about under the flickering light, acting almost as if it were trying to avoid Frederick's scrutinising gaze. The knight commander recoiled, utterly disgusted by the sight of the mark as his mind raced to fully comprehend the situation he found himself in. Somehow, the man he had nearly grown to trust was Grimleal, posing a direct threat his liege's safety… yet the tactician was showing this to him, almost as though it were in confidence.

"What is the meaning of this, tactician!?" He was incredulous now, experiencing difficulty in not stumbling over his own words. Slowly, he managed to steady his breathing, though he remained cautious. "You… you are a vassal of Grima?"

"I-I don't even remember." Now that his secret was revealed, Robin had a surprisingly difficult time speaking. His voice had taken up the same shaken quality that his body had expressed earlier. "I never even knew what this was or, or what Grima was, or… or anything."

"Due to your amnesia." Frederick concluded for him. Robin nodded, eager to use this time to gather his thoughts rather than speak. "And now you reveal this to me because… you fear for Chrom's safety? You fear that you may be unable to assist him, or that you may make an attempt on his life?" The conclusion Frederick had drawn was still rooted in trust, he realised. He had not even considered that Robin may be a spy, gloating before he attacked or that the tactician was anything less than the man he had come to know.

 _Fear?_ Robin considered. _Am I really afraid?_ He was unable to focus, his mind rushing to pointless actions as his body only barely responded to its commands. _Is this what fear is like?_

"I'm afraid that somehow, the Grimleal or Grima may be able to control me." Robin explained. "It's like there's this tone in the recesses of my mind, that gets louder and more forceful whenever I do… well, anything, I guess, but mostly around the time of fights, and then it gets so intense that I can't even do simple tasks, and I zone out. The tone becomes traces of memories and voices, and I'm not even aware of what happens then until after the matter." Or he has to sit along helplessly and watch, like with his recent nightmares, but that was something Robin would prefer to avoid.

"And you believe that this is all due to Grima?" Frederick asked, his stoic expression having finally returned.

"Yes." Robin affirmed. "Or, at least, the Grimleal. And they may force me to do very… unsavory things. So, Frederick, I would like if you and I could make an oath right now." His eyes shone in a moment of clarity, a sight the great knight had thought would be reassuring, but was instead rather disconcerting.

"What manner of oath would you have me make, tactician?" Oddly enough, Frederick realised that he still held a modicum of trust for the amnesiac, something he should have known to be inconsiderable given the circumstances.

"I promise that I will never, in my right mind, attempt to harm Chrom or place him in any form of danger. Or any Shepherd, for that matter." the tactician added, almost as an afterthought. "In return, I would appreciate it if you would vow that, should I ever break my commitment, you will do anything and everything you can to stop me."

Frederick permitted a dour frown to access his features, painfully aware of the implications behind Robin's words. "...I accept your offer, tactician."

Robin smiled, a content warmth spreading throughout his being despite the overbearing cold. He held his hand out to shake with the stone-faced knight, whose grip was as powerful as ever.

 _Now, if anything should ever go wrong, Frederick will be there._ Robin released the other man's hand, gesturing for him to return to Chrom's side. _He'll be able to do what's necessary._

For what to an amnesiac is an incredibly long time, Robin would not be bothered by the Mark of Grima or any of its adjunct symptoms. It would return eventually, and with it the feeling of greyness that would prove more despicable than the occasional tone in his mind. But for now, he felt as though he had nothing to worry about, and so he leaned back out over the guardrail, allowing his head to be enveloped by the familiar warm folds of the Feroxi winter.

* * *

The real Robin blinked, allowing the cloak that had been haphazardly thrown at his head to fall lazily onto his outstretched arms. His memories of the cold returned, the scenery around him instead shifting from Ferox to a forest-bound trail. Remembering that his hand was exposed, the grandmaster re-equipped his right glove as he slipped his coat over his shoulders.

"Robin." a steady voice called out. The tactician spun his head to the left, only now recalling that he was seated next to Lon'qu.

"Um… sorry… what?" Robin asked, still uncertain of his surroundings.

Lon'qu scoffed. "Nice of you to finally return to your senses. I've been trying to speak with you for longer than I care to admit." His voice was surprisingly playful, although an accusatory note hung in the air as Robin considered what to say.

"Yeah, I kind of zoned out for a bit. Seriously, sorry." Robin rubbed the back of his head, shying away from the swordmaster's sidelong gaze. "What were you saying?"

"What's the tattoo?" Lon'qu inquired in as straightforward a manner as possible. He was in no way certain of how much information the other Shepherd would be willing to divulge, but he had no real qualms about pressing for a satisfying answer.

"Hm? Oh, the thing on my hand?" Robin stalled. "It's just… something I had done a while ago, back in Ylisstol." He lied, still unsure of whether or not to tell his friend the truth.

Lon'qu narrowed his eyes as he focused on navigating in utter darkness. If anything he had been considering were true, which he believed it was, then it would mean that Robin was lying. Besides, no parlor in as Naga-loving a place as Ylisstol would tattoo the Mark of Grima.

"Is it the same as Chrom's? The one he shared with the past Exalt?" the myrmidon feigned ignorance, still hoping to uncover the truth. Depending on Robin's answer, specifically whether he lied or not, Lon'qu would be able to either confirm his suspicions or accept that he was mistaken.

"Not exactly, no." Robin told the truth. "You would be surprised by how similar they really are, though."

Lon'qu remained skeptical. Robin had not lied as he had expected, but Lon'qu knew that he was still concealing valuable information. Perhaps a little more pressing was necessary…

"You seem fond of it. Have you shown Chrom?" He was no longer completely certain of what information he was attempting to glean, but he was at least somewhat enjoying his time with the other Shepherd. And if he ended up catching the 'brilliant' tactician in too large of a lie to escape, outsmarting him… well, then all the better.

"Uh, no… I forgot to show him before I left." Robin resolved to stick to the truth as much as possible, hoping that almost-honesty would save him from making a critical mistake.

"Do you intend to show them when you return?" Lon'qu was growing tired of his line of questioning, the tactician's answers refusing to confirm his more-than-likely assumptions.

The swordsman's use of a collective was not lost on Robin, who immediately began to suspect that Lon'qu knew far more than he was letting on. "...Yes." he eventually answered, soon regretting it as he overthought how great of a tell monosyllabic answers could be. _I'll tell them all once I know the time is right._ he added to himself. _Just… maybe not instantly upon returning_.

Darkness assaulted the silence that followed, both Shepherds not knowing how to advance the conversation to their respective ends. Lon'qu slowed the carriage to a halt, gesturing for Robin to set up camp for the night as he moved to unclasp the horse's bridles. Before he stepped off the driving platform, Lon'qu spoke his final words over his shoulder to Robin.

"I know what the Mark of Grima is, Robin." The man in question tensed, an action visible even in the thick gloom. Lon'qu noted the movement, continuing regardless. "I don't know what you wish to conceal from the Shepherds and what you wish to tell them. But I know that each and every one of us is more than ready to support you, regardless of whatever you may think."

Robin sat on the edge of the carriage seat, staring listlessly at the damp ground as Lon'qu made to prepare camp. He remained like that for an extended period of time, only moving once Olivia and Virion emerged from the carriage interior, at which point he acted as though none of the journey's events so far had occurred. Giving a halfhearted attempt at setting up, Robin took his rationed meal out to the edge of the rest site, taking longer to eat it than any of his companions.

Rather than return to the campfire Lon'qu had constructed, Robin sat against the rear wheels of the carriage, head resting against the axle as he stared past endless rows of wooden tree trunks. He rested there even after he lost track of time, almost falling into slumber before being startled awake by a prod in the stomach.

"Greetings, fair tactician." a smooth voice followed. "Pray, do return to the fireside before you begin to freeze. Surely you do not wish to die here, yes?" Virion removed his boot from its position over the other man's core, stepping to the side and opening the door to the carriage.

Placing one foot inside, the archer turned to face Robin. "Should you seek warmth or companionship in the night, then please… do not disturb me." He stepped fully inside, closing the door in an act of finality.

Robin pushed himself up off the hard wooden wheel, stretching as he walked around the carriage to reach the fire. After spending much of his night in contemplation, he had decided to speak openly with Lon'qu, if not Olivia and Virion. Hopefully the swordmaster's words from earlier were not hollow, or else Robin feared that he may be making a grave mistake. If Lon'qu was being honest, though, then Robin would have a long night ahead of him.

The swordmaster was lying behind Olivia near the fire, one arm draped over her body as she curled up out of both contentment and coldness. The swordsman pushed her sleeping form slightly closer to the fire, evidently still awake by the time Robin returned. The grandmaster stopped next to the pair, silently gesturing for Lon'qu to join him to not wake the sleeping dancer.

Apprehensive due to the unexpected disturbance, Lon'qu rose slowly. The two Shepherds traipsed to the edge of the forest, where Robin gave a full summary of the events concerning the Mark of Grima, his early research in Ylisstol, and his promise with Frederick. He omitted any mention of his 'grey' feeling, as he believed that it was something even Lon'qu would be uninterested in.

Once Lon'qu had run out of questions to ask, and Robin answers to give, the swordsman retired for the night. Robin couldn't help but feel as though his spirits were lifted after their conversation, and he returned to his bedroll by the fireside shortly thereafter.

* * *

A comforting warmth was surrounding Robin, making his rise into wakefulness all the easier. He was perplexed for a moment, wondering how he could possibly feel so warm without his cloak and bedroll in such a frigid climate. That was, until he noticed the pale arms and dark clothes wrapped around his torso - obviously he was just being held by someone.

Robin bolted into a standing position, tearing the unknown person off of him as he backpedaled through the frost-coated ashes of Lon'qu's fire. He managed to contain his instinctive scream, calming himself as he recognised Tharja's stupefied expression from where she sat, now several metres from him. The sorceress stood up as she rubbed the effects of sleep out of her face, then began dusting the layers of frost off of her clothing.

"Good morning, Robin." she greeted, holding down a yawn the entire time. "I trust that you slept well?"

"T-Tharja!?" the tactician stuttered, his surprise having yet to fully fade. "W-When did you-?"

"I've been following you since Ylisstol." she responded, brushing back her hair as she intentionally puffed her chest out toward her obsession. "Did you truly think you could escape me so easily?"

"I was kind of hoping so, yeah." he replied casually, his situation having become shockingly routine over the past year and a half. He began grinding his heel into the kindling beneath him, intent on making a large enough noise to wake Olivia and Lon'qu. Thankfully, Tharja didn't manage to pick up on his attempt to rouse the sleeping Shepherds behind him.

Tharja frowned. "You shouldn't joke about such things, my love. You may end up hurting me, and then I would need your help… 'healing.'" Her expression shifted into a sickening smile.

 _That was almost a quip._ Robin thought. _How could she make something that was so close to being a quip so suggestive?_ He hastened his attempts at waking the others.

Tharja took a stride toward Robin, causing the man to raise his hands defensively before him. _Come on, think of a way to stall her…_ "So… did you take my bedroll away?"

Somehow, that was enough to make the dark mage stop. "Yes; I placed it back in the carriage for you as well. It's not like you would need it with me here. I'm not sure what happened to your cloak, though." She began moving once more, and Robin resumed backpedaling.

The grandmaster was pushed back toward the forest, catching Lon'qu's sitting figure and aggravating smirk out of the corner of his eye. He silently mouthed 'you're an asshole' to the swordsman, who shifted to a kneeling position to wake his lover. Focused on anything but his movement, Robin tripped over his own foot and careened into the horse tethers at the edge of the treeline, waking the sleeping beasts.

One of the horses, startled by Robin's sudden appearance, reared up and whinnied in fear. The grandmaster raised his arms before his face in defense, the horse's jet black body obscuring the sunrise from his vision. Tharja darted forward, grabbing the fabric of the man's shirt as she pulled him out of harm's way, the horse's hooves descending harmlessly onto frozen ground.

"Try not to be so clumsy in the future, Robin." Tharja scolded. "Otherwise I may actually have to heal you." Her voice was no longer suggestive, instead conveying a coldness Robin had rarely ever experienced. She pushed him back toward the campsite, following him from a few paces behind.

One of the carriage doors creaked open, a recently awoken Virion appearing from within. The archer stretched his arms out into the early sunlight, pulling them back swiftly as the cold air bit against his exposed skin. He reached back into the carriage, plucking a shirt from his luggage and exchanging it for his nightshirt as he stepped out into the environment.

"What, may I ask, is making such a horrendous noise at this time of morning?" He stepped forward slightly, not daring to move too far from the safety of the carriage.

Catching sight of Robin, Virion bowed dramatically. "I must thank you, fair tactician, for your attempts at blanketing my form last night." He stood back up to full height. "It was a heartwarming gesture, though you would do well to work on softening your footsteps. However, your ability to so thoroughly wrap me in the bedroll without disturbing me is commendable."

Robin waved to his friend, stopping when the later statements set in and angling his head to face Tharja, eyebrow raised. Beneath her intense glare that demanded Robin not expose her, a blush was barely visible. He turned back to face the sniper.

"Uh, yeah, Virion, not a problem. ...I'll work on the footsteps." _Does Tharja have feelings for Virion?_ he wondered. It seemed to be the only explanation for her actions, although she was still being clingy.

 _Finally! All that time placing them together in the Plegian war and the risen encounters, and they can finally get together._ Robin resisted the strong urge to pump his fist in the air in victory. _Now she might finally leave me alone._ He wasn't exactly proud of what he had done, even though he acknowledged that the two would likely be happy together, but by this point he considered it necessary - both for his health and Tharja's.

Virion cocked his head to the side, spotting the sorceress for the first time in her position behind Robin. "Ah, the lovely lady Tharja. I was wondering when you would appear."

Both Robin and Tharja were confused by his words. "What do you mean?" the amnesiac asked. "Were you planning on her arrival?"

"But of course." Virion smiled. "I could certainly have persuaded lord Chrom to accompany me rather than you, Robin, but then our lovely nightshade here would have had no reason to follow."

 _Huh. That's actually pretty clever, considering how tight the restrictions Frederick and I put on attendance were._ Robin's eyes widened for a moment as he realised how grave of a misstep bringing Olivia may have been, but calmed himself with the memory that she had been speaking with Chrom before departing. With any luck, the Exalt will have approved her absence.

Before Robin could congratulate Virion's deceptive tact, Tharja spoke up. "You used Robin to lure me here?" she glowered at the archer, who was cheerily unfazed.

"Make no mistake, my most beauteous flower; I believe your companionship will be far more enjoyable than that of any other here, and your combat abilities will be invaluable should conflict arise at the port." Virion brushed strands of his hair back into place, still smiling at the sorceress. Robin was instantly perturbed by the mention of a possible battle at the port, but none of his four companions appeared especially concerned.

"Should we expect a fight when we arrive at Port Ferox?" he asked, deciding to be wary enough for the five of them.

Virion shook his head. "Not for a long while, at any rate. I'm expecting a messenger, one who may be capable of becoming a Shepherd in her own right. While it's possible that she may be followed, I am certain she will be able to handle any potential issues on her own."

Finally, he had divulged the information Robin had fretted over: the purpose of this entire operation. It seemed… petty, by comparison to his expectations.

"Is that what all of this is for?" the tactician asked, not believing. "No grand adventure, or massive conflict, or mad kings… just a messenger?" He had been led to believe from Virion's original request that this matter would require the most powerful of the Ylissean military present and in full force, causing him to assume that a probable conflict would arise and need to be masterfully defused by none other than himself. Not a mere messenger, heralding the possibility of eventual conflict.

"That is but only one outcome which I can foresee, but yes. This is all for a messenger." Virion replied simply. "The other most likely outcome, however, is that Ferox, Ylisse, and Plegia will each be invaded by an army the likes of which none of their militaries have ever experienced."

"What?" Robin recoiled, his skepticism rivaling that of Frederick. "We've fought the living dead, what kind of military could possibly catch us all off guard?"

Virion frowned and hung his head, having exposited more than he had intended but seeing no reason to stop now. "There exists a powerful man in Valm, one who I have held tabs on ever since he began bringing much of the continent under his heel. I see no future in which he does not set his sights across the sea, unless he is slain. His cavalry and armoured regiments are supposedly unrivaled the world over."

"Even compared to Ylisse's troops?" Robin followed up cautiously. He was still skeptical of Virion's claims, even though he knew that greater military forces were likely to exist - he had scolded Sully on a similar subject just one day prior. "How do they match up to our knights, generals, cavaliers, paladins, great knights, mages, sages, pegasus knights, and falcon knights?" He had begun instructing Cordelia and Sumia to incorporate offensive magic into their falcon knight routines as well, hoping to mimic Plegia's dark fliers, but those efforts would take a significant amount of time to pass onto their trainees.

"By Naga, Robin." Virion sighed and shook his head under the tirade. "If you wish to form a strategy, I will supply you with her correspondences, but please treat this as the vacation it should be. The conqueror's armies may very well never even venture out of Valm."

"Then why did you want every Shepherd to be present at the port?" the grandmaster asked, still having a difficult time following Virion's reasoning.

The sniper sighed in exasperation, already exhausted despite having woken up only moments ago. "Her most recent letter mentioned a dire need to meet with Ylissean and Feroxi national leaders. I would rather take as few chances as possible, meaning that a powerful force would have been appreciated. However, your presence, sir Robin, should meet any diplomatic necessities."

Robin ran a hand through his hair as he considered everything he had heard. "What about the Feroxi leader? And what about Plegia?"

"Chrom has assured me that Flavia and Basilio will be more than happy to accompany us once we reach Ferox." Virion answered. "And my informant knows of the Ylisse-Ferox alliance, so perhaps she believes Plegian involvement unnecessary."

"And you have all of her letters with you, right now?" Robin continued, wrapping up his line of questioning.

"I didn't dare to leave them unattended in Ylisse, so yes." Virion confirmed. "Allow me to copy them, and you may have either the copies or the originals if you so desire."

Robin nodded, bringing a hand up to his chin as he retreated into his thoughts. If there truly was a high probability for another war, one that would be even more difficult than before, he would need to prepare. He would need to return to Ylisstol after his business at the port was concluded, to speak with Chrom and begin drawing up formations. In the meantime, he could read over the informant's letters and brace himself for the coming conflict.

A sickening greyness immediately coursed through him and shredded his thoughts as though they were failed tactical papers at the thought of returning to Ylisstol and preparing for war, even though Robin knew that doing so would be for the best.

"Robin." Virion's voice rang out, his stern tone bringing the grandmaster back to attention. "I know that look. You are, under express order of both Exalt Chrom and now myself, to take a vacation."

Robin glared at the archer, intent on not being impeded. He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by the other man's raised hand. "Do you truly believe that Chrom, of all people, would even allow you to return to work over a matter I myself decry? Should you return to the capital, the task of preparations would only be delegated to another, if they are addressed at all. So please, swear to me that you will not return to Ylisstol until you have spent sufficient time to relax in the surrounding lands."

Robin's eyes remained narrowed on the archer's. "...No, Virion. I'm not going to run away from this."

"None of us are running away, Robin." the sniper seethed. "You must concern yourself first and foremost with your own wellbeing, considering how long you have foregone its curation. When the time comes, I trust you to lead us. But not yet. Not until there is actual, unavoidable, conflict."

Robin was about to protest again, but was cut off when Olivia appeared between him and Virion. She was holding her hands up to her chest, her timid gaze locking onto the ground and avoiding that of the Shepherds around her.

"U-Um, Lon'qu says that we should move out soon…" she stammered. "I-If you two were done?" It was less of a question and more of a suggestion, and Olivia started backing away to the carriage so that she wouldn't be faced with an actual answer.

Walking past Virion, Robin said nothing as he climbed into the back of the carriage. Virion, for his part, sighed and shook his head once the tactician was out of sight, not noticing Tharja approach him until she spoke.

"You knew that I was following you from Ylisstol, yet you let me walk in the rain and cold the entire night?" she exclaimed, her tone accusatory. "Why did you not offer me a seat in the carriage from the moment you exited the castle!?"

Virion blinked, backtracking through the conversation he had just hosted until he found the point to which Tharja had last paid attention. "Ah, yes, that was… inconsiderate of me, wasn't it?" His response only caused her to scowl. "Please, allow me to correct my mistake?" He held his hand out to the dark mage, inviting her into the wooden carapace.

She swatted his hand away, stepping on her own into the carriage. Even so, the archer managed to catch the traces of a smile forming on her lips before she disappeared within.

Robin opened the opposite door of the carriage, pacing his way up to where Lon'qu had already prepared the horses. Striding up to the horse that had not attempted to trample him, he gently pulled the hood of his cloak off of its comical position over the creature's ears. He patted the horse's head, then lightly removed the rest of his clothing from the thing's tanned back.

He caught Lon'qu's quirked eyebrow, and hastily tried to explain himself. "What? I saw it sneezing last night when I went to sleep, so…" The swordsman's smirk appeared once more, as aggravating as ever. "Shut up, Lon'qu."

* * *

The Shepherds passed the remainder of their journey to Ferox in silence, Virion and Robin's unwillingness to speak attaching itself to Olivia and Tharja as well. Lon'qu operated the carriage solo for several hours, only stopping once the group had arrived at the Khan's abodes near Arena Ferox in the nation's capital. Thankfully, the border guards proved to be more inviting to living guests after the end of the Plegian conflict.

The buildings in Ferox were capped in the same frost and snow that had been present in northern Ylisse, dim glows from each of the wooden lodgings proving the need for fires in such a harsh climate. Khan Flavia's home, the one the Shepherds had stopped at, was separated by only a small distance from Basilio's - although it was difficult to tell with exact certainty, as the only thing differentiating the two from any other buildings in the city were their direct pathways to the arena.

Exiting the carriage, Lon'qu allowed the horses to be tended to by a set of guards as he moved inside with Tharja and Virion. Olivia, however, stopped Robin before he could enter the residencies, taking a long moment to ensure everyone was inside before she spoke.

"You know he just cares about you, right?" the dancer stated ambiguously. "Virion, I mean. Well, all of us do, but that includes Virion."

"And I him." Robin agreed. "That is why I cannot allow him, or any other Shepherd, to perish. Especially not when it could be so easily avoided." He sidestepped to bypass her, but she mimicked the action to stop him once more.

"Please, Robin, if Virion says that there won't be any danger then you need to trust that there won't be any danger."

"I know, Olivia. I know." Robin rubbed the bridge of his nose as he shut his eyes. "I want to believe him, but if he's wrong, then we're all made to be fools, and that could very well be fatal."

The dancer returned to her shy state, allowing Robin to pass her. "Just don't overwork yourself, alright? You're a Shepherd too, so you aren't allowed to die either."

Robin smiled, wishing that things could be as simple on a battlefield as telling someone they 'weren't allowed to die'. "I'll be fine, promise. Thanks." The tactician opened the door and ushered Olivia inside, following her into the house foyer.

Inside, the house was as generic as its exterior. A simple pale carpet in Flavia's preferred red hues lined the floor near the entrance, feeding into a large dining hall and various other rooms or closets behind uncomplicated closed doors. The dining hall was centralised on a large pinewood table, five seats per side and two at the heads granting enough space for small gatherings. A basic stairway on the dining room's left wound up to a second floor, with several more doors heralding the existence of more rooms and closets. Khan Flavia and Virion were stood atop the platform at the top of the stairs, conversing about some matter or another.

Lon'qu pushed himself up from his leaning position against the right of the foyer, taking Olivia's hand in his and guiding her to the central dining table. Tharja had already claimed a seat near the table's far end, and as Robin approached she patted the chair next to her. The grandmaster opted instead to take the seat next to Lon'qu, leaving an open space to separate him and his stalker.

The Khan's sharp eyes drifted away from the sniper before her and caught sight of the four seated Shepherds, and she pushed Virion to the side with her forearm in order to descend the staircase. The archer fell easily to the wayside, indignantly shaking his head as he followed after her.

Flavia nodded politely to Lon'qu and Tharja before pulling Olivia and Robin into crushing hugs. Virion took the seat between Tharja and Robin before the sorceress could relocate herself, leaving Flavia to take the middle seat on the opposite side of the table, directly facing Robin.

"A pleasure to meet you all once more, Shepherds." the Khan opened. "Chrom informed me that you were here for more than an idle chat, though?"

"Indeed, fair Khan." Virion picked up the lull. "A matter of potentially grave import will be arriving soon at Port Ferox, and I would appreciate the aid of both your noble self and that of Basilio in addressing it."

Flavia nodded. "Chrom's letters told me as much." She paused for a second, then shrugged. "Basilio will not be missed. The Khan regent, however… that is a far more lofty request. I am the only leader in Ferox who currently holds any actual sway in political matters, and I may very well be needed in the capital as well as the port."

"Thankfully…" Flavia continued, emphasizing her opening as she brought her hands up to her face, staring over them at Robin. "... Chrom has guaranteed the other Shepherds' ability to lead a unified effort of peacekeeping missions across Ylisse, Plegia… and Ferox."

Robin blanched. _Chrom didn't know that Ferox wasn't included in yesterday's missive. He must have told Flavia about it earlier, when it was still a concept and Ferox was available._ His face returned to its ordinary state, lack of colour being replaced with a frown. _But that doesn't explain how Flavia knows that her nation is unmentioned…_

As if she had read his mind, the Khan smiled. "Sumia." Her answer only confused Robin, whose uncertainty must have been clear to read as the Khan followed up her statement soon after. "The royals really want you to take a vacation, Robin. The queen is apparently willing to blackmail you into relaxing, as am I. So, what say you to taking on a few community projects during your stay in Ferox?"

Robin's frown only deepened. _Wait, how the hell did Sumia know about Ferox? She was only in yesterday's meeting!_ Before the tactician could protest Flavia's underhanded ploy, Virion spoke up.

"A fine tactic, indeed! Our absent-minded friend will not merely 'relax', but should he be coerced into unrelated efforts, he would have no choice but to handle those more urgent matters before any other. You have essentially forced him into gradual lesser labours not worth his time - forced him into a vacation!" The sniper bent over the table to shake Flavia's hand, but the action went unreciprocated.

Robin glared at Virion. "'Absent-minded'?"

Flavia, too, was glaring at the archer. "'Lesser labours not worth his time'? I'm talking about risen and slavers, not petty civil disputes settled in wyvern courts."

Virion retreated back into his seat, coughing once into his fist as he avoided the dual glares. He remained silent as the tactician began speaking.

"Why can't you just return to the capital, Flavia? If I have time to journey the country, you'll certainly have the leniency to come and go as you please." If he had considered his time to be a critical resource, the Khan's would be at least twice as important.

Flavia shook her head. "I plan on making a little excursion to Plegia after the matter at the port is settled." Her eyes flitted over the four non-Robin Shepherds present, giving them each a once over. "The four of you-" she pointed to each of the people she had glanced over "-are to remain in Port Ferox until the Valmese arrive. Virion's informant can relay anything necessary to Chrom, Robin, and myself."

Virion sat up at her mention of the informant. "She will be able to relay messages efficiently, yes. But may I ask, dearest Khan, how you knew of the Valmese? I hadn't yet shared that much information with you."

Flavia leaned back in her chair, waving her hand as if to denounce the question. "I know because I'm not a blind fool with their head shoved halfway up their own ass. You may need to explain it to Basilio, though." she added, a familiar glint in her eyes.

Robin crossed his arms and did his best not to pout. "So do I just not get any say in my part of this? You know that a war may soon be upon us, Flavia; I can't just wait until the last moment to begin strategising."

"I'm not saying we won't be prepared." the Khan turned back to the tactician. "My trip to Plegia should secure us bountiful wartime assets, including a fleet of combat-ready warships since I know neither of our nations possess such a thing. Once the Valmese invasion is properly underway, I'll have Virion's informant fly down to Ylisse for Chrom and the Shepherds. We'll all meet up at the port, expel the invaders, and launch a counterattack."

Virion's eyebrows knitted together as he listened to the Khan's words. "How on earth did you know that my informant could fly?"

Flavia laughed at her friend's confusion. "I have informants of my own, Virion. Even for Valm." She paused for a moment, as if she were not entirely sure of herself before continuing. "Your informant… her name's Cherche, rides a wyvern?"

Virion nodded, and Flavia hummed to herself in turn, having apparently verified her source. She returned her attention to Robin, who was still mulling over his newfound duties. "So, are you willing to accept yet?"

Robin uncrossed his arms, setting his gloved hands on his lap. "You know I would be invaluable to any planning, right? Why would you not want me to help?"

Flavia rolled her eyes. "I have it all handled, Robin, trust me. Besides, I'll make sure to call you back to the port in time to fight, just not in a commanding role - not until we hit Valm, at least."

"Why do you want me to take a vacation so badly?"

"What, is the concern and blessing of all of your friends not enough for you?" Seeing that Robin's stalwart expression was unchanged, Flavia continued. "...Not even knowing that you'll be helping countless innocents?" His expression still remained. "Okay, wow, I… honestly thought that would be enough."

Robin let his features soften a small amount. "If a Shepherd dies, and I wasn't there to so much as try to prevent it, I would never even bother trying to live it down."

Flavia winced. "Damn, kid… I mean, I get it, losing close friends and warriors can be hard, but you can't always prepare for war." Her voice was growing softer. "Eventually, good people will die, no matter what."

"Not the Shepherds." Robin shook his head. "Not while I have anything to say about it."

"And after this? Are you still going to prepare for wars that may not even happen?" Flavia's voice was still soft, something that offset Robin.

The grandmaster averted his gaze, becoming intent on studying the hardwood floors around him. "...The wars will stop eventually." _Once Grima is slain. It's at the centre of this, right? Once it's dead, the world will be… peaceful?_ Robin was startled to realise how foreign the concept was to him.

Flavia shook her head. "No, Robin. The wars never end. At least not when people like you can't stop preparing for them." Her voice was slowly returning to its regular robustness. "You're serious about protecting your friends, though?"

Robin nodded, allowing Flavia to finish her statement. "Well, then, take the 'vacation'. I've specifically selected operations for you in locations that should bring you in the path of what I have been assured are very powerful people, who should be able and willing to aid you."

"What kind of people?" Robin asked, skeptic that such supposedly powerful people could have escaped his notice.

Flavia shrugged. "Honestly, I don't really know. They're just strong and willing to assist the Shepherds, apparently." She gave Robin a small amount of time to consider his options, studying his shifting facial features all the while. "So, what do you say?"

"...I'll make up my mind after meeting with the informant." he replied, noncommittal. His response was met with a series of groans from the four other Shepherds, even Tharja expressing at most boredom by this point.

"Eh, that's good enough for now." Flavia pushed her chair back, kicking her feet up into a resting position on the table. "You can all unpack here, I have enough rooms for each of you. Afterward, we should make for the arena - Basilio's probably still waiting on us." She smirked. "Take your time."

Soon, Virion, Robin, and Olivia had risen from their seats, Lon'qu following behind them as they made for the carriage. Tharja stayed behind, her arms propped up on the table and supporting her head from beneath her chin, fingers curling up across her cheeks. The sorceress was muttering something to herself, but she was easily loud enough to overhear.

"A tour across Ferox, huh?" She was smiling in a way Flavia found to be exceedingly creepy. "For, what did Robin's plan say… almost a year?" The dark mage stood, following the others to her belongings. "Oh yes, that sounds fun. All that time together…"

Flavia cursed under her breath and moved her feet back to the floor, slowly pushing herself up from her seat. If her plan were to succeed, Robin would need to traverse the route swiftly - being addled by and needing to constantly check over his shoulder for a capable-yet-frail obsessive mage would only be a hindrance. Not to mention that he couldn't take her to the Ruins of Time, for whatever reason.

The Khan regent froze, half-sitting half-standing, as she realized that Lon'qu was holding the _woman_ inside the house. His forearm was pressed into Tharja's collar, preventing any movement outward and shaking imperceptibly.

"You are not to follow Robin out of the port. Understood?" The swordmaster's voice retained its trademark gruffness, but sounded as though it were at risk of breaking if it were somehow touched by anyone.

"Of course I won't." Tharja replied, her sarcasm tangible. She walked into Lon'qu, who pushed her back with his forearm.

The swordsman coughed, sounding as though he were about to choke on air. "Khan Flavia, is there somewhere she and I may speak in private?"

Flavia blinked, still wrapping her head around what she was seeing. "Oh, uh, yeah…" She waved her arm horizontally in front of her, gesturing to the doors that lined the wall nearest the two Shepherds. "Just… pick a room, I guess?"

Lon'qu jerked his head to the side, signaling for Tharja to open the door nearest them. The sorceress rolled her eyes but obeyed, brushing her arm against Lon'qu as she passed him. The swordsman shuddered as he followed her into the dimly lit room.

As he closed the door behind him, Lon'qu realised that he had made a grave mistake. The room he had chosen was tiny, miscellaneous supplies taking up much of its space and forcing the two Shepherds to almost press into one another in order to fit inside. Thankfully, the closet was also pitch black without the foyer's torchlight, meaning he wouldn't have to see the dark mage so close to him.

Apparently, Tharja had different plans entirely, leaning into the swordmaster and whispering in his ear. "My, my, Lon'qu. I hadn't expected you to be so forward. Perhaps this is what that shrinking violet sees in you…"

Lon'qu resisted his urge to burst out of the room and slam the door behind him, instead bringing his arm back up to push Tharja a few centimetres away. He wasn't entirely sure of what he was doing, but based on what Robin had told him last night, he may have come to an epiphany regarding the relationship between the sorceress and amnesiac.

"From the moment you saw him, you have been attracted to Robin. Correct?" Well, perhaps 'sense' was the proper word, if his hypothesis was correct.

"Yes." Tharja confirmed wistfully. "It was love at first sight, even if he hasn't realised it yet." She gave her signature sinister smile, even though the swordsman was unable to see it in the dark.

Lon'qu sighed, unsure of how to explain himself. "What if… what if I told you that the only reason you were ever attracted to Robin was because of a curse? An evil… thing... he is actively hating?"

Tharja scowled. "Fool. No enemy would be powerful enough to hex Robin and conceal it from me." Her tone became wistful once more. "And besides, Robin is wonderful in his own right, with or without some curse." Truth be told, she had picked up on something strange in Robin after first meeting him, as though there were some grand malevolence hiding just under his skin, waiting for an opportunity to emerge. She had ultimately disregarded it as the result of a victorious battle, but if it was a curse that Robin hated… should she hate what had attracted her to the tactician in the first place?

"He has rejected your every advance. Surely you must eventually move on?" At the very least, Lon'qu could admire her… dedication? He may have just been looking for something positive to say about his friend, though - he didn't want to hate anyone he considered himself even remotely close to.

"He'll warm up sometime." Tharja's voice exhibited a shred of doubt, giving Lon'qu the confidence he needed for a final push.

"Even if waiting for him means you pass up something greater?" Hopefully, she would be able to realise that much; almost every Shepherd had already picked up on her unusual fondness for Virion. "Are you willing to disregard other, possibly better people, just for Robin?"

It was Virion. He had to be talking about Virion. She hated that her unintended affections were so readable, and hated even more that she had thought of Virion instead of immediately expelling the swordsman's claims. To think that Lon'qu could so easily disregard Robin, and that he could so easily see through her was infuriating, and she wanted nothing more than for the man to be silent.

Seeing that Lon'qu was opening his mouth to speak once more, she decided to shut him up by any means, even if she had to be forceful. He just needed to stop saying anything, to stop talking about her, her interests, everything. She leaned further into into the myrmidon, resisting his attempt to repel her.

"Oh, Lon'qu, I had no idea you felt that way." She was holding down a tremor in her voice, her anger almost seeping through. Pressing herself deeply into the side of the swordmaster's neck, she planted a kiss against him that was certain to elicit a powerful response.

Sure enough, Lon'qu threw the sorceress back into a stack of cleaning supplies, propelling himself against the door with the side of his shoulder. Tharja fell and attempted to rise, faltering when a handhold destabilised and more supplies toppled down onto her splayed legs. The door flew open under Lon'qu's force, the swordsman falling onto his back in the hallway and gathering the attention of the Khan and returned Shepherds.

"Lon'qu!" Olivia was the first to respond, dashing to her lover's side and supporting his head. The dancer's vision darted between her flustered, nearly catatonic boyfriend and the dark mage sitting in an uncomfortable position inside the closet. Tharja gave the other woman a harsh glare, ensuring that the other Shepherd's gaze remained locked on the swordsman.

Knowing that Lon'qu would be well tended to, Virion and Robin both stepped into the closet, holding their hands out awkwardly to aid Tharja. The dark mage spent a second to consider her options, eyes bouncing between her two friends. Instead of taking either or both of their hands, the sorceress tilted her body forward and pushed herself off the floor into a standing position. She brushed past both men and stepped around the two sitting Shepherds in the hallway, silently making her way to the carriage to collect her belongings.

Robin tilted his head and faced Virion, as if he would somehow have an answer for what had just happened. The archer shrugged, just as confused as the tactician. Lon'qu was still barely able to move, Olivia supporting him from under one arm as she moved him to their room. The dancer, too, shrugged in passing, more concerned about Lon'qu than any other matter.

Flavia had returned to a relaxed seated position, one hand on the front of her armrest as the other supported her head. Robin's questioning gaze landed on her, and she too shrugged, perhaps even more confused than anyone else in the room, Lon'qu's contact with Olivia not yet even having registered in her mind.

Content with the triad of shoulder movements, Robin stepped back into the hallway. Hoisting his care package and bag of belongings up to waist height from where he had dropped them, the grandmaster tread up the stairway to find a bedroom.

Virion paused in the closet doorway, unsure of whether to follow Tharja outside or retire to his room and await the order to meet with Basilio. A sigh escaped his lips as he decided to brave the cold once more, knowing that he may do as much damage as good if he were to speak with the sorceress.

Flavia tilted her head over the back of her chair, staring at the ceiling. She would be travelling with this group for days on end, should the initial phases of her plan go off without a hitch. Closing her eyes, she tried to brainstorm reasons Robin had to care for them so greatly. She admitted to caring for them each deeply, both as allies and as friends, and Flavia supposed that an amnesiac would have far more amplified feelings regarding some of the first people they had truly known.

"This is gonna be one hell of a ride." Shaking her head, Flavia resigned herself to her fate.

* * *

Virion stood in one of Arena Ferox's many training rooms, watching absentmindedly as Basilio heaved an axe through hordes of wooden targets. Olivia, Lon'qu, and Tharja had all refused to leave Flavia's home, and the Khan regent herself had meandered off somewhere soon after her arrival. Now, Robin was wandering aimlessly about the nostalgic halls, and the lesser Khan had resumed training, claiming that he needed to 'prep for the adventure of a lifetime'.

Another wood soldier fell to Basilio's might, Virion shielding his own face with one hand as splinters of wood were sent flying in his direction. Breathing heavily, Basilio put his weight on his axe hilt, its head grinding into the soft floor beneath him. The Khan wiped sweat from his brow, looking sideways to meet Virion's gaze.

"Gimme… your bow…" He forced out between breaths, taking an exhausted step toward the archer.

Virion blinked, then frowned. "No." He took a far more exuberant stride toward his friend. "Are you yet willing to hear my tale, dear Khan?"

Basilio groaned as he turned, beginning the long and precarious expedition to find a weapon rack. "Talk as we walk, alright?"

The Khan trudged slowly through the sea of fallen targets, Virion stumbling over a wooden torso as he attempted to catch up. Basilio reached the exit first, pushing the doors open and scanning the hallway for a barracks room. Virion trotted up beside the Khan, brushing sawdust off of his pale blue sleeves.

Any attempts to find a weapon rack would, according to Basilio, be near pointless - Flavia had rearranged almost the entirety of the arena upon gaining power, partly on Robin's recommendation and partly to spite the other Khan. Instead, Basilio and his newfound companion would simply converse as they wandered the halls, and the Khan knew that on the off chance they did find a barracks room he wouldn't be intent on any extra training.

The two walked in silence through several rooms, Virion reinitiating his tale after the fourth unfruitful doorway had closed. "I am, to your great benefit, more than the mere 'archest of archers' - I am, in fact-"

"Duke Virion of Rosanne, a territory in Valm that fell to the empire on day one." Basilio interjected, flashing a thin smile. "You want to help fight against the Valmese, and retake your homeland while you're at it - and you're willing to put your servants' lives on the line to do so. That about right, duke?"

Virion grimaced. "Yes, but I assure you, I am not that cowardly. My servant, she is merely a far more capable survivalist than I."

"Well, you're right about that, at least." The Khan's expression became even harder. "So, you want Ferox and Ylisse to aid you in a war. No offense kid, but Ferox just got out of one of the worst wars most of its people have ever seen. And Ylisse has gone through twice that in the past two generations, quite literally. Why the hell would any of us help you?"

Virion stopped in place, dust from the training room no longer an issue as it settled on his surroundings. Slowly, the sniper began to explain himself. "Friendship, glory, morals, desperation… choose for yourself. As long as your blades stand with me, I will be content."

Basilio rotated to face the archer, rubbing his chin. "And what if we decide to stand with Walhart? In all honesty, a nation of warriors may easily be inclined to throw in with forces as strong as the conqueror's."

Virion was aghast, hastily calming himself in fear of opening into an emotional rant. Rather, he appealed to the most reasonable outcome he could imagine. "A true warrior would rise to the greatest challenge possible, Khan. Are you so cowardly as to run in fear from a stronger foe?"

The Khan shook his head. "I'm ready, Virion. A hundred times over, I'm ready. But I fight so that others don't have to - not everyone in the world, or even Ferox, are warriors. You would do well to know that I would do anything to protect them."

"Then fight alongside me!" Virion pleaded. "Fight to resist tyranny, to save countless lives from the conqueror's wrath! Is that not for the best?"

"Maybe. Maybe not." Basilio considered. "You have no idea what may happen after this war. Perhaps something even worse stands on the horizon, something that would require the Shepherds, Walhart, and however many other soldiers to face."

Virion's eyes narrowed. "What on earth are talking about? Our world is on the brink of a brutal conquest; surely that is the most dire situation it could face?"

"You're right. It probably is." the Khan acquiesced. He returned to his more jovial state of being and began walking down the hall once more. "So, anything else you wanted to chatter on about, or are we done here?"

Virion leered after the other man for some time, having to sprint to catch up again. "I do have another matter to discuss, if you have some time, of course."

Basilio waved the sniper forward into another hallway. "Of course I have time; it seems like I have nothing but these days."

"This concerns Robin, the Ylissean tactician. You know of him, yes?"

Flashbacks to being dethroned, having the arena shifted around mid-training, and snide comments from Flavia about how she would never lose the leadership again coursed through Basilio's mind. He resisted a growing urge to twitch. "Yeah, I'm aware of his existence."

Virion ran a hand through his hair as he bowed his head, seeking some form of pampering as he considered what to say. "You see, Robin refuses to take even a moment's rest, even when he has been assured that it would aid the Shepherds. I believe that his refusal to relax may lead to him overworking, and making a critical error that results in utter horror. Why, just earlier today I made an excellent jest about him being absent-minded, and he glared at me!" The archer was incredulous, as if that slight had been greater than any threat he had ever faced.

"Seriously? ...That's kind of a dick move." the Khan frowned. "Yeah, yeah. I'll convince him to go." Basilio had already acknowledged those concerns long ago, and he had worked with Flavia to circumvent them, provided that her plan succeeded.

"...I thought it was a pretty good joke…" Virion muttered under his breath before addressing the Khan. "Are you certain that you can convince him? He seemed rather… determined, previously."

Basilio waved the question away, similar to what Flavia had done hours ago. "It won't be an issue for me. Is that all you wanted to say?"

Virion hesitated before responding. "There is something correlated to my previous concern, yes." The ex-duke took a deep breath, preparing himself for what he was about to say.

"Robin cares deeply for each of the Shepherds, and practically anyone he grows close to, even remotely. Many of us share this trait, in fact." Basilio nodded, knowing that this was purely background information. "He takes to the field in nigh every military encounter, ensuring through his participation and strategy that our allies - his friends - survive."

"There is an odd… issue, I suppose, with this. I fear that our tactician does not take the field out of necessity or empathy, but desire. During the Plegian war one year ago, he would frequently enter a state similar to stupefaction, wherein he would become both wholly unresponsive and a terrifying strategist or soldier, depending on his timing. It was… worrisome, to say the least, and I fear that such a thing may recur in another large conflict."

"And why does this concern you?" Basilio finally spoke up. "If he became a better tactician and fighter as a result, what's there to worry over?"

"I worry because I do not know a thing about it, and it may very well be detrimental to his health. I know not if it is a mere battlelust, or perhaps something greater, but…" the sniper trailed off, breathing out in irritation at being unable to properly express his sentiments.

Basilio's eye narrowed on the Shepherd before him, and the Khan's tone lowered considerably as he spoke. "Virion... you have no idea what kind of things you're digging into right now. If-".

His words died in his throat the moment he saw a flash of purple and black at the end of the hallway, Robin appearing a second later. The warrior clapped Virion on the shoulder in a non-sequitur to their previous conversational direction. "Ha! 'Absent-minded'! Because of the amnesia, right!?" the Khan exclaimed, loud enough that the inconveniently timed grandmaster would be able to hear.

Robin scowled from his position in the arena halls, turning back to where he had entered from as he remembered why he so consistently favored the other, far greater, Khan. "Flavia and I are waiting on you two in the throne room, alright?" he announced, not waiting for a reply before leaving.

Basilio allowed enough time to pass so that he was certain the grandmaster was out of earshot, then unclasped Virion's shoulder. The Khan whispered forcefully as he resumed walking. "If you want to help Robin, then go to the port, say nothing, and allow Flavia and I to operate. We can help him soon, but…" Basilio reconsidered how much information he should be disclosing. "...There's something he needs to find on that vacation, and only very specific people can be with him. Not you, or me, or any other Shepherd. Got it?"

"...Of course." Virion replied. "I trust you will share all that you know in due time?"

"If I make it through all of this, then you have my word." Basilio slapped the archer's back as the two made their way to the throne room.

Virion lagged behind, humming to himself as he thought of how to uncover what the Khans were hiding. Perhaps Robin knew, seeing as he was the centre of it all.

* * *

Robin fired a silver arrow into a training dummy, cursing as he missed and hit the stone brick wall nearby. He passed the bow back to Flavia, who loosed a far more accurate shot, piercing where the target's right eye would have been for the third time in as many attempts.

"Weren't you going off earlier about how you were mastering all manner of weapons?" the Khan regent taunted. "Is this the best you can do?"

"I said I had started trying to master all manner of weapons." Robin corrected. "I've never even fired a bow before, let alone silver arrows. I got called away up here before I could get to archery."

Flavia tilted her head from side to side in thought. "If I were you, I would just stick to magic and swords. It is one hell of a combo, after all."

The grandmaster frowned as he reached for the bow again. "But what if I need to use a bow at some point? I can't just lose a battle because I couldn't fire an arrow."

Flavia held the bow at the extent of her reach, away from Robin. The Khan arched her eyebrows at Robin, then the target as she held her arm flat at chest height, silently mouthing out the word 'pow' to her friend.

Robin stared at the Khan for a moment, exhaling audibly as he fished a tome out of the depths of his cloak and turned back to the target. _I may as well disregard all safety protocols if she's more-or-less royalty, right?_ It was a flimsy excuse to redeem himself for his missed shots, but one he accepted nonetheless. He hesitated once more, but was urged on by Flavia's nudge to his shoulder and compulsive stare.

He placed as much effort as he could into curating a powerful Thoron spell out of his tome, sending the advanced magic directly to the mannequin at the other end of the throne room. Just as he cast, the door the target had been placed unnecessarily close to swept open, the side of Basilio's body appearing from the hallway as the Khan spoke over his shoulder.

The door opened far enough to shield the dummy, strains of bright yellow lightning breaking apart on impact and fizzling out in the empty air. Basilio jumped away from the shot, falling shoulder first onto the stone floor about his feet and rolling needlessly to the side. The lesser Khan collided with one of Flavia's recently added armour stands, plates of steel collapsing onto his upper body and trapping him underneath their weight.

Both of Robin's hands shot up to his mouth as he grasped what he had just done, and the tactician quickly looked to Flavia to gauge her reaction. He found himself calming, then grinning when he realised the Khan wasn't angry, but rather bent over in laughter at her competitor's plight.

"Alright, laugh it up!" the lesser Khan shouted from under his pile. He was legitimately angry, but in actuality he was already planning ways of spinning this situation to his advantage.

Virion ignored Flavia and Robin's growing laughter, pulling a chestplate off of the pile and enabling Basilio to push himself free. The archer sauntered along the edge of the spreading hoard of steel, making his way to the scorch marks on the door.

"Someone want to explain what the hell that was!?" Basilio roared from the floor as he gave up on another attempt to right himself.

"That, my cherished civilian..." Flavia steadied her breathing before continuing. "Was what true marksmanship looks like!"

Virion closed the door to the throne room after inspecting the blast marks. He rolled his eyes upon noticing the wooden dummy, kicking the target to the ground and then to Basilio as an explanation. "I believe that this holds all the answers you seek, Khan."

Basilio pulled the target over to him, distinguishing the arrows in the thing's head from the unmarked remainder of its body. "You two thinking of taking away the rest of my vision, or are you scaring me to death first?" He used the mannequin to push himself upright, almost slipping on another plate of metal.

The ex-Khan took a large stride forward, but spun back around to face the target. "Wait, are those silver arrows? ...Are those my silver arrows!? Did you steal my bow!?"

Flavia tossed the item in question to Robin, who fumbled with it before it fell carelessly to the floor. Flavia grinned coyly, kicking the bow and quiver both to the side for good measure. "Why, Basilio! If you hadn't wished for us to play with it, you shouldn't have left your bow unattended on private property."

Basilio seethed in place, wanting to remind Flavia of his position but also not wanting for her to challenge him on it. She was still reigning Khan, after all; she outranked him and would be certain to gloat about it, if the past year and a half were any indication.

On second thought, he decided to cut to the chase of their summons. "What is it you needed us here for, Flavia?"

"Hm? Oh, right, that." Flavia waved Virion and her technically subordinate Khan closer to her position. "We're taking a detour before the port - a place called the 'Dueling Grounds', or something of the sort. One of the people Robin's going to be looking for has supposedly taken up training there, and there are reports of some powerful bandits in the area to boot."

"Are we not going to be avoiding those people for a little while longer?" Basilio inquired. "Didn't we agree that it would be best for Robin to face them alone, or else we may scare away the objective?"

"You seriously think you're going to scare away such supposedly powerful warriors?" Robin jabbed. "I mean, no offense, Basilio, but… uh..." he tapered off when he caught the other man's intense glare.

 _It's almost time to threaten him into relaxing._ Basilio thought. _Just a bit more goading to make it believable…_ "And what exactly do you mean by that, boy?" He practically spat the word out, both as part of the act and with genuine inflection.

"Uh… nothing?" Robin instinctively backed up behind Flavia, who rolled her eyes at the act of cowardice.

"We'll also be making a quick detour to the Ruins of Time, to ensure that Robin won't have difficulty returning there before the port in a year, should he need to." the Khan regent added, stepping sideways to expose the tactician behind her.

"What? What happened to leaving him to his own devices on those trips?" Basilio asked, surprised by the changes he hadn't been consulted on.

"That was never the plan, oaf." Flavia interposed. "We were always going to clear out stronger risen and whatever else from the sites on our path; now we're just taking Robin, Virion, and the louts over in my home with us for a few."

Robin stepped to his side to be behind Flavia again, slanting forward to whisper in the blonde's ear. "Maybe he's losing his memory." The comment earned him a lighthearted snort from the Khan, and another one-eyed glare.

 _If there was ever a time to threaten him, it sure as hell would have to be now_. Basilio reflected, and so, he began the make-or-break portion of his forceful relaxation plan. "Was that supposed to be an insult, Robin?"

Before he could repeat his last excuse, Robin was pushed forward by Flavia, who then regressed onto the throne behind her. Basilio advanced on the tactician, who forced himself to not cower.

"I don't suppose that you would like to test our mettle one-on-one, hm?" In all honesty, Basilio wasn't actually certain that he could take the tactician. The ex-Khan certainly had the upper hand in physical combat, but the grandmaster was a competent mage, something that Basilio considered to be the bane of his existence. Then again, it could be a valuable learning experience for later conflicts. Maybe he really should challenge Robin…

Robin, however, was internally panicking. He had realised how far he was taking the jokes may be dangerous, and now he was facing the result of his actions. The first resolution he could think of he latched onto, hoping now that he could make a paper-thin goad that would somehow trick Basilio into calling off the potential fight.

"That sounds like a good idea, for once, Basilio. Well done." The grandmaster immediately regretted his decision. "I mean, if I win, I get to become a Khan, right? Who wouldn't want to be Flavia's lesser half?" _Oh gods please don't actually fight me I would die in less than a second oh gods why did I do this-_

"Hah!" Flavia interrupted his thoughts. "Yes, yes! This is the greatest idea you've ever had, Robin! Come, fight, here and now!" She had picked up on both Basilio's and Robin's ploys, but found herself quite fond of the opportunity of having a non-Basilio Khan.

"A-Ah, I-I, uh…" Robin stuttered, giving the response Basilio had desired.

"Actually, I think I still want those soldiers Robin was going to fetch." the warrior tossed him a baited lifeline. "Unless you really do want to fight here and now?" He returned his attention to the tactician, who had almost recovered from his stammering.

Robin took the lifeline without a second thought. "A-Ah, of course, the soldiers. Right. A horrible shame we can't fight until later, Basilio." _And hopefully never. Seriously, I don't want to die, especially not in so… humiliating a way._

"Nice to hear that you'll take the vacation, Robin." Though he couldn't see her, Robin could still sense the smugness lining Flavia's features. He shot a glare back to her, and saw that his senses were correct.

Virion leaned into Basilio's side while Robin and Flavia were distracted. "Well done." the sniper whispered, tapping the warrior on the shoulder as he ambled toward the tactician and true Khan.

"My dearest tactician and dearest Khan, may I make a slight interjection?" Virion pulled their attention back to him, receiving a nod from the throne bound Khan.

"We were intended to arrive at the port within two days from now." the archer explained. "I would rather not leave my messenger in wait should they be in possession of vital information."

"Eh, it probably won't be that important." Flavia dismissed his concern, much to Virion's surprise. "Besides, we'll be gone for only about two or three extra days; what's that to the years she's spent in Valm?"

Virion frowned despite the ruler's words. "I truly do detest having to make her wait, I will have you know. ...Let us not dawdle, then. When shall we leave?"

"First light was good with everyone else, yeah?" Robin confirmed, receiving nods from Virion and the Khans. "Let's go with that then."

"Alright, how about dinner?" Flavia stood up off of the throne, moving herself between the grandmaster and sniper. "There are some amazing restaurants nearby, if we can get the other three out of the house. Not to mention the taverns - they're the best things Ferox has to offer!"

She pulled Robin and Virion out of the throne room with her, leaving Basilio alone within. The ex-Khan recollected his bow and plucked the fired arrows from the target, leaving those that had collided with the walls behind. He grumbled as he exited the room and maneuvered out of the arena toward his house, dropping off his weapons before making for the taverns early.

If Flavia and the others were getting wasted before an early rising, then there was no way he was being left out, even if it meant that everyone would be incapable of making the journey. After all, Flavia was the Khan regent - she was supposed to be the responsible one now. Basilio smiled before nearly breaking out into a hearty laughter, finally understanding the silver lining to losing his full authority.

* * *

 **Chapter 1 was probably the roughest part of this entire fic, and while I did end up fixing a lot of it in editing, it's still probably the weakest thing I've written so far. There are some scenes later that might be worse if I mess them up, but I think that they're in a far better position for editing than chapter 1. I wanted to set up a lot of stuff with other Shepherds, and while there probably was a better way to do it, I still can't see it.**

 **There's going to be some minor relationship building between Robin and Flavia, primarily in small stuff next chapter, but that's mostly to set up Morgan and the motivations of a major antagonist later on, and it won't have too much of an impact on the relationship between Robin and Kjelle.**

 **As always, please correct any errors you come across.**

 **Status: As of 27-12-17, I'm working on chapter 13. Chapter 12 was far larger than I had first considered, but I'm satisfied with the direction it went. I have a lot of time off for holidays, so I may update this within the next 10 or so days, provided that I get enough done. This chapter was going to go up sooner, by about 25-12-17 AKA 20 days after the last one, but servers were down (I think?), so sorry for the short delay. I'll try to stick to 20 days between uploads, but I'm also still going to keep the extra 10 day grace period just in case.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

Flavia covered her eyes with one arm, willing the world to stop constantly shaking. The Khan was lying face-up in the rear of the Shepherd's second carriage, supplied to them by a sober Flavia from times long forgotten. This carriage was piloted by Lon'qu, one of the two Shepherds from the previous night who had refused to drink, the other being his shy lover Olivia.

The Khan had found it almost charming how the two Shepherds had doted over the rest of their party all night, and now were the only ones capable of doing anything. They had even drawn up the carriage rosters, something Flavia had considered to be herculean the night prior.

Originally, Flavia and Basilio would have ridden together with all of the combined Shepherd and Khan luggage, but after the fourth or fifth barfight initiated by and against one another Lon'qu had made the executive call to change their party composition. This had led to a slew of problems, with Robin requesting to not be in the same carriage as Tharja while having Tharja and Virion together; Basilio was constantly trying to fight Robin for some reason or another, so the two couldn't be paired, and in an unusual twist, Tharja refused to get close to Lon'qu.

In an even more unusual turn, Tharja had also refused to sit with Robin unless Virion was present, and refused to sit with Virion unless Olivia or Flavia herself were present. Virion, hosting what may be the worst hangover of the group, had requested to sit either alone or with only Robin, knowing the tactician to be consistently quiet.

After much deliberation, and a lofty amount of suggestions from each Khan to leave the other behind, Lon'qu had finalised the roster: he would pilot one carriage, consisting of Flavia and Robin, as well as tend to Virion. The other carriage, piloted by Olivia and co-piloted by Tharja, was to house Basilio. Tharja had dealt the best hand of her companions, never even expressing drunkenness let alone a hangover, and was satisfied with her seating results.

Virion, on the other hand, was as cranky as could be, the prospect of having to sit in the cold for an entire carriage ride while fighting the effects alcohol in no way enticing. Still, he had ultimately decided it preferable in comparison to staying inside with either Khan. Robin, similar to Tharja, was expressing little effects of the alcohol, something which only served to perplex Flavia's slightly impaired mind.

"Hey, Robin?" the Khan regent spoke up, keeping her register low in order to spare her head some more excruciating agony. "How are you not, well… dying right now?"

"Hm?" The tactician looked up from the text he had 'borrowed' about the Feroxi landscape from Basilio's house. "Oh, I only had like… two real drinks last night, I think? It was mostly just water I had later on." His voice was almost melodical in its relaxed state, but Flavia found the noise to be grating.

"What!?" the Khan attempted to shout, her voice coming out more hoarse than she had intended, forcing her hands to the sides of her head. She continued in a far more meager tone. "...I was matching you drink for drink, though…"

"Trust me, I know. It was kinda hilarious." Robin let out a quick laugh before cringing at his friend's resulting pain. "Er, sorry…"

"I'm fine…" Flavia groaned out. "I hate you, though. Just thought you should know."

Though she couldn't see the grandmaster from her position, Flavia could still detect the dismay radiating off of his erratic movements. She lowered her arms from her head, quizzically examining him as he fidgeted in place, his book cast to the side as rubbed the back of one of his hands.

"I-I'm sorry, Flavia, I…"

"I don't actually hate you, Robin." Flavia clarified. "It's just an expression, or an exaggeration, like saying that we drank drank all of Ferox's mead." Sometimes, she forgot how little of the world the grandmaster knew.

Robin blinked and lowered his hands from their exposing position. If Flavia had known about the Mark of Grima in the slightest, he would likely have been revealed due to his body language alone. "I know what an exaggeration is, Flavia. And I know you don't really hate me. I just overreacted." _You should hate me, though._

He shook his head as if to clear it before continuing, dispelling his darker thoughts. "I'd offer you my cloak to use as a pillow, but Virion looks fairly spectacular in it."

Flavia brought her arms back to her head. "You'd say that about anyone wearing your cloak. Hell, you could probably slap it on one of the horses and you'd still compliment it."

"Not a chance." Robin held back a laugh, hesitating when he began to think of how charming the horse from yesterday had looked in his clothing. "I mean, probably not?"

Flavia rolled her eyes under closed eyelids, no longer wanting to talk any more than she felt was necessary.

* * *

Virion shivered in the cold morning air despite the wondrous cloak draped over his shoulders. Climates in northern Ferox were far harsher than in the south, with ice threatening to form on the archer's skin within the few hours he had spent outside. Granted, his insistence on bathing mere minutes before their departure may have played a role in his current predicament, but Virion preferred cleanliness to the alternative.

"You can go back into the carriage at any time." Lon'qu reminded him, aware of the sniper's status. The swordmaster was piloting the lead cart, the other tailing several metres behind him.

"I realise. Thank you." Virion replied curtly, checking over his shoulder for the other carriage, forgetting how many times he had already done so. Shuddering against a sudden gust of wind, the archer returned his attention to the road ahead. They were yet several hours from the dueling grounds, time Virion would have been keen on sleeping through were the cold not so threatening.

Blowing bitterly cold air out of his nose, Virion rotated anew in the hopes of sighting the other carriage's drivers. The action, like every single other version of it, was noticed by the progressively disquieted swordsman next to him.

"What do you keep looking for?"

Virion jumped when the voice disrupted his concentration, turning back to its source as his head pounded. "I'm looking for-" the archer paused, unsure of how much to share with the other Shepherd. "...I'm looking for Tharja." he admitted, skull straining against the force of speech as it continued to ache.

"Do you love her?" Lon'qu asked, intentionally as blunt as ever.

Virion lurched again, taken aback by the other man's forwardness but seeing no proper reason to lie. "I may hold some feelings for her, yes. I braved the cold yesterday just to offer her unnecessary aid, and was content with just being in her presence. ...Is that what love is like?" he inquired, genuinely not understanding as he had yet to experience such wholesome emotions until now.

"More or less." Lon'qu smiled. Something similar could be extrapolated from his relationship with Olivia, after all. "Does she reciprocate your feelings?"

Virion lowered his head into the comfort of the cloak, slowing the blood rushing to and fro. "...I do not know. And that scares me." He was being far more forward than he had thought he would ever be, but if Lon'qu could somehow help him, then he considered stepping out of his comfort zone to be acceptable.

"Please, for the love of all the gods imaginable, make her fall for you." Lon'qu pleaded. Virion cocked his head, the swordsman's response not being what he had anticipated in the slightest. Seeing the archer's confusion, Lon'qu elaborated. "If I have to have any more conversations with her about her obsession with Robin, I may very well end up dying."

Virion tilted his head back into the carriage wall behind him. "Right. Any sage advice as to how such a complicated thing as courting her could be done?"

"Um… no." Lon'qu admitted. If Tharja had been any other Shepherd, then perhaps he may have held some knowledge on their interests, but the sorceress' obsession with Robin made her an enigma. "Perhaps you could stalk her? Or maybe pretend to be Robin?" he suggested, gesturing to the archer's borrowed cloak.

Virion raised his eyebrows at the swordsman, mouth partially open in a judgemental sneer. "How in the world did you ever get into a relationship?" If those were the myrmidon's tactics, then he would have struck out with every woman imaginable.

"Well, it all began a little over a year ago, before the final battle against Gangrel…" Lon'qu reminisced, for once not noticing his friend's actions as the sniper clasped their hands over their face in dismay.

* * *

Olivia pulled back gently on the reins before her, adjusting for a new, rougher path Lon'qu had moved onto. Tharja sat to her right, the sorceress having not spoken a single word all morning. Olivia, feeling that the journey couldn't get more awkward than if it were made in complete silence, decided to change that.

"So, you seem to be handling last night pretty well." the dancer opened cheerily. Tharja gave no reply. "...Do you have some kind of secret to dealing with hangovers?" she continued with less certainty.

"Hexes." Tharja replied noncommittally. Olivia beamed at having successfully persuaded the tight lipped dark mage to say anything.

The ride continued for several more minutes in silence, Tharja making it apparent that she had nothing to say. Olivia frowned, considering other options to make her speak.

"So, Lon'qu said that you kissed him yesterday. Is there anything I should know?"

Tharja scoffed without looking at the dancer. "What, are you concerned?"

"No; actually, I'm kinda into that." Olivia smiled. Tharja finally turned to face her companion, mouth open and one eye partially closed in disgust.

"T-T-That was s-supposed t-to be a… a joke." Olivia hastily explained. "Y-Y'know, to, ah, lighten the mood?"

"Don't make any more." Tharja chided. "Also, know that I don't care for Lon'qu in the slightest. He just… wouldn't shut up."

"'Wouldn't shut up'?" Olivia questioned. "That seems unusual for him. What were you two talking about?"

Tharja turned her nose up and away from the dancer, mimicking one of Maribelle's trademarked expressions of abhorrence. "If I wouldn't speak to Lon'qu about it, there is no reason to speak to you, either."

"Maybe, but maybe not." Olivia said. "I mean, Lon'qu isn't exactly the most sensitive person. Maybe I could actually be of some help, and I promise I won't go overboard, okay?"

Tharja locked her eyes on the dancer, struggling to evaluate her. At last, the sorceress decided to trust her friend with one of her innermost secrets. "I find myself recently caring less for Robin and more for Virion. Lon'qu wished to exacerbate those feelings, and said some very… careless things about my relationship with Robin."

Olivia nodded her head in time with the rocking of the carriage. "So, do you actually care for them both? Like, really care for them?" she asked tentatively, not wanting to pry too far and betray Tharja's newfound trust.

"...Yes." the sorceress replied slowly, already wary of how much she was saying.

Olivia hummed to herself as she considered Tharja's options. "Hmm… I'd say go for Robin. No offense against Virion, but… okay, yeah, some offense against Virion, he seems pretty sleazy."

"He's not 'sleazy'!" Tharja countered too quickly, falling into the dancer's trap. "He's just… gods, why am I saying any of this to you?" She brought a grimoire out from her robes, opening it and returning to her isolated state.

"Hey, Tharja?" Olivia piped up after it became evident the sorceress was done talking. "I-I'm sorry if I went a bit far, but if you really do care for Virion like that, then I suggest you just try talking to him. ...It's pretty obvious that he cares for you." she added in a bid to encourage her friend.

Tharja closed her book and set it down on the wooden seat to her left. "...Yesterday, Virion followed me outside after the events in Khan Flavia's home. He offered to help me find a room and put my luggage in it, even though it was wholly unnecessary. I… felt an unusual warmth when that happened." She screwed her eyes shut as she awaited Olivia's judgement, fearing that she had revealed too much.

"Oh?" the dancer responded diffidently, still concerned about prying too far. "That sounds nice."

"...It was." Tharja said simply. The sorceress picked up her book and returned to reading, now smiling.

* * *

Lon'qu halted his carriage's movement as he caught sight of an ominous building half-buried in several days of snowfall. He stopped telling his extensively detailed tale of romance to Virion in order to evaluate his surroundings, the archer finally releasing his head from his hands in appreciation. Shouting could be heard from a multitude of voices within the structure ahead, the supposed Dueling Grounds Flavia had mentioned, despite their distance from the structure.

"Something major is happening inside." Lon'qu surmised. "Notify Robin and Flavia, and have them prepare for conflict. I'll finish my story later."

Virion leapt at the opportunity for a change of pace, then literally leapt off of the carriage seat to reach its doors. He sulked once Lon'qu's final statement sank in, unenthusiastically rousing the sleeping Flavia and half asleep Robin as he grabbed his bow and returned the cloak.

Robin slipped back into his battle attire as Flavia rubbed sleep out of her eyes. The tactician ran through his inventory of tomes and checked his sword, ensuring that the steel had remained sharp across his travels. Once he was done he did the same with Flavia's equipment, helping the almost-sober Khan through her inventory and guiding her out into the padded snowfields beyond the carriage where Virion stood in wait.

Lon'qu simultaneously walked back to the second carriage, Olivia having already stopped and Tharja having already drawn her tome. The swordmaster arced his head back to the structure in the snowfields, giving a silent command to prepare for battle as he moved to awaken Basilio.

The ex-Khan burst out of the carriage door nearest Lon'qu, startling the Shepherd with his readiness. Several empty bottles of various substances rolled out of the space behind him, falling deep enough into snow beside the road as to be uneasily recoverable. Lon'qu caught one of the containers before it could fall, recognizing the label to be that of Basilio's private wine storage and glaring at the warrior in question.

"What?" Basilio asked, taking the bottle from Lon'qu and throwing it back into the carriage. The bottle bounced off the rear wall and rolled back out into the snow. "You can't get hungover if you never stop drinking, right?"

Lon'qu pinched the bridge of his nose and mumbled a few choice words about the Khan as he circled back to the assembled Shepherds and Flavia. Disregarding Basilio's logic and how the Khan had even managed to smuggle so much alcohol aboard, the swordsman focused back on the probable conflict at hand. He caught a plate of armour thrown to him by Olivia and fastened it to his chest, Basilio following a few paces behind him and only falling face-first into the snow twice.

"Anything you can tell us about the interior, Flavia?" Robin asked, already forming a strategy based on his readings. The forests outside could prove useful for luring, but the tactician had a feeling their aid would need to be far more swift.

The Khan in question rubbed the back of her neck, thinking back to last time she had paid the grounds a visit. "There's a main hallway, which leads primarily to a large room at the rear of the building that itself has stairways to a lower level. It also branches into a bunch of side rooms, which also have access to the lower level. No idea what anything looks like down there, though."

"Got it." Robin nodded repeatedly as he considered various courses of action. "Alright, how's this: Basilio won't be able to fight properly in his current state, so he can hang back near the entrance with Olivia and Tharja, ensuring that we have a position to fall back on if anything goes awry. Good so far?"

A chorus of nods and words of approval met the query, apart from one Shepherd. Tharja glanced over to Basilio, analysing his disruptive state and knowing that he would only serve to be an annoyance. "Why do I have to be with him?" the sorceress asked, at least seeking an explanation if not a satisfying change of plan.

"It covers him and Olivia for magical capability. Good?" Robin asked again, beginning the trek to the dueling grounds as he fastened his last piece of armour, though his equipment was already far lighter than almost any of the others due to his primary armour being no more than his cloak.

He was met with an affirmative from Tharja, and so he progressed to the next part of his groupings. "Lon'qu and I will pair up, and either clear the rooms left of the hall or advance to the end, depending on what's required of us. Flavia and Virion, you two are to take the rooms on the right, or both sets of rooms if Lon'qu and I need to go further in. No one is to go into the basement unless absolutely necessary, or vice versa if the person we're looking for isn't upstairs, all right?"

More affirmative responses. The Shepherds and Khans had almost reached the grounds, Basilio being helped along by Olivia and Lon'qu to spare him from another fall. When the group reached the entryway, another challenge was posed to Robin that he hadn't considered: a locked door.

"...You don't happen to have the keys to this place, do you?" Robin asked, directing the question to Flavia. He looked around the rest of the building, large and smooth stone walls providing no windows on this face and likely not on any other. If they wanted access, the only possible means would be the front door.

"Just break it down." Flavia suggested, as if it were the most obvious solution. Robin had always prized the value of stealth, knowing that the first strike could easily decide most simple battles, but with no other viable entry point he resigned himself to losing the element of surprise.

Pulling a fire tome from one of his cloak pockets, Robin placed a gloved hand next to the lock that braced the double doors. He conjured a flame into his hand and the freezing metal cracked, a noise loud enough to hear over a great distance yet still not enough to sever the lock entirely. An excruciating scream sounded within the structure, pressuring Robin into intensifying his spell as the other Shepherds readied their weapons for immediate conflict.

Basilio and Virion both nocked arrows, silver for each, onto their respective bows. An ear-splitting blast was heard as the lock finally shattered, bursts of steam wisping off the doors as Robin retreated several paces and drew both a sword and a different tome. Flavia and Lon'qu each pushed one of the double doors open, revealing the interior to the other fighters gathered.

The dueling grounds interior was bleak, grey floors and walls lit only with torches. A brown carpet lined the centre hallway, bringing a dash of dreary colour along the building's length. Pillars lined the sides of this carpet, and Robin was able to see at least three branches to different halls on each side of the symmetrical layout, the nearest being only a few metres from his current position.

At the end of the main hallway, a sorcerer was visible in the rearmost room, dark magic emanating off of his robes as he stood over a kneeling knight. This knight had their back to Robin, but he could still see far enough to know that they were holding something - seemingly another person - in their arms. A different person was standing to the knight's right, simple armour belying a rare brave sword and carefully practiced stance. Their weapon was pointed directly at the sorcerer.

"I'm guessing the one we're looking for is either the sorcerer or the guy with the cool sword?" Robin directed the question once again to Flavia.

The Khan nodded as she advanced through the doorway. "It's not the sorcerer, since all of the reports I've received have suggested that he's the one causing trouble around here. But yeah, my money's on the hero."

Robin stopped in the middle of the doorway, his friends streaming past him. "Do you not know who we're looking for?"

"Not exactly, no." Flavia replied, twisting her upper body to examine the rooms on her left and right. She saw knights in both, though neither appeared to be rather perturbed by her presence. "I know that there are supposed to be some people for you to find across the continent, and that one of them is supposed to be here. No specifics."

"Khan Flavia!" the knight to the Khan's left greeted, his opposite companion approaching as well. "What an honour it is to have you in our humble training grounds. Please, forgive the lack of hospitality; we simply had no idea that you would be coming." The knight was drawing a lance despite his welcoming words, matching the armed soldiers before him.

"What's happening down there?" Flavia pointed her silver sword along the hallway toward the hero and sorcerer, ignoring the knight's threat.

"Nothing that concerns you, Khan." the knight responded. "Commander! Close the doors! We've got trouble!" he shouted an instant later.

Flavia frowned as she appraised the pathetically weak knights approaching her. "Look, we may still be able to resolve this peacefully. No need to-" she was cut off by an arrow and a bolt of lightning, the arrow missing but the magic successfully striking down the knight to which she had spoken.

The Khan whirled around to her companions, Basilio reloading his bow and Robin preparing another thoron spell, a familiar flame lining the tactician's eyes. "Alright then, let's ignore diplomacy." She was frustrated, but couldn't suppress her smile at the prospect of a good fight. Spinning to face the enemy on her right, Flavia easily drove the oncoming lance into the ground, plunging her sword deep into her opponent's helm.

"Lon'qu!" Robin called out as the enemy forces initiated a rallying cry. "Let's make for the far room, now!" A general had appeared out of a side path Robin hadn't noticed and stood before the room's doors, locking them shut and standing resolutely in front of them. Robin cursed under his breath at the prospect of another locked door, Gaius proving his worth to the Shepherds through their lack of presence.

Lon'qu dashed back to Robin's side, the other Shepherds also falling into their groupings. Flavia and Virion pressed forward beyond the first two side paths, Flavia engaging a mercenary near the pillars as Virion shot over her to silence a dark mage. Lon'qu and Robin sped ahead of them, pushing past another two sets of knights in the third side paths as they approached the general.

Enemy reinforcements were pouring out of the Dueling Grounds' lower level, ensuring that Basilio, Tharja, and Olivia would be preoccupied. An archer had appeared from the room Flavia had first approached, falling easily to a single shot of dark magic from Tharja. In the opposite room, a stream of dark mages were emerging from the lower level, Basilio missing shot after shot as Olivia covered him from incoming attacks.

A final arrow from Basilio grazed Olivia's shoulder, causing her to wince and lower her guard against a blast of dark magic. The dancer fell back to her friends as Tharja confiscated Basilio's bow, having already cleared her room single-handedly.

"Hey, what the hell!?" Basilio shouted over the clamour Flavia and Virion were causing in the main hall, spinning to face Tharja as the sorceress hid his equipment in her meager robes. "How am I supposed to fight without a weapon?"

Tharja eyed the silver axe the ex-Khan regent had strapped to their hip, which he had apparently forgotten about. Deciding that he would only get in her and Olivia's way, Tharja hexed the warrior into a temporary slumber, simultaneously pickpocketing a vulnerary from him and throwing it to the dancer next to her.

Olivia smiled in thanks, downing a portion of the restorative liquid before she was forced to evade another dark miasma. Tharja countered for her friend, bursts of dark magic easily cutting through the first of the enemy ranks. One of the mages at the back of the room set up a counter of their own, blocking himself and a few others from the attack. Olivia darted into the room, unceremoniously cutting her foes down in the ensuing chaos as spell collided with spell, the enemy's untrained senses failing to comprehend the perception warping that followed magic-on-magic counters.

Flavia batted away another set of lances, easily striking through the weak armour that guarded her opponents. She was doing her best to cover Robin and Lon'qu from behind, a stream of knights and mercenaries rarely threatening to overwhelm her. Virion fired shot after shot at the mages and archers that may actually pose a threat to the Khan, downing most in one or two accurate hits.

The Shepherd reached back into his quiver only to be met with thin air and cursed, having lost track of his arrow count with no viable alternative defenses. He called for a quiver from Flavia, whose small nod guaranteed that she had received the message. Virion cursed once more as he was forced into a backpedal, a knight having given up on their fruitless assault of Flavia to focus their attention on easier prey.

He fell to the ground in order to dodge a high strike, bracing himself against an armoured kick that sent him reeling for over a metre. A powerful mire spell enveloped the knight, and Virion glanced behind him to see a frowning Tharja. He raised his hand in thanks, but was met only with a scowl.

Flavia lunged into an archer, sword scraping down the front of his torso and shredding his almost nonexistent armour. She pried the man's quiver off of its position on his back and turned to find Virion, confusion setting in when the allied sniper was nowhere to be seen. The Khan's lips tightened as she was forced back into fighting another knight, the matter with Virion temporarily forgotten.

Lon'qu and Robin had finally arrived at the general blocking their path, each banking to opposite sides in order to split their foe's attention. Robin stopped at only a slight angle from his original path, and began pelting the general with weaker flame magic from one of his tomes, placing the steel sword he had drawn earlier away within his cloak. The general raised their shield to block the onslaught, something that disturbed Robin considering how effective it was.

The grandmaster didn't dare to raise the intensity of his spell, knowing that Lon'qu carried an armourslayer alongside his typical weaponry and would easily dispatch the general momentarily seeing as how the enemy was focused solely on other matters. Robin found his eyebrows drawing together as he considered his foe; by very nature of the class a general had to be well practiced. It was a foolish error to disregard any enemy, giving Robin the concern that Lon'qu wasn't as safe as he had believed.

 _Then again, perhaps this is the real ploy, and he wants me to overthink this. Maybe he really is inexperienced, and there's no cause for worry. But that could_ also _be a ploy, and there's another, smaller general hiding behind him, or inside his armour, or-_ Robin shook his head to dispel his idle thoughts, focusing instead on another barrage of attacks.

Lon'qu swapped out his killing edge for an armourslayer, returning his favoured blade to its home on his waist. He raised his arms in a diagonal, intent on finishing the general before him in a single slash. Thankfully, the general was focused entirely on Robin, and hadn't even bothered to check their other flank.

Just as he was about to bring his sword down, Lon'qu was enveloped in purple flames. The swordmaster let slip a scream, falling to his knees as he swiped at the magical embers sticking to his clothing and skin. His armourslayer fell uselessly to the ground before him.

Robin whipped his head to the side, catching sight of a sorcerer over Lon'qu's compressed form. He halted his streams of fire as he moved to the wounded Shepherd's side, realising his mistake just in time as the general sprung their lance at the tactician's head. Robin flipped his hood up, the defensive enchantments on his cloak saving his skull from being pierced but not sparing him from the strike's violent impact.

Flavia caught sight of the grandmaster's head snapping to an odd angle and broke into a sprint, noticing the injured swordsman next to him as she advanced. Virion appeared beside her at some point, and the Khan passed him the quiver she had acquired. The Shepherd stopped instantly, taking aim and loosing an arrow in a fraction of a second, saving Lon'qu from the sorcerer that had just entered his line of sight.

The general over Robin raised his lance overhead, preparing a downward strike and waiting in that stance as Flavia neared him. The Khan fell for the feint, overextending herself as she lunged to intercept the prolonged attack. The general quickly revealed their greatshield, bashing Flavia to the side and reevaluating their predicament with Robin.

The general truly was experienced, and was quickly able to realise that the enemy at their feet was wearing some manner of enchanted armour in the form of a cloak. A cursory glance revealed that the mage wore no visible greaves, and so the general lowered his weapon into the man's calf. The sorcerer next to him snapped the shaft of the steel arrow that had lodged in his chest, the metal proving less effective than its silver counterpart.

Robin was on his hands and knees when the lance connected, and he fell back onto his stomach, screaming, as the weapon was twisted out of his flesh. The general raised the lance for a second attack, aiming for the Shepherd's other calf. Robin pulled a wind tome from his cloak, fumbling temporarily as his head screamed from the first blunt hit. Just before the lance fell again, Robin redirected the metal object with a moderate wind spell, not wanting to take any chances.

The sorcerer called forth another powerful dark spell, aiming to heal the damage he had been dealt by killing the swordmaster before him. He was stopped when a second arrow from Virion slammed into his raised hand, followed by a horizontal slash from the injured swordsman.

He fell back onto the door he and his cohorts were protecting, holding his stomach with his wounded hand. The sorcerer attempted to call in another nosferatu spell, this time aiming for the grounded tactician just as his comrade had done moments ago. This time, the hit connected, healing his torso damage but proving incapable of killing the magic-resistant soldier.

Flavia grimaced as Robin sustained more damage, chastising herself for having fallen for the general's gambit. She clambered back onto her feet, recollecting her sword from its position on the ground and charging back to the stumbling general. An attack stopped her prematurely, a horizontal slash nicking the armour on her neck from behind. She spun back around, raising her sword and shield to hurriedly deflect a head-bound arrow flying from further behind her mercenary assailant.

The general leapt over Robin's prone form, crashing with all of his weight into the approaching sniper beyond him. Both men fell to the ground, Virion barely managing to roll out of harm's way as the armoured soldier collided with the stone floor. Looking back to Tharja, Virion hoped for an assist similar to before, but was met with dismay as he saw Basilio lying on the ground, Olivia parrying swipes from two mercenaries, and Tharja launching successive volleys of dark magic at a group of archers and mages.

Lon'qu charged into the sorcerer, killing edge redrawn as the last of the purple embers faded from his skin. The sorcerer was preparing another nosferatu attack to heal the remainder of his wounds, and Lon'qu slashed vertically into their raised forearm to silence the attack. He successfully staggered the sorcerer, and followed up the slash with another swipe from the opposite direction, easily slicing through the dark mage's heavy robes.

Robin was back on his feet now, left hand held against his forehead in an effort to quell its pounding. He swapped his steel sword for its levin counterpart, and hobbled next to Lon'qu as the swordmaster mercilessly cut into the sorcerer time and again. Robin tagged Lon'qu on the shoulder, pushing the other Shepherd toward Flavia as he sized up the sorcerer's condition.

Lon'qu accepted the message, quickly dashing to the Khan's side and protecting her from a second mercenary's slash. Robin heightened his levin sword at a slight angle, poised to strike deep into the chest gashes Lon'qu had opened on his opponent. The sorcerer feebly prepared another spell, but was stopped when Robin struck his arm downward. His levin sword easily pierced into flesh, followed swiftly by bursts of fatal electricity.

The grandmaster paused over his foe's sunken body, ensuring his killing blow had been successful. He satisfied his caution when the sorcerer refused to resist another course of shocks, sheathing his sword and pirouetting on his good leg to face the general.

Virion was still scrambling on the ground, knowing that simple steel arrows would be mere annoyances to so heavily armoured a foe as a general. Said general had managed to push themselves up into a kneeling position, and was staring intently at the archer before them. They suddenly lunged, lance glancing off of Virion's chestplate but opening a sizable gash on the man's upper arm.

Virion cursed, but managed to close his arm around the lance and kicked out at the general's extended fist. He successfully wrested the weapon out of the general's grip, and crawled backward until he hit a wall to evade the flurry of unarmed attacks that followed.

Robin cast a powerful bout of wind magic at the general, flipping them onto their back and effectively disabling them. He checked on Virion, receiving a thankful nod from the archer as he cast away his acquired lance. Robin turned back to the sorcerer behind him, cringing in pain as he knelt down to search for their nosferatu tome. The general struggled to right their posture as Robin patted his hands through the other mage's robes, eventually locating the tome on the floor beside the corpse.

The grandmaster rotated to face the general again, this time not bothering to stand. He flipped to a random page in the nosferatu tome, knowing that it wouldn't matter where he began the sequence from anyway, as he extended his free arm. He pretended to falter, checking both his hand and the tome when no purple particles appeared over the general or on his body.

In actuality, Robin had no difficulty casting dark magic - he had found that out over a year ago, during the preliminary phases of the war against Gangrel. Just thinking about using dark magic made the phantom pulses on his right hand reemerge, though, and Robin knew he would never willingly use any magic but anima and healing for as long as he lived.

Or at least, that was what he would tell anyone who happened to find out. He was unwilling to expose himself to his friends, at least not until the time was absolutely right. And so, knowing that Virion was still watching him intently, Robin pretended to fail at casting the dark magic, discarding the tome and swapping instead back to his favoured lightning spells.

The general had by now managed to rock themselves back into a kneeling position, surely somewhat embarrassed to admit how long that particular technique had taken them to master. They were brought back down to the ground permanently as thoron magic ripped through them, ignoring their flame-weakened armour almost entirely.

Robin left Virion to confirm the kill as he pulled a restorative concoction from his cloak, shifting his sword under one arm before downing almost the entirety of the potion's contents. He doubled back to Flavia and Lon'qu, blocking the latter from an arrow with more wind magic as Flavia cut down its source. Robin surveyed the halls and rooms around him and, seeing no hint of threats, put away his tome and sword.

Lon'qu slumped against the wall of the room the Shepherds would be entering, having come to the same conclusion as his tactician. The swordmaster's wounds were great, the sorcerer's single hit being matched by thin cuts from arrows and swords. Robin handed the remainder of the concoction to his friend, supporting him from under one shoulder as they limped back to Olivia.

The dancer in question came out to meet Lon'qu and Robin alongside Tharja, having dealt with their foes by now. Lon'qu didn't resist being passed off to his lover and likely being placed out of combat, having grown to trust Robin's orders over time and knowing that this would be the best course of action. Olivia passed Basilio's vulnerary on to Lon'qu, taking him from Robin and guiding him back to her original position near the entrance.

Robin finally noticed Basilio's prone form, almost panicking at an unforeseen loss before also noticing a complete lack of wounds on the warrior. "Is he okay?" the grandmaster asked nonetheless, not taking any risks with the possibility of death.

"He'll be fine." Tharja answered him. "He's just having a little induced nap after nearly killing Olivia."

Robin tilted his head questioningly, but couldn't ask any further before Olivia spoke up. "I-It wasn't that bad, he just missed a few shots is all…"

"And hit you in the process." Tharja rebutted. "He should be glad that he's only sleeping and not worse. If Lon'qu were here, he'd probably have been cut into little pieces by now."

Robin tilted his head once more at Tharja's apparent protectiveness and vague compliment, almost wanting to congratulate her on her growing personable behaviour. "Hey, Tharja; it's your call if you want to stay here or come with the rest of us into the last room." Instead, he gave her a choice, hopefully earning a response that he could use to gauge the sorceress' feelings.

Tharja glanced back to Olivia, whose nod and smile conveyed a simple message of encouragement. Tharja nodded in turn, slinking into position beside Robin as the two moved to the final room, not catching the tactician's smile as he watched over the two women.

Robin looked back to Lon'qu, who was staring intently at the sleeping Khan, expression almost unreadable. He made a mental note to separate them for a short time, knowing it would be best for Basilio's health, before returning to the doorway Virion and Flavia had placed themselves in front of.

Flavia fell back to one of the mercenaries she had killed, nudging him with her foot until she caught sight of what she was searching for. Straining to roll his moderately heavy form onto one side, she bent down and plucked a spare set of keys off of the soldier's waist, and threw them to Virion. She accepted Robin's proffered hand as he passed her, using it to pull herself up to a standing position as Virion unlocked the door.

Inside the final room, Robin was able to see neither the hero nor the sorcerer from earlier. The knight from before was still visible, standing near a set of pillars as they pulled their lance free from a fallen archer's torso. Another non-soldier body could be seen lying on the floor near where the three from earlier had stood, confirming Robin's suspicion that the knight had been holding someone.

Robin approached the fallen body, sizing it up in order to get a better grasp of the situation. It was a woman, aged significantly but not yet elderly; probably a few years older than Basilio. She wore simple but heavy clothing, suggesting that she was a local commoner, and a basket of remarkable similarity to what Robin had received two days ago lay near her waist, contents spilled. The grandmaster held off from theorycrafting the reason and effects of her presence, bringing his attention back to the knight.

This knight, who Robin could now determine to be female, tore her lance out of another archer and stepped away from the growing pile at her feet. She wore no helmet, or perhaps had lost it in the conflict, her hair a darker and more muted purple than the blood-coated streaks of paint lining her armour. Robin fixated on her expression, her solemn features suggesting that, to her, the civilian's death had been tragic. Even so, she carried an air of acceptance or maybe even indifference, as if she had already moved on.

 _She seems… accustomed to this. Could she be one of the warriors Flavia wanted me to find?_ Robin dispelled the thought as he caught sight of the brave sword-wielding hero, who was currently engaging the sorcerer he had previously sighted. The man was almost a blur, attacking so rapidly that even the well-weathered Shepherds and Khan would undoubtedly have difficulty in keeping pace with him. His opponent, the sorcerer, was moving almost as fast; Robin could only assume that they were in possession of a brave weapon as well.

The knight approached the newcomers abruptly, apparently having no concern for her own safety as she sheathed her weapon. "Khan Flavia; Sir Virion; Lady Tharja; Sir… Robin." She barely managed the last part, voice changing from excitement to concealed malice. Poorly concealed, at most.

Robin narrowed his eyes at the knight, mirroring her own expression. _She has no reason to hate me, right? Maybe she's somehow related to the Plegian army and sees me as a threat? Or maybe the fighting somehow exposed the Mark of- shit, shit!_ Robin hurriedly yet covertly checked his right hand, ensuring that his glove remained undamaged and the mark unexposed.

 _Okay, false alarm._ The grandmaster calmed himself, his heart threatening to burst out of his chest at the prospect of his secret coming to light. _Godsdamn that's a horrible feeling. I've got to make sure I'm more careful in any more battles. Actually, I should probably just enchant these things, too._ He clenched his hands as if to test the fabric of the gloves. _Eh, I'll do it later._

The knight shook her head, forcefully pulling her attention away from Robin. "Please, Shepherds, you have to help my teacher. He and I were going to confront and duel Cassius, the sorcerer over there-" she pointed in what Robin considered a comical manner, considering how destructive the magic flying beyond her shoulder appeared to be. "-but the coward brought an entire damn army with him, not just the few stand-ins we had agreed upon."

"Why the hell would you ever challenge such a powerful mage to a fight?" Tharja was the first to speak, her familiar cold tone resurfacing. "The two of you seem like pushovers at best." The sorceress was being purposefully insulting, both as part of her personality and as part of a technique to gauge the knight's abilities. She knew that this could be one of the warriors Flavia had mentioned, however unlikely that was, and so she felt the need to test the woman.

"Hey! I'm not-" the woman shouted then paused, breathing slowly as she recollected herself. "Give me time and I promise to be stronger than any of you."

Robin raised an eyebrow, surprised at how authentic she managed to make the answer sound. Her choice of words still struck him as a bit odd; it was as if she idolised the Shepherds, yet still had hated him.

"And what about your 'teacher'?" Tharja continued. "If you take away the brave sword, he seems like he'd be dead a few dozen times over. Is that what you're trying to learn from?"

"He's… not doing too well right now. That woman, she was his wife." The knight arced her head toward the deceased civilian Robin had examined. "He's lost a lot over a short period of time, but I assure you, he's incredibly strong. Cassius appeared in his village a few weeks ago, and he almost single-handedly repelled all of the enemy forces, not to mention all the experience he has from the last Exalt's war however many years ago."

 _Chrom's father._ Robin concluded. _Sure as hell couldn't have been Emmeryn, she would have been more memorable than a mere Exalt._ He looked back to the fighting, trying to hone in on the fast-paced hero. _He's pretty old, then, if he was a typical soldier during that time._ Robin had gone over the records from that war, and he knew that none of the conscripts below a certain age range had survived, meaning that this man was either a member of the military or was significantly aged.

 _If he had fought in an Ylissean war, it wouldn't make sense for him to live in Ferox. Maybe he's avoiding more military service?_ Robin frowned. If he was, the tactician would have to respect his wishes, even if he would still try to get the man to join the Shepherds. _I guess that just makes this a bit more complicated._

Turning back to the knight, and coincidentally away from the battle, Robin appraised the woman before him further. She was young, probably about the median age for Shepherds if Nowi was discounted. She may be a capable fighter, especially if her statement from before were true, and if so Robin decided that it would be in his best interest to recruit her, too.

"Well? Are you going to help?" The knight was switching her gaze between each of the Shepherds and the Khan before her.

Robin looked to the battle, predicting where the sorcerer would appear from within a cloud of smoke only for them to emerge from a completely different angle. They shot off ten orbs of dark magic, but the sounds of only six impacts notified Robin that he had horribly miscounted. He switched to watching the hero, but found that he was unable to so much as locate them in the clouds of purple and grey smoke.

"Yeah, there's no chance that we could take the sorcerer. I doubt your teacher can, either, to be honest." Robin shook his head, backing up to the doorway Virion had opened. "It seems like the guy's running on vengeance and a brave sword; once either of those falter he'll be dead faster than a recruit."

"What!?" the knight shouted at the retreating tactician. "Are you just going to leave!?"

"I don't have any brave weapons or healers with us, our restoratives are almost fully depleted, and Olivia's almost a building away, not to mention that we still have injured… and Basilio..." Robin ran through a checklist of his resources, flashing the weapons and few vulneraries he still had left to the knight. "So yeah, I think that would be the best option for survival for all of us. We can regroup and return later."

"You… you coward!" the knight called after Robin, causing him to freeze in place. "You can't face a powerful enemy, so you just run away!? The Shepherds I knew would never do something like that!"

Robin slowly turned back to the knight, face a derisive sneer. "What kind of Shepherds could you have possibly known?" His mind was racing through the strategies he had planned over the entire Plegian war, one pragmatic decision after another being what lead to their victory, none of which had included this foolhardy knight before him - and none of which had shown Robin's cowardice.

The knight tensed, something Robin couldn't quite place running over her features. "...The Shepherds I knew are the Shepherds who saved Lady Emmeryn from an untimely death." The grandmaster's mouth fell open at her insult.

"They are the ones who managed to save Ylisstol from a Plegian invasion, despite being outmatched and unprepared for it." Robin's mind returned to the day over a year ago when the capital had fallen, countless soldiers and innocents being slaughtered to an assault he should have foreseen. He slowly reached back into his cloak for a thunder tome.

"They are the ones who managed to pacify the mad king Gangrel, saving thousands of lives and turning him onto a path of righteousness." Robin could no longer suppress his snarl, his companions also showing looks of contempt and disgust of their own.

"And they are the ones who are going to save the world, regardless of whatever may happen. They were the people who would help others in any way possible, the people who would save anyone from anything that could ever harm them. They were the strength other people relied on." Robin hesitated, the words she had just spoken being almost what he had thought before leaving Ylisstol ad verbatim.

"What did you say?" The grandmaster placed his tome away before he had even drawn it. He approached the knight until he was incredibly close to her, earning him quizzical stares from his companions. "Who told you that?"

The knight stood several centimetres shorter than him, but still stared up defiantly as though it were natural for her. "A Shepherd did, a lifetime ago." A fire burned behind her eyes, drawing Robin further and further into them.

The grandmaster shook his head to draw himself out of her face, backing up several paces as he drew out his wind tome and levin sword. "I have no idea what kind of joke you're trying to play, lady, but here's a refresher: the Plegian invasion succeeded and crippled Ylisse. Gangrel is dead, and tens of thousands died with him. Emmeryn is dead."

Robin surveyed the battle that was somehow still going on in full force as the knight came to terms with what she had just heard. She lowered and raised her head repeatedly, as if she had two new questions to ask every time she came up with one, but held silent.

"And if I, or anyone else dies here, then that's on you."

The knight snapped her attention back up to Robin, who remained intent on observing the battlefield. "A-Are you saying that you'll help!?"

"Think you can take a round with this guy, Flavia?" Robin wasn't an idiot; he knew that the Khan was likely the only one present who may be able to take the sorcerer in a fair fight. With any luck, though, he wouldn't have to play fair.

Flavia was still watching the battle, and did not move her eyes away from the combatants. "If you've got my back, then… sure. Why not."

"Alright, try to get the hero's brave sword; it should make you able to keep up with waste magic easily." Robin waved Flavia off in the direction of the fight, turning to Virion and Tharja. "You two and I will have to keep the sorcerer busy while Flavia gets the sword. Then, I want you two to back out of the fight, okay? Be prepared for the eventuality that we fail, as well - I don't want anyone dying, so make sure you can flee with wounded in due time."

The two Shepherds gave confirmatory nods, and the three ran off in the direction of the fight. They were stopped when the knight called after them.

"Wait! I can fight, too!" She chased after them, forcing the Shepherds to a stop as they waited for her tedious approach. Robin was pleasantly surprised by how quickly she was able to move despite her heavy armour, suggesting that she did in fact that have a fair amount of practice. "I'm not as strong as any of you yet, but I can still take some petty sorcerer!"

Robin glanced back to Cassius, who casted another set of dark magic orbs that encircled the hero, only to miss and crash across the floor when they darted to a new position. Each shot shook the ground, gouging massive tracts of land either into the air or simply out of sight as smoke enveloped them. Robin had never seen this type of magic before, and doubted that any of his companions had either.

"What kind of experience do you have with fighting? Mages, specifically?" It was possible that the knight somehow knew more than the Shepherds, but the grandmaster knew that those chances were slim.

"Experience? Ha!" She had redrawn her lance and was now slamming its butt into the ground emphatically. "I've been training here for over a year, and before that I- uh… I don't know if I can actually tell you about my experience before then…"

Robin's head darted between checking on Flavia and the knight, judging her statements. "What do you mean you can't tell us?"

"Some of my friends had this idea that we couldn't, well… it's complicated, okay?" She was evidently frustrated, her head swiping from side to side to cancel her line of thought.

Tharja broke in with a question of her own before Robin could follow up, directed at the tactician. "How are we supposed to fight alongside someone who's inexperienced? We should just put a guard here to watch over her and make sure she doesn't get herself killed in her insanity."

"I'm not inexperienced!" The knight shouted back, unnecessarily loud. "I just- okay, look, I've only spent about two years of my life not training to fight. Then, even though I was still just a toddler, I learned to fight the living dead to save the world from ruin."

"...You've been fighting risen since you were a toddler?" Robin asked. "...How long have you been fighting?"

"Including the time I've spent here in Ferox…" The knight tapped her chin as her gaze flitted about the room, counting dates only she could see. "About seventeen years."

"...Okay." Robin couldn't help but raise his eyebrows. She was claiming to have fought the risen, monsters who had only appeared either in ancient legends or a little over a year ago, for seventeen years. "So you're, what… about nineteen, and have fought the risen for all but two years of your life?"

Virion slung his bow over one shoulder, having come to a similar conclusion as Robin. "I will take upon myself the noble pursuit of 'making sure she doesn't get herself killed in her insanity'. It would appear as though this 'Cassius' doesn't merit my interest, anyway." The sniper waved the other two Shepherds away, fixating on the knight before him.

"Hey, wait!" she called after Tharja and, more accurately, Robin. "I swear on whatever god it is that you worship, I'm not insane! Please, you have to believe me!"

Robin instantly attributed her words to Grima, even though such a statement could not be further from the truth. The grandmaster resisted the urge to freeze in place again, settling for allowing his emotions to play out across his face instead.

Tharja averted her eyes from Robin's features, where they had been studying every twitch and pull from as soon as the knight's words had rung out. She knew that, if Robin was truly cursed, it would likely be traced back to Grima worship. His reaction only served to corroborate her assumption.

"Now, now, my dear, I would like to request your full attention on me for now. Can you manage that?" Virion approached the knight, intent on deciding her true motives - as well as either quell or affirm his suspicions that she may be a Valmese spy. _Inaccurate information about this continent, concealing her identity and training, the desire to fight alongside us, her palpable disdain for our tactician… it makes sense for her to be a spy, even if she is terrible at it._

"What do you want?" Her voice hinted at aggression, but she remained focused on the fight instead of Virion, watching intently as Flavia wrested her teacher's brave sword from his grip.

The sniper continued on unfazed by her demeanor. "I, as you most assuredly know, am the humble Duke Virion. May I have your name?"

"Kjelle." she responded monotonously, straining to look past Virion, who was now standing between her and the battle.

 _No response to 'Duke'... if she is a spy, she is either horribly misinformed or a new recruit. In which case, the other man may be her tutor…_ "Ah, a lovely name for as lovely a woman." he continued without exposing his internal monologue. "May I ask what fighting the risen has been like for you, Kjelle? They can be fearsome foes, and I pale to think of what may have happened to one of your beauty in combat with them."

She finally brought her full attention to Virion in the form of a harsh, somewhat disgusted glare. "I'm not anywhere near as a delicate as you think. If you just assume that I'll be weak for whatever reason, but especially if you just think I'll be some damsel in distress, then I'll make it my mission to break you."

Virion raised his hands in a placating gesture, visions of redheaded cavaliers dancing through his mind. He stood his ground when Kjelle took a step toward him. "My apologies, fair Kjelle. Perhaps I could correct for my error over dinner? There is much I would like to know about you."

Kjelle resisted her urge to harm the flirtatious archer, putting all of her willpower into the act. "Anything you want to ask you can say now, no dinners."

"Certainly." Virion was running a hand through his hair, using it to disguise the contortions of his face as he considered other courses of action. _I suppose I'll simply continue to pry further into her inaccuracies…_ "Previously, you mentioned that the Shepherds would save the world. I can only assume that you refer to the events in Valm one year ago, wherein the Shepherds decimated the conqueror's forces?" _If she really has been separated from Valm for over a year, and has such horrid information, then she may find this plausible and slip up…_

"That happened already!?" The knight looked aghast, as if Virion had assaulted her just by mentioning the possible conflict. "No, I was supposed to-!" she cut herself off, biting her lower lip as she averted her gaze.

 _Checkmate._ "Is there an issue, dear Kjelle?"

She was still looking away from him, not daring to meet his sight and risk breaking down. "Did… did any of the Shepherds die in Valm?" She didn't realise it, but she was squeezing her eyes shut as tightly as possible in anticipation of Virion's response.

The sniper blinked, then narrowed his eyes. That was an odd answer, and not one he had considered. He had anticipated pure confusion, threats, playing along, maybe even an attack, but not this. _Perhaps this is just a roundabout way of acquiring information on the fictional battles? If so, I may as well describe the events in a way that is as harmful as possible._

"No Shepherds perished in Valm, my sweet. Lord Chrom, Sir Robin - and of course, I myself - made certain of that." Her expression was one of intense relief instead of fear or loss as Virion had predicted, confounding the archer further. "May I ask why you wanted to know?"

"It's a personal reason. I'd rather not say." She was still avoiding his gaze. "But, the war with Valm has concluded?"

"In the full annihilation of Walhart's forces, yes." He drew his bow, holding it in his left hand as he played with the feathers of an arrow in his right as part of an idle threat. "I must admit, the man kept incredibly accurate ledgers. Expense reports, conquest maps, troop formations, spy registries _..._ " Virion would not make the first strike, as if the knight were to do so it would be a clear admission of her guilt.

The archer searched her face for some dreg of the combative rage or entrapped fear he had planned on, but was met only with a curious stare. Kjelle was then looking past him again, watching Flavia cut into a Tharja-distracted Cassius without reprieve.

"Valm is over, and with no casualties…" she breathed out, focus transferring back to Robin as he fired thunderbolts at the limping sorcerer. "That means Robin is no longer needed."

"On the contrary. What would we do without such a tactical master on our side in future conflicts? Why, he can even be an aid in civil matters when he's not decimating our foes - the few weeks between the mad king's fall and the Valmese invasion made that clear." Virion remained studious in his lock on her face, her comment about Robin being 'no longer needed' striking as even more unusual than any other. _Perhaps she's both an enemy of Valm, and_ _an enemy of Ylisse?_

"There won't be a fut- wait, 'few weeks'? What do you mean?" the knight caught herself mid-sentence and refocused her attention on Virion.

"Only a few weeks passed between the Plegian and Valmese wars. Surely you must know this, at the least?" _Was that somehow a misstep? But how? What manner of information does she possess?_

"...Right." she responded in a colder, more distant tone. She looked over to the fight, barely catching sight of Flavia as the Khan landed the final blow on Cassius. Kjelle pushed Virion aside, moving out to her mentor now that the fight had ended. "Mind if we don't continue this later, sir?"

"But of course, dearest- wait, what?" Virion spun around to watch her retreating form. "Kjelle, you- ah, damn. And I still have no proper idea as to her motivations…"

Robin approached the hero before Kjelle was able to reach him, weapons unequipped after the battle against Cassius. "Hey, uh… sorry about interjecting into that whole thing, but we did what we thought was necessary. I hope you can understand."

Kjelle quirked her head at the grandmaster's statement, confused. _Why does he sound like he's apologising? They just helped- ah._ Her gaze wandered back to the fallen civilian, her teacher's wife. _He wanted revenge, didn't he?_

"I'd like to have my sword back now, if I may." Her teacher's words were tense and demanding, not what she had hoped they would be in such a comparatively happy ending to the alternative of his own death on top of his wife's.

Flavia unceremoniously lobbed the sword back to his feet, not taking a break from the consumption of her vulnerary. He glared at her for the disrespect, and was flipped off in return. The Khan lowered her vulnerary to speak. "Next time, don't make me argue for it in the middle of a potentially deadly fight." He looked about ready to burst at Flavia, but with what emotion, Robin couldn't exactly place.

"Speaking of next time!" the grandmaster cut in, stepping between the two before the hero could begin his aggressive advance on the Khan. "I would like to make you an offer for a position with Ylisse's Shepherds, or at the very least her military. You seem capable; you'd just have to pass a simple test to register, all right?"

"A combat trial?" The hero scratched his chin before his eyes lit up, temporarily extinguishing the anguish Robin was able to see in their depths. Somehow, they came off as even more pained to the grandmaster. "Absolutely! Come, mage, let us fight!"

"What? No, it's more like personal information and a written exa- whoa!" he was cut off by a thrust from the other man's brave sword that he barely managed to avoid.

"Have at you, mage! This shall be the battle of a lifetime!"

Kjelle couldn't help but contain her laughter at the tactician's frail attempts at dodging her clearly superior tutor, Flavia snickering on occasion as well. Virion and Tharja, however, both held looks of varying concern on their faces.

"Can - you - agh!" Robin shouted as the sword nicked his inner thigh, a small amount of blood being felt draining but not visibly. "Stop!"

The hero refused to relent, increasing his pace if nothing else. Robin bit back another cry as the sword swiped dangerously close to his neck, barely missing. Flavia had stopped laughing by now, joining the Shepherds in a state of perplexed concern.

Robin, despite being brought increasingly close to a swift death, was holding back his own excitement. _This man may be more capable than Flavia in his right mind, considering how he held his own solo against Cassius while grief-stricken. This could be the perfect opportunity to grow stronger, if he would stop taking it so seriously…_

Rather than call for help and have the swordsman halt, Robin decided to play along. _I'll just have to be serious too, then._ He tried to bring out one of his tomes or swords, but the hero was far too fast with their brave sword equipped. Robin cursed under his breath as the sword glanced off of his cloak, speeding up ever further.

 _I could use blood magic…_ It was an archaic practice from a time before tomes, and was therefore risky and horribly inefficient, draining the user's vitality in order to cast spells. It could theoretically be used up to the brink of death, although Robin had never actually attempted to use it to that degree, having only ever read on the subject. _Blood magic may just make me die faster if I make a mistake, though._

 _I could try to disarm him, I guess?_ The hero lashed out with a quartet of attacks Robin could barely keep track of, at least two of the hits landing on his enchanted cloak. _Yeah, because that could totally happen._

"Hah, not going to bring out a tome, mage? I expected more from you!" Something was off in the hero's voice, his taunt sounding almost like a plea.

"Magic can be cast without a tome, soldier. I would think that you'd've known that." Robin was trying his best to sound cocky, suppressing the tremors in his voice that arose from both excitement and caution.

"Er, Robin, are you…?" Flavia failed in gathering the combatant's attention, her concern fully manifesting, bringing her into the same window as Virion and Tharja.

Kjelle had finally stopped laughing, due solely to how long the joke was running and not its hilarity's diminishing return. The knight had to admit, having the cause of her world's ruin killed so quickly would be a godsend, and there was something uncannily funny about such a demon falling so easily. She considered briefly that she may be laughing out of nervousness or desperation, knowing that the fell dragon's avatar was going to be near impossible to kill, but forcefully dispelled that thought with another chuckle.

Sparks were beginning to manifest in Robin's right hand, his left focused on shooting lesser wind magic to interrupt the hero's movement. It was almost concerning to the tactician how effective his assault was - the hero hadn't landed a hit since he had begun. _Was I really considering this guy for the Shepherds? Someone who can't handle basic combat situations?_

Robin's mental insults were silenced when the hero lunged forward through the wind, tackling him to the ground and holding his hands to either side of his body. He had discarded his brave sword in the attack, something Robin considered to be incredibly foolish considering that he had just told the man of the possibility of casting tomeless magic.

"Guess I wouldn't make a half bad Shepherd, hm?" The hero spoke, a very short and uncomfortable distance separating the two fighters. Robin cursed when he realised that his hands were fully pinned; he couldn't even rotate his right to cast his thoron spell. He had been defeated. _No matter. I'll just get stronger, until I'm capable of kil- defeating. Defeating him. I'll just have to keep training until then, and never let up until-_

"It's a shame you managed to kill me." the hero said, his words breaking Robin out of his thoughts, the tactician wearing the same expression denoting his lack of comprehension that each of the bystanders in the room also wore. Then, he caught sight of the hero's eyes once more, the loss and sadness no longer thinly veiled.

The hero took a tight hold of Robin's right wrist, pulling it into place on his upper chest. Robin would have been unable to hold the blood magic any longer even if he had tried. The thunder spell coursed through the hero's body as a yellow-white beam erupted from his back, shooting up into the ceiling.

What should have been a gut-wrenching sizzling was audible from Robin's position under the hero, but the tactician felt no emotion of the sort. In fact, he was feeling almost elated at having killed someone that had nearly bested him, regardless of the other man's circumstances of death. Robin now realised that he had felt nothing at the deaths of the other soldiers, or even Cassius; only this man's death had been able to temporarily wash away the grey nothingness before the feeling would undoubtedly return in full.

"No!" Kjelle screamed, running to catch her teacher's body as it fell off of Robin. She failed, the combatants being too far away to reach and the man's body colliding dully with the stone floor. "Y-you…" she addressed Robin. "What the hell did you do!?"

Robin blinked, trying to regain focus after the fight and losing himself to his post-battle reflection. "Uh… w-what?" He asked almost incoherently, panicking internally as a familiar greyness made itself welcome in his mind.

"You murdered him!" The knight was screaming now, although Robin supposed that he could understand it this time. She had to have some kind of emotional connection to someone she had trained with for so long, after all. "He… h-he…" Her hands instinctively clutched at her lance.

"Back away, knight." Flavia had approached the tactician a few steps behind Kjelle, and was now holding the woman's right arm in place with her hand, preventing the knight from drawing her weapon.

Kjelle gave an attempt to wrest her arm free, but was easily stopped by the Khan, who resumed speaking. "You're having a heavy emotional response. I get it, really - but Robin shouldn't be a target for it. Your teacher chose his fate, even if you disagree with it, and I know that I sure as hell do. Just don't let it get too far into your head, okay?"

Flavia released her grasp on the arm, which fell limp to the knight's side. She looked back to Robin, who was still evidently dazed. "I'll bring him back to the rest of our group, and you can have some time here alone with your teacher. We'll be waiting at the entrance to talk to you, alright?" she tapped the knight's shoulder as she passed on her way to Robin, ensuring her message got across. The Khan knelt on one knee to wrap one of his arms around her neck, pulling him up as she stood and made to leave, also discreetly looting the hero's brave sword before Kjelle could even notice. The two were followed closely by Tharja.

They collapsed just outside the room, Robin barely making any effort to walk as he tripped over a certain general's lance. He was zoning in and out, free hand clutched to one temple in a futile attempt to counter the grey. Flavia caught him before he could fall completely, descending to her knees to match his new pose.

"Look, Robin…" she dropped his arm and was now holding him by the shoulders. "It's…" she sighed and shook her head, not knowing how to console her friend and settling for leaning in to hug him. She moved her lips as close to his ear as possible to continue her attempt. "I'm sorry."

Robin blinked several times as he returned to his senses, wondering what sequence of events could possibly have led him from pushing a dead body off of himself to being embraced by Flavia in a different room. He was conflicted as to whether he should pull away or lean further into the hug, and so sat there awkwardly, not knowing what to do now that he had full control again.

A combination of the Khan's warm breath on the side of his neck, her equally warm body pressing into him, and Tharja's variety of flabbergasted or confused expressions eventually led Robin to lightly push himself away from Flavia. The Khan's face showed only concern, not mirroring the blush making its presence obvious on his own. She maintained her gentle hold on his shoulders even when he knelt back, his body at the edge of her reach.

"U-Um… Thanks, Flavia. But, you have nothing to be sorry for." Robin made an attempt to rise, forcing himself up out Flavia's grasp. The grandmaster brushed nonexistent dust from his legs as he stood, hesitating before performing any uncertain acts.

"I don't have much to be thankful for right now either. At least you're safe, though?" It was more a question than a statement, her concern refusing to fade now that she had finally acquired it. Robin faltered when he attempted to walk to the entrance, and had to slide his hand along the wall in front of him to stabilize himself as he left. "...Are you okay, Robin?"

"I-I'll be fine." he said, refusing to turn around and expose the overly red condition of his face, and he slid further along the wall until he was nearer the entrance than the Khan.

Flavia huffed as she stood, dispelling the subtle redness that had begun to creep onto her face as well. She turned to check on the knight she had left behind, jumping back slightly when she came face to face a wide-eyed and open-mouthed Tharja.

"Ah, Tharja, you uh… you saw that?" the Khan asked, uncharacteristically sheepish.

Tharja righted her facial expression, returning to her standard unenthused features as she nodded. The sorceress proceeded to raise her eyebrows in as suggestive a manner as she could manage, Flavia responding with a glare of her own.

"What?" the Khan challenged, ineffectively willing the sorceress' eyebrows to lower. "Are you seriously pretending that you haven't done anything similar?"

Tharja refused to change out of her new expression. "Well, obviously I have, but due to Robin's value of 'personal space', it was always when he slept." she said, using her fingers to form air quotes around the meaningless words. "Not to mention that I'm me, and you're you. There's a bit of a difference as to what you and I would normally do, and that was not normal for any of us, Robin included."

Intense glare met with suggestive smirk, sparks refusing to fly as Flavia finally let Tharja's lack of anger sink in. "Wait, you're… not mad? I would've thought that you'd want to kill me by now…"

Tharja looked to the side in a refusal to meet the Khan's gaze. "Perhaps it's finally time for he and I to see different people." The sorceress wasn't entirely certain of what she was saying, but if Lon'qu was right… then maybe they both had better prospects.

"It's not like that, it's-" Flavia shook her head and groaned in frustration. "...I don't know what it's like." Her eyes followed the tactician as he met up with the other Shepherds near the entrance, Lon'qu supporting him with one arm as Olivia pickpocketed another vulnerary from Basilio. Robin refused it, earning an odd look from the dancer as he began speaking to the swordsman. "Whatever Lon'qu talked to you about really got into your head, huh?"

Tharja's reply was cut off by a scream coming from within the rear room. Both women's attention whipped back to the sight of a wounded Kjelle facing them with one knee on the floor, other leg splayed outward with an arrowhead protruding from above her shin. Tharja glanced over to Flavia, receiving no reply as the Khan sprinted into the room. She sighed and began following lazily behind, not particularly concerned with the knight's condition.

* * *

Kjelle was seated next to her teacher's body, one hand resting on his lifeless chest as if it would somehow defy all odds and begin rising. She could feel the serrations from where the thunder magic had met armour and cloth, the wound still warm to her touch. Her eyes almost managed to defy her by filling with tears, but she managed to retain her demeanor.

Virion stood with one shoulder slanted off of a wall, resting as he watched the knight intently. Flavia had already carried Robin out of the room, and was followed soon after by Tharja, the dark mage's absence only being noticed by her secret noble admirer. The sniper had easily heard the Khan's parting words to Kjelle, mentioning the need to give the knight time alone with her teacher, but clearly Flavia did not suspect her of being a spy as Virion did. Were she to slip up, now would be more likely a time than any other, and Virion was intent on taking advantage of that fact.

Kjelle moved her hand up from her teacher's chest to his eyes, closing them with a gradual movement of her hand. She sat back, one hand pressed against the ground behind her as a means of supporting her body as the other rested over one knee. "Gods, how many more times am I going to fail… how many more people will die?" Virion's attention was piqued the moment she began talking. "I guess that's just another promise to make, then."

She brought her resting hand around to her other side, pushing herself up off the ground as she swiped her hands together in an effort to remove any dust from them. "Alright, then. I'll make my vow again, now with you in it." She was speaking to the corpse, and Virion was thankful he already had his bow prepared - she was acting incredibly strange, and this time he wouldn't hesitate to make the first strike if she made any inexcusable errors.

"I promise that I will kill Robin. That I will save this world, and anyone who would die to his han- gah!" she was cut off as the first of Virion's arrows pierced the posterior of her left grieve, sliding in through a miniscule gap in the armour and silencing her promise. Virion had nocked and fired the arrow in a single movement the instant she had mentioned killing Robin.

Kjelle worked her way around in a small circle, facing first the sniper and then past him, toward the room's entrance. She kept her wounded leg extended, but fell to one knee during her turn, unable to stand. Flavia quickly bounded into the room, followed a second later by an uninterested Tharja. Flavia paused when she finally took in the full scene, unsure of how to react. Tharja was somehow unsurprised by the development, although she did raise her eyebrow when Virion reloaded his bow.

Kjelle looked back to the sniper, and found herself staring down the length of another steel arrow. "S-S-Sir V-Virion!?" She bit back an urge to scream or cry, rendered equal parts harmed physically and mentally from the attack. "W-What are y-you… d-doing!?"

"Protecting my friends, dear Kjelle." he replied nonchalantly. "I'm afraid you cannot live if you make promises to kill Shepherds. It is a simple fact that I must eliminate threats, even if you are not a Valmese spy. War is looming, after all - I can't have my master tactician dying on me, or the Shepherds."

"S-Spy?" Kjelle choked out as she struggled to stand, failing and collapsing onto her knee once more. "Wait, w-what war?"

"A potential war against Valm." Virion explained, drawing back his bowstring. "I must admit, It is quite a bother; the Shepherds are my greatest hope for defeating Walhart, and yet they have no experience fighting Valmese soldiers, and their tactician insists on overworking himself to compensate."

"Y-you…" Understanding was dawning on Kjelle's face. "You lied! You t-tricked me!" She pulled at the arrow in her leg, wincing when it refused to budge yet drew more blood.

Flavia couldn't decide whether to stop Virion and offer the knight - 'Kjelle', as Virion had informed - a healing potion, or watch the situation play out. Virion had orchestrated something since meeting the woman, and the mention that she may be a spy did merit some consideration. Beside her, Tharja gave an exaggerated yawn, then left to fetch Robin.

"Tricking you was necessary to gather information, my sweet." Virion still had his arrow drawn, but his bowstring was relaxing as he contented himself temporarily with simply talking. "Now, would you care to explain what you really are, or will another arrow be necessary?"

"I-I'll explain." Kjelle acquiesced, mind running through the few scenarios where her explanation didn't make her sound even more insane. "J-Just… know that you may not believe me right away. It's… pretty f-farfetched."

Virion gave her time to recollect herself, wary that she may be forming a rushed lie. The knight wheezed on the ground, failing again at trying to rise, and cast her head downward in defeat. After a few more seconds had passed, Tharja reappeared, Robin, Olivia, and Lon'qu in tow. The sleep hex from earlier had either worn off or been removed, as Basilio was ambling up the hallway behind them, stumbling as he went.

Kjelle took no notice of the new arrivals as she began her explanation, head still lowered. "I-I'm a time traveller, from a future that w-w-was destroyed by the f-fell dragon, Grima. Naga sent myself and s-several of my friends through these weird p-portals, hoping that we could s-somehow save the world. M-My friends, I don't know what h-happened to them, but if you can find them, they'll just c-confirm what I'm saying." She was still fighting through the pain of her wound, and the further she had to compensate for it, the more it seemed to hurt.

Virion frowned and shook his head. "I granted you almost a minute to formulate something believable, and that is what you return to me?" He drew his loaded bowstring up to his cheek, taking aim for the woman's exposed head. "Honestly, I feel almost insulted."

"Stop, Virion." Robin stepped next to the archer and weighed his bow down with one hand. "We shouldn't kill her, even if she is insane."

"You don't understand, Robin. Part of her grand design was to murder you - she admitted as much here in this room, as soon as you left." Virion argued, intent on ending the woman's life and saving his friend.

Robin glanced back at Kjelle's fallen form, her head having shot up when his voice came into play. "You managed to cripple her with a steel arrow, Virion. I don't think she'll pose a threat to anyone."

"That was due to my skill and strength alone!" Virion continued to argue, taking the opportunity to boast without a second thought. "She may very well be capable of ending your life, or another's."

"We can help her, though - or at the very least, I can." Robin rebutted. "I can take her to find these friends of hers while I'm on vacation, and I doubt she's strong enough to kill me, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. Not to mention that that'll separate her from anyone else in the Shepherds."

Flavia interjected before Virion was able to respond. "You're not saying you actually believe her, are you? Because that's one of the worst stories I've heard in a long, long time."

"Oh, hell no. I don't believe any of that stuff. I mean, time travel? Seriously?" he scoffed, and Kjelle couldn't help but be angered by his immediate dismissal of the truth, regardless of how absurd she herself had considered her explanation to be. "But the idea that someone who just lost what may have been their only trace of a family wants to find their displaced friends? That I can understand."

"What if these 'friends' are nonexistent, and are the desperate ploys of a woman on death's path?" Virion countered. "Or, even worse, they may exist and be in league with her."

Robin shrugged as he gestured Olivia over to Kjelle's front, pantomiming the use of a vulnerary. "Like I said, Virion, it's a risk I'm willing to take. I'll be going on the vacation anyway; the least I could do is aid a potential Shepherd." He stepped behind Kjelle's extended leg, kneeling to examine the arrow.

"You cannot be serious! Her, a Shepherd?" Virion recoiled at the very thought. "She's going to try to kill you, Robin! Why can you not understand that!?"

Robin used his position behind Kjelle to hide his face from view. "I understand in full, Virion. She's welcome to try; I'll just have to beat her every time. Plus, I think I may actually be believing her when she talks about how strong she can get - at least she has conviction." _It'll be good to have a constant challenge, right? It'll help me get stronger. And if she does end up winning at some point… oh well. Frederick, Flavia, Cordelia, Sumia, Chrom… they can look after the Shepherds well enough. If I can't keep up with some knight, I probably wouldn't be able to help them against Valm, anyway. And all this 'future' stuff..._

Kjelle batted at Robin's figure behind her, missing with every flailing attempt to move him. The grandmaster ripped the arrow out of her leg, causing her to scream as the head caught on her armour, requiring it to be twisted out. Olivia immediately followed up by forcing the vulnerary into her mouth, almost choking her on the healing liquid. Her wound sealed from the vulnerary's effects, allowing her to stand without need for aid from another. She took another dose of the vulnerary, this time of her own volition, before passing it back to Olivia.

"This is idiocy, pure and unabashed idiocy!" Virion spun on his heel in order to exit the room, brushing coldly past his allies. He paused at the edge of the doorway, directing his gaze back to Kjelle. "If you kill any of the Shepherds, then I swear I will draw your death out for as long as I can be bothered." The iciness of his eyes pierced into Kjelle, and she knew that he was making no idle threat - a Shepherd was genuinely threatening to kill her. She shivered imperceptibly in her armour as Virion returned to the main entrance, the notion of being an enemy to the Shepherds an absolutely terrifying one.

"Wow. I don't think I've seen Virion make a death threat before." Robin said, smiling to Kjelle. "He must really hate you."

The knight open her mouth to disprove him, but said nothing when she became conscious of the fact that he was more than likely correct. Tharja picked up for her. "It's not exactly difficult to hate her, if what he said is true." The sorceress departed the room in pursuit of Virion, leaving her words hanging in the air for the others to interpret.

Lon'qu never averted his narrowed stare on Kjelle, fixating solely on her despite the surrounding conversation. "May she and I have a moment alone, everyone?" He wasn't keen on having another solo conversation with anyone of the opposite sex, but he appreciated the lack of a confined space this time.

Flavia arched her eyebrows at the swordmaster as she cracked an indecent smile. "You sure you don't wanna hide in the closet a bit longer?" Lon'qu glared back at her, and the Khan faltered. "Yeah, that was… that was bad. Sorry. Uh… bye." She backpedaled out of the room, dragging a semi-conscious Basilio after her before he could make any snide comments to the swordsman.

"Wait, is that why he's 'scared' of women?" The ex-Khan managed to sneak in one remark before Flavia clamped her hand over his mouth, shushing him and giving Lon'qu a weak smile in forgiveness.

She accelerated her pace in pushing the warrior out of the room, whispering to him in hushed tones in order to prevent any more input from the ex-Khan. "C'mon, Basilio, you don't want to start a fight right now - especially not if you're still hungover." Basilio let loose a myriad of guttural noises, some of which could be interpreted as acceptance, as he was shoved out of the room.

Shrugging, Robin followed the Khans into the hallway, leaving Lon'qu, Olivia, and Kjelle within. The dancer reached up to kiss her lover on the cheek before meekly departing, mortified that she had done such a thing in front of a stranger.

Confusion was written plainly across Kjelle's face, although Lon'qu either disregarded it or didn't notice it as he began to address the knight. "Why do you want to kill Robin?"

Kjelle dispelled her expression in preparation for her response. "He was a major threat in the future, sir. In fact, he was likely the sole cause of its downfall." Her face adopted its downcast rendition once more, memories better left forgotten bubbling to the surface of her mind.

Lon'qu had more difficulty ignoring the 'sir' in her statement than considering anything else, but he managed to ignore it in order to continue his sequence of questions. "'Likely'? Are you not certain?"

"Well…" _No, I can't hesitate now. If I can get sir Lon'qu to believe me, then I may actually have an ally within the Shepherds… I can win them over._ "I never witnessed it myself, but every Shepherd stated that he betrayed everyone, becoming Grima. Sir, you must believe me, Robin is malicious. He is Grima's avatar; his heart. If he lives, he will become Grima, and bring ruin to the world - and it cannot come to that. So many people would die, murdered by that man. We have to stop him, no matter what."

Lon'qu nodded slowly as he appraised her words. "You sound an awful lot like Robin. He's already explained as much to me as you have, without the whole 'future' thing."

"What?" Kjelle asked in asked in an utter lack of understanding. "He… told you this already? ...And you let him live?"

"I saw the Mark of Grima, and so he explained everything to me. He wants to tell everyone in the Shepherds, but is waiting until he thinks the time is right, however long that may be. And yes, I 'let him live' - there is no reason to kill someone over something so meaningless."

"'Meaningless'!?" Kjelle cried out, suppressing the growing despair in her voice. "Robin became Grima! He hunted down Shepherds and slaughtered nations! He destroyed everything!"

"It kind of seemed as though Robin actually accepted the 'necessity' of his death for a while." Lon'qu continued, ignoring her outburst. "He had some manner of arrangement with Frederick that, should he fail to control the taint of Grima within him, the knight commander would strike him down. Frederick refused to uphold his vow recently, as even he knew that Robin would never succumb to the Grimleal."

"Sir Lon'qu, please, please believe me!" Kjelle pleaded, desperation no longer hidden. "Robin will become Grima, and he will destroy the world. It cannot be avoided; he has to be stopped!"

"I see no reason as to why Robin wouldn't be able to overcome the Grimleal in his own right. He is determined and capable, and I believe that if anyone could do it, it would be him." The swordmaster crossed his arms over his chest before continuing, both his body and tone now radiating sternness. "Which is why I will not tolerate any attempts on his life. He is a good person, and you would do well to remember that - he will not become Grima." he added as an act of finality.

"But I'm telling you, sir, he becomes Grima in my future! No matter what anyone may try peacefully, it will happen - he has to be killed before then!" She no longer acknowledged how desperate she sounded, though she knew it must have been a great deal.

"Enough about your 'future', knight." Lon'qu berated. "You may not know this, but Robin is an amnesiac. If you possess any knowledge from the time before about a year and a half ago, it may be vital in stopping the Grimleal, or otherwise assisting Robin."

A cold dread was beginning to accompany Kjelle's heightened despair. "You… you don't believe me? You still think I'm lying?"

"I am no idiot, knight. I will not be drawn in by such absurd tales as time travel and world-ending dragons. But if you have some manner of information that may aid Robin's eventual efforts against the Grimleal, then please, share it with him. It would be of immense value." Lon'qu left after saying his piece, leaving Kjelle in the room by herself.

She stood alone for an extended period of time, not daring to move out of fear of either collapsing or causing another outburst. Eventually, she calmed and moved out of the room toward the Shepherds gathered at the entrance of the building. _I'll go with them, then - with Robin on this 'vacation' of his. I won't be able to harm him with anyone one else around, but if he's alone I may have an opportunity. I can't count on help from anyone in the Shepherds, either… so I guess my course is set._

 _I'll just kill Robin myself._

* * *

 **Hooray, Kjelle's finally here! She doesn't really do much aside from get shot in this chapter, but a fair bit of stuff is established, as always. Her character is fairly important, since she is one of the two main characters, so while there isn't much to go off of yet I'd like to know if anything's ever wrong with her personality in this story. Some characters, including her, may be strained at times to pull off certain scenes, but their basic characterisation shouldn't waver that much.**

 **Also, since it may not be quite clear yet due to how I've been using him, Robin's personality in this fic will deviate slightly from normal. He'll be going from vaguely an asshole, to wavering between asshole and non-asshole, to peak asshole, to recovering asshole over the course of the first major 'arc' of the story. 'Asshole' is also used very vaguely here, but the general use stands.**

 **Status: As of 07-01-18, I've finished chapter 13, which currently stands as the largest unedited chapter so far at over 22k words. It was originally meant to be less than a single scene, but it got a little out of hand...**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

Robin balled the wrapper of a nondescript candy in his fist, dropping it into a pile of similar waste in his care package. The basket, finally emptied, was deposited onto the floor next to his feet. He angled his head up to Kjelle, who sat across from him in the carriage and had refused his offer of a snack. He winced as the carriage hit a bump, the wound on his leg from his conflict with the hero reminding him that Virion had used the last of the Shepherd's healing potions. Flavia still had some left, and he had no issue in taking any Basilio may have, but they would be a carriage away for the remainder of the day. He hastily applied a bandage to it, wrapping it amateurishly around his leggings without paying too much attention to the process.

The Shepherds, Khans, and Kjelle were all travelling to the Ruins of Time in northern Ferox, an abandoned shrine to Naga that was supposedly the ultimate destination of Robin's vacation, although why that was the case the grandmaster had no proper idea. The journey would last until approximately midnight when, if driving conditions permitted, the group would arrive at and make camp near the ruins. They were to scout the temple from outside, Flavia and Basilio both refusing the proposition to enter the ruins until a later date. From there, the group would travel down to Port Ferox and await Virion's messenger.

Olivia and Lon'qu were both piloting a carriage once more, but this time together, as Basilio had been made to guide the other as a penance for his drunkenness in battle. The ex-Khan had initially argued over this, but fell in line upon hearing that he had harmed Olivia as a result of his behaviour, and that he may have been prepared to fight Lon'qu for no dignified reason. Tharja rested alongside Flavia in the carriage he was piloting, Virion, Robin, and Kjelle sitting in the other. The knight had decided to take Robin up on his proposition to find her friends, citing a conversation with Lon'qu as her reason for trusting the tactician, as the swordsman was apparently a miracle worker considering his effects on her and Tharja.

Arrows slid out of Virion's acquired quiver, his bow having almost fallen off of the seat next to him in the bump. The sniper replaced his equipment, keeping it exposed and prepared in order to intimidate and, if necessary, kill Kjelle. He had refused to allow Robin to speak to the woman alone, and was now writing copies of his correspondences with the informant on Robin's right as the grandmaster considered how to begin speaking with Kjelle. She had sat in silence as Robin ate, alternating between watching his every movement and losing all focus, almost succumbing to sleep at least once during a calm lull in the ride.

"So, what's your name, knight? I don't think I ever caught it back in the Dueling Grounds." Robin opened. He did his best to come off as kind or personable, but was met with only a cold stare from the woman. "You know, if we're going to be working together, it'd be pretty much necessary for you to actually talk to me."

The knight stared at him for a while longer, taking her time to decide whether or not to speak. "My name is Kjelle." she eventually responded. "That's with a 'K' and a 'J'."

"With a… what?" Robin asked, confused as he tried to somehow format a K and J into 'Kjelle'. "Can you spell that out for me, please?"

"'K','J','E','L','L','E'." she said in a single exasperated breath. "Anything else?"

"Well, what are you like combat-wise? Flavia said that there will be fights on this vacation - slavers and risen, specifically."

"I can hold my own." Kjelle answered. "I'm trained as a knight, so I have armour and lance practice. Nothing special." She kept any mention of the conditions in the future out of her response, knowing that everyone in the caravan had already dismissed her claims.

"Can you ride a horse, in combat or out of it? And do you have basic survival knowledge?" Robin had never considered how much Kjelle may weigh him down. Knights were by nature slow and bulky, and not the best companions for cross-country escapades.

"I can ride passably outside of battle. I can't fight on any kind of mount unless absolutely necessary, though." It wasn't for lack of trying; her tutors had been adamant that she learn to ride in order to maximise her combat ability. She was terrible at it and would have liked to improve, but then horses started becoming scarce, not to mention wyverns, griffons, and pegasi, and her training transitioned solely to foot-locked discipline. "And yeah, I know how to survive."

"Right, right." Robin nodded as he considered more questions, now that she was finally being cooperative. "Have you ever fought alongside or against mages before? There's a pretty unforgiving learning curve, even compared to normal fighting."

"I've fought alongside one mage - a guy named Laurent, one of the friends I mentioned - but that was pretty minimal experience-wise." She had typically remained in proximity to the physical fighters of her group, favouring their styles over the mage's. "I've only fought enemy mages a few times, and they always managed to cause me some pretty serious trouble, but nothing I couldn't handle."

"Okay, I'll probably have to show you a bit of full magic combat before I can consider your recruitment, then." Robin said. Virion humphed from his position next to the tactician, but remained silent otherwise. Robin resumed speaking when he was certain the archer had nothing to say. "Do you have any kind of leads as to where your friends may be, or any information that may help us find them?"

Kjelle shook her head. "Not a clue. I had kinda hoped that they had already made contact with the Shepherds, and done away with the stupid plan to stay hidden. It would've made my presence here a lot easier to work with."

"Why were your friends going to make contact with the Shepherds?" Virion interjected, finally looking up from his correspondences to glare at the knight. "And please, don't attempt to divert our attention with any absurdly tall tales about the future."

"They're not-!" Kjelle calmed herself before continuing, having to remind herself to be wary about her and her companion's early lives. "...My friends and I wanted to help the Shepherds, to fight alongside them. A lot of them, including our leader, wanted to conceal their identities."

Robin spoke up before Virion could cut in again. "Was this 'Laurent' not one of those people?"

Kjelle cursed quietly, but still loud enough for Robin and Virion to hear. "No, actually, he was. ...He was one of the most adamant ones in support of the idea."

"Who among you didn't support the idea to stay hidden?" Robin followed up.

"...I won't tell you their names. Even if I have messed up already, I won't do it any more." Kjelle said.

Robin rubbed his chin in thought, formulating more questions. "Why did anyone in your group want to stay hidden, and why did you not?"

"It would only make sense if you bought the time travel stuff. And I made myself known because I thought it was necessary to save my teacher." she smiled in a sardonic manner that Robin thought only himself capable of. "Guess that went pretty poorly, huh?"

"Correct!" Virion piped up, voice grimly cheery.

The sniper was silenced from any further comments by his grandmaster's glare. Robin quickly returned his gaze to Kjelle, eyeing her carefully as he smiled in order to offset the darker remark. "...At least now we can help you."

"Anyway, what are your friends like? Surely there's something you can tell us about them without saying too much." Robin allowed his smile to gradually fade as he became serious once more.

Kjelle gave brief rundowns of each of her friend's unimportant details, mentioning their appearances and basic combat abilities, but not mentioning any names or exposing qualities. She fabricated much of Nah and Yarne's information, knowing that saying almost anything would be too much. This went on for longer than Virion was willing to pay attention for, Robin remaining rapt every step of the way.

"Last but not least is… Marth, an incredibly skilled and powerful swordsman." she said, catching herself on the final person, barely remembering the moniker the princess had insisted on using. "He was more or less our leader, and was the one who wished to remain hidden more than anyone else. He idolises the Shepherds, hates you, and has a horrible sense of fashion."

Robin raised an eyebrow at the mention of the 'man', Virion returning to attention as well. "...You know, if you say that every one of your friends hates me, it kind of loses its meaning."

"Just making sure you remember." she tapped the side of her head, for once smiling.

Robin rolled his eyes before bringing the conversation back to 'Marth'. "This friend of yours, does she wear a butterfly mask? And a lot of blue?"

Kjelle knit her eyebrows together in a moment of confusion. "Yes, sh- ...they do. How on earth did you know that?"

Robin smiled again, this time more authentically. "We've met her before. Fought with her, and against her - she seemed more concerned with hating Chrom than me back then."

Kjelle leaned forward, more interested in the conversation than ever. "You've met her? Is she still with you? Did she tell you anything?"

Robin shook his head. "She's never stuck with the Shepherds for more than a battle or so. And all that I know about her is that her real name definitely isn't 'Marth', and that's only a guarantee because I know you wouldn't have told us their name unless it was fake."

Kjelle sat back, her demeanor relaxing into dejection. "...Oh. It's too bad she didn't stay with you."

Robin narrowed his eyes as his line of thought brought him into unexpected territory. "Coincidentally enough, she turned out to be a foreseer with knowledge of the future that ultimately proved more-or-less correct."

Kjelle's eyes brightened with a shard of hope that Robin had almost forgotten existed. "...What did she say to you?"

Robin rubbed the top of his head as he remembered the first days of his memory, using much of the time he expended to avoid anything related to Grima. "Well, the first time we met she wouldn't say much, but did mention that that night was a 'prelude' to something worse. It was the first time anyone in Ylisse had encountered risen, at least that I know of."

"The second time was at the arena in Ferox, where she was championing for Basilio. ...She was strong, to say the least." Robin repressed any further memories of the event, not willing to remember Chrom's near-death experience or the battle's after-party.

"Next was when she showed up at the castle in Ylisstol to stop an assassination attempt on Emmeryn. She said we would have repelled it on our own, but wanted to watch over us all the same, and also informed us of two allies we would meet that night - Panne and Gaius. We also found out that she was female right before the fight, when she used her face to save Chrom from a sword strike and broke her mask."

"The last time I saw her was a little over a year ago, when she appeared near the Plegian castle after Emmeryn died. She was actually distraught that time, and kept saying that a bunch of things weren't supposed to have happened." Robin paused before continuing in a tone only he could hear. "...That kind of makes sense…"

Kjelle tilted her head as she failed to hear the grandmaster's final sentence. "I'm sorry, what was that last part?"

Robin hurriedly raised his hands and waved them in place to dismiss her question. "Nothing, nothing at all." He allowed several long moments to pass in near silence, the only sound in the carriage coming from Virion's penmanship. While he still had questions to ask, he was far more concerned with the unusual answers he kept coming across regarding the past of the knight across from him.

"Hey, Kjelle?" he asked. "Just out of curiosity, and this is purely hypothetical, what did the portal you arrived here in look like?"

Kjelle opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off by a huff from Virion. "You aren't actually suggesting that you may be believing her, are you, Robin? This is all far too ridiculous, and two people running amok in cooperation do nothing to make it any less insane."

Robin raised his hand to quiet the archer without losing focus on Kjelle. "Let her speak, Virion."

 _Gods, I finally may be able to convince a Shepherd, and it's the one who'll have to die anyway. Of course it is_. Kjelle repressed an urge to swear and answered the tactician's question. "It looked like it drew in light from around it in order to form, and left everywhere it took light from monochrome. A big circle of runes appeared, and a line of pale crystals inside of it. Then the crystals opened like an eyelid, and all the colour came back into its surroundings. The whole thing was blue inside, and had a clear-ish area in the middle that made it look even more like an eye, through which I was able to see the Feroxi countryside. I ran through, wound up in Ferox, met my teacher, trained for a little over a year, and then met you guys."

"I see…" Robin lowered his head in thought, trying to decipher some logical means of explaining the portal that he himself had encountered on his first night of memory, although none such answer was willing to come to him. He asked as many questions as he could think of, Kjelle being slightly more lenient with her answers but without giving away more than she felt was necessary. Robin didn't learn much from any of his new questions, but found that he didn't mind asking the knight about pointless things.

Kjelle asked for finer details of their prospective journey, secretively searching for a time and place to kill the tactician. Robin relayed some of the information Flavia had given him earlier, namely that he would find the first of a set of powerful people at the dueling grounds, would journey far and wide to find more people and stop problems in Ferox, and would have to return to the ruins of time whenever reports of bandits or risen started trickling in, all before the war against Valm started, were such a thing to ever happen. He made certain to mention the treachery from Sumia and Flavia, and how they essentially blackmailed him into taking the vacation, but left out the part from earlier when he had accepted the vacation in order to avoid Basilio.

Eventually, Robin ran out of questions to ask, and ended his queries in a far more satisfied state than he had originally thought possible. He and Kjelle drifted in and out of consciousness for the remainder of the ride, the only constancy being bumps in the road and the sounds of Virion's writing.

* * *

Tharja closed her second grimoire, taking a break from the constant reading she had subjected herself to since the beginning of the journey. Flavia jolted into wakefulness across from her in response to a harsh bump in the road, the Khan holding the back of her head at the spot where it had crashed unforgivingly into the wooden seat under her. She grumbled as she pulled her makeshift clothing pillow back into place, dampening the effects of any further hits.

She cursed when the pillow failed, a particularly severe bump throwing her into the air and the pillow onto the carriage floor. The Khan sat up as she reached back for the fallen clothes, cursing again as Basilio hit another rough section of the road. "Godsdamn, is that man doing this on purpose!?"

Tharja leaned into the carriage wall, hoping to get some rest before arriving at the ruins. She hissed when Basilio hit yet another bump, causing her head to bash into the wall. "Maybe he's just as bad at driving as he is at fighting and ruling."

Flavia smirked as she lied down again, pillow replaced. "I suppose that means the oaf has no talents at all. How fitting." She placed an arm over her face to brace it, blocking out any light from the already dim interior.

Tharja angled forward, elbows resting on her knees as her hands supported her head. A devious expression worked its way onto her face as she watched the Khan. "So, you and Robin?"

Flavia grimaced as she moved her arm up, opening one eye to look at the sorceress across from her. "Please, don't say anything. At all. Ever."

"...No." Tharja gave an exaggerated pout before allowing herself to smile. "He can be pretty dense. Are you going to tell him how you feel?"

Flavia brought her arm over her head again and shut her eyes. "Please shut up."

"Just answer the question." Tharja frowned, voice returning to its usual iciness.

Flavia screwed her eyes shut even tighter under the protection of her arm. "No, okay? I don't plan on telling him."

"Why not?" Tharja questioned. "He didn't reject you instantly like he always did to me, and you certainly care for him."

"Because I can't."

"Yes you can." Tharja goaded.

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"For the love of the gods, Tharja, I can't!" Flavia snapped. "If I die here, it'll just have been selfish. If he dies, it'll have no meaning. So many things can go wrong that I can't do it. At least not right now. And after all this… I don't know if I'll even want to."

Tharja deepened her frown in response. "Valm won't be that bad. Even if we're outmatched, Robin has a knack for tipping scales. He has a tendency to not stop talking about that in fights…"

"It's not-" Flavia sighed into her arm as she continued, not knowing how much information she should share. "...It's not just Valm. Bad things are coming, Tharja, and we're all probably going to be brought to the brink of hell and forced to fight in order to get out. After that, if I even manage to survive… I think I may end up hating him."

Tharja's voice grew somber as she accepted the gravity of the Khan's tone. "What's going to happen, Flavia? What's going to make you hate Robin?"

Flavia tensed as she considered what to say, memories from her meetings with a certain tactician coming to the surface of her mind. "...War. War is going to happen. And death, and suffering, and loss, and… horrible things. Things that change people. That may change him, or myself."

"You've both already been through a war, though." Tharja reminded her. "You should know what he'll be like, and what you'll be like."

Flavia shook her head without raising it. "You weren't with the Shepherds for very long, Tharja. No matter how bad things got, he was always there to see the fights through. It wasn't for virtuous reasons, though - he prized those moments. Relished them. He went from being amazing to fearsome, as if something had somehow changed even though nothing had."

Tharja winced, remembering Lon'qu's words from the previous day. "...What if it's not something he wants to do?"

"...What are you talking about?" The Khan asked, rising to a sit from her laying position.

"...He may have been cursed by the Grimleal, or by Grima itself. At least, that's what Lon'qu told me earlier." Tharja admitted. "It was likely what attracted me to him in the first place, which is why I can't pursue him in good conscience. But if it's what repels you from him, then you may be able to help him through it and have a happy ending."

Flavia lowered herself back onto her seat and replaced her arm over her face, wholly disregarding all that Tharja had said as though it were useless. "I'm infatuated with him because he's a fighter, and has always been a great friend to me. His malice is what makes him so good at combat, and it's not a result of any curse - it's just who he is. If he changes into a completely different person, then I doubt I would still be so interested in him."

"That's no reason not to at least give it a try, though." Tharja argued, the Khan's dismissal of her information disturbing her. "He seems to actually like you. It's at least worth a shot to try for a happy ending, isn't it?"

Flavia brought both of her fists to her forehead, clenching them together in frustration. "...I may have to fight him, Tharja. And that would mean that one of us would die."

"What?" The sorceress asked, disbelieving. "Why would you ever have to fight Robin?"

Flavia sighed into her arms. "If things go bad, Tharja. If things go bad." The Khan turned over onto her side, facing the wall nearest her and ending the conversation. Tharja opened her mouth to ask more about the coming conflicts, but hesitated and returned to her studies when she noticed the way the Khan was shaking in place across from her. If things were going to 'go bad', they must really have to go bad. The sorceress decided to prevent that at any cost imaginable.

* * *

The first of the carriages slowly ground to a halt, the second following suit a moment later. Lon'qu slid off the side of his seat, holding his hand out to help Olivia descend in a more graceful manner. Basilio bounded off of his perch, gladly walking around the to-be campsite now that he finally had a chance to work his legs, and even stretched in place as he tended to the horses.

Olivia opened the door to the Shepherd carriage. Inside, the knight from earlier was lying on a seat across from Robin and Virion, asleep. Robin was asleep as well, head resting on Virion's shoulder as the archer folded several pages of parchment into tiny squares, placing some in a pile and others in a small cloth bag. The dancer roused Kjelle, Virion waking Robin and handing him the pile of paper he had constructed.

Robin stretched his arms as he woke, gratefully accepting the decoded and reworded correspondences Virion set in his lap and stuffing them into his cloak pockets. He said his thanks, then followed Kjelle and the sniper out of the carriage into the cool night air. One of the horses - the very one he had tended to earlier in their journey - sneezed as he emerged, startling the tactician before he had exited the cart's wooden embrace.

He stepped onto the cold, moonlit earth beneath him, his boots being met with a squelch instead of the anticipated crunching or soundlessness of snow and ice. Lifting one foot, he took in the barely visible mud sticking to the sole of his boot and looked down onto the muddied but healthy grass underneath. Looking around further, the grandmaster saw that there was no snow anywhere near him, the Feroxi climate completely forgotten despite their supposed location being in one of the most remote locales of the country.

Green deciduous trees and even greener grass and shrubs lined every edge of the site Lon'qu had chosen for camp, their colour hardly coming across in the grey light. The ruins of time could be seen on the horizon, barely managing to peek over the top of the trees from Robin's position. A small path wound its way up to the ancient temple, the tactician theorising that horses would have difficulty navigating through the forest, let alone with carriages.

Flavia and Tharja emerged from their carriage, each hauling supplies the Khans had brought to construct tents, something the Shepherds had deemed unnecessary until they had arrived in Ferox and were able to purchase some. The Khans, of course, were too gracious to allow that, bringing out their finest tents to flaunt for their friends and against one another. The two women passed some of their resources onto Basilio and Lon'qu, and the four began to construct the first set of tents for the night.

Robin waited patiently as his tent was constructed for him by an insistent Tharja, thanking her gratuitously when the task was complete and closing himself off inside. He set the letters from his pockets onto a dry spot on the floor, unfolding the one on top and skimming through it. After rereading it for a fourth time, Robin decided that he wouldn't be able to retain any information until tomorrow, and reopened his tent to approach the fire Lon'qu had already constructed.

He sat down on a thick patch of grass, hoping to avoid any mud that may be able to work its way into his clothing despite how impossible such a thing would be. It was possible that his cloak was enchanted to resist mud like it did water or blood and grime, if such an enchantment existed, but he didn't consider this to be the time or place to test it. Olivia handed him a packaged meal that had been opened and heated by the fire, and he gladly tore into it, practically starving after the constant travel and battle.

Embers crackled out of the fire on occasion, falling onto the ground and extinguishing in the dampness. Each of the Shepherds, Khans, and Kjelle sat around the fire, eating their meals at varied paces. Kjelle in particular was having difficulty withholding evidence of her hunger, having not eaten since well before the battle over half a day ago, but managed to retain her composed demeanor nonetheless. She sat across the fire from Robin, bordered by an exhausted yet wary Virion and extensively cautious Tharja.

Eventually, everyone finished their rations, the feast passing almost soundlessly as none present decided to break the tired silence of the night. Lon'qu, Olivia, and Tharja returned to their tents first, leaving the others gathered at the fireside.

Kjelle rose from her seat on the ground, brushing mud from her backside with one gauntlet-protected hand. "I'll take first watch, then, if you lot are willing to trust me with it?" She stood in her position on the edge of the firelight, awaiting the answers of those before her.

Basilio cleared his throat as he, too, rose. "Look, miss…"

"'Kjelle'." Virion informed from his seated pose, yawning both before and after the answer.

"Miss Kjelle." Basilio resumed. "There's no need to have patrols. There's no pretext for assassins in Ferox, considering how rigorous our border guards can be, and I doubt any lowlife assailant would be able to handle Khans and Shepherds."

"There are still risen, though. They prowl across every nation, ravaging entire villages and cities!" Kjelle contested, taken aback by the ex-Khan's complacency.

"Maybe in your make-believe land of the future, but not here." Virion said, yawning again.

Robin entered the conversation, still huddled next to the fire despite the warmth provided by his cloak. "Risen appear in isolated groups that have always been easily dealt with, and never this far north. Not to mention that this is a shrine to Naga, meaning they probably won't ever appear here unless it's absolutely necessary for them."

"So you're just going to… not do anything?" Kjelle asked, still unable to understand their reasonings.

"Pretty much, yeah." Robin confirmed. "You can take up a watch if you want, but know that we'll be moving out fairly early in order to reach Port Ferox by tomorrow night." The grandmaster pushed himself into a standing position, stepping away from the fire. "I think I've rested enough on the way here to stay up for a while, so if any of you need me, I'll be going over Virion's correspondences in my tent. Or, well, I'll be trying to."

Flavia stood, stopping Robin from making his departure. "Before you leave, I want to show you the path to the ruins and give you some basic info on it for later. If you'll follow me?" she gestured to the pathway, taking a few steps toward it before being stopped by the others gathered.

"Khan Flavia, can I come too?" Kjelle was the first to speak. "I would like to see the ruins, if I may, since I'll probably be accompanying Robin there if it's one of his destinations." _And if he goes there with me, then I should have as much knowledge and ability to plan around it as I can. Naga may even be willing to help me fight…_

"Er, well… this is one of the destinations he'll have to hit, you're right about at least that." the Khan frowned, but Kjelle couldn't hazard a guess as to exactly why. "This is more of something that Robin should do alone, though. The only people he should take with him are the people he finds on his vacation, people I'm assuming are like your teacher. I don't know why, but that's just the way things have to be."

Kjelle narrowed her eyes in another bout of confusion, though she didn't distrust the Khan. "What? Why? For what reason could he not bring me, or anyone else here?"

Flavia shrugged. "Like I said, I don't really know too much about all this. All I do know is that there's something in there that Robin has to find, and only certain people can be with him. Sorry for sounding vague, but it is what it is."

"But… how do you not know?" Kjelle asked. "Robin told me that you're the one who set this all up, alongside Queen Sumia. How do you not know what kind of quest you're sending him on?"

"I know basics, based on information that has come my way over a long period of time." Flavia explained. "If Robin okays it, then you can come, but if he doesn't want you there you can't go, got it?"

"Sure, she can come." Robin cut in without hesitation. "I can't think of anything that only I would be able to see, or at least anything I would want to keep entirely to myself." In actuality, he could - anything that involved Grima or the possibly darker parts of his past, but there was no reason for something correlated with Grima to be safeguarded in a temple of the fell dragon's archenemy.

Flavia stared at Robin, then Kjelle. The Khan sighed, waving them both forward to the path. "Alright, then. Let's go." She turned back to Virion and Basilio, the archer jolting out of sleep periodically as the ex-Khan blinked the weariness from his eye. "Either of you want to come?"

"Nah, I'm done for the night." Basilio waved her off, turning to take in Virion's sleeping form. "I don't think he'll be up for a few hours, either. I'll look after him; you guys go do your scouting stuff."

The two groups went their separate ways, Basilio gently lifting Virion in his arms and carrying the sniper to his tent as Flavia guided Robin and Kjelle to the Ruins of Time. Despite having never visited the ruins herself, Flavia was easily able to navigate the trail up to them, small overgrowth proving trivial to bypass. The Shepherd and recruited knight behind her followed suit, and all three swiftly arrived at an end to the forest that gave a near perfect view of the temple.

Moonlight illuminated the dilapidated stonework, somehow bringing the blue and green hues of the shrine's exterior to life. The entire thing sat on a large highly raised promontory that overlooked the Feroxi coastline several hundred metres below it, jutting out into the air like an ancient, precarious fortress. A single, thin pathway lead up to the ruins' only visible entrance, massive plated doors having been at some point blown down and broken apart into chunks of moss covered stone. Small streams of water trickled out of cracks on the low sides and bottom of the temple, eroding the cliffside and adding to the shrine's precarious and precious nature.

"Well, this is it." Flavia held her arm out to display the temple. "As you can see, it's on a cliffside, so you can just follow the western or northern shores of Ferox out here. Apparently, the path can be pretty obscure at times, so it's best to know the general lay of the land. I'll send Virion's informant - Cherche, if memory serves - to find you once the reports of issues start to come in, which means you should have a few days to get here from wherever you are in Ferox, Ylisse, or Plegia, since those people and missions I mentioned are going to take you across the continent, and you'll only have so long to reach here before it gets too hazardous."

"Thanks, Flavia." Robin smiled. "But just out of curiosity, why do I have to wait for other people to start causing trouble around here before I can return?"

"I don't know." the Khan bowed her head and sighed. "I have no real idea as to what's going to happen. Maybe the people who come here are going to do something to uncover some kind of relic to Naga, and you'll have to get it from them?" she raised her head to look at Robin. "My information was pretty iffy on a lot of these leads, so take them with a grain of salt. Just make sure to stay safe, okay?"

Robin nodded as he stared through the temple doors, a blue light barely visible within from his distance. "I'll make sure. You do the same, yeah?" Flavia gave a weak smile and nod, closing her eyes to avoid the image of Robin's face. The grandmaster continued without averting his gaze from the ruins. "Do you mind if I have a moment to talk with Kjelle?"

The knight in question tilted her head at the unforeseen prompt, but remained silent in order to allow Flavia to respond. "Oh. Uh, sure. ...I'll be waiting for you guys back at camp. Don't really feel like sleeping too much tonight."

Robin smiled again, turning to face the Khan. "See you soon." He rotated around to face the ruins after speaking. Flavia departed, returning to the camp and shooting several glances back to the tactician as she left.

Kjelle returned her head to its regular orientation after the Khan had exited her line of vision, turning to look at the shrine in a similar manner to Robin. "Something's… off… about her. I think. Is she always like that?"

Robin shrugged, utterly transfixed by the temple doors. "Mostly, I guess? ...I wasn't really paying that much attention."

Kjelle didn't move, staying perfectly still as he watched the water and lights leaking out of the shrine. "...Me neither." She shook her head to bring her attention back to herself. "Anyway, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Hm?" Robin pulled his focus from the shrine to look at her. "Oh, nothing. I'm gonna go into the temple and find whatever it is I'm supposed to find right now, so that I can return to the Shepherds as soon as possible once the whole Valm thing becomes trouble. Flavia would never approve of that, so I sent her away. You're free to come with me, or do whatever you want. You probably won't be able to stop me before I manage to reach the temple, so you could even go tell Flavia if you feel so inclined."

"Huh? What about the people who were going to be reported as coming here, finding a relic or something?" Kjelle asked, surprised by the grandmaster's bluntness and lack of forethought. "Don't you have to wait for them to show up, like Flavia said?"

"Maybe, but maybe not." Robin began the walk up the trail to the temple doors, the piercing blue light from within intensifying the closer he came. "It's possible that I will have to return, in which case this is pretty much just sightseeing. However, it's also possible that her informant was incorrect, and I can wrap up my business right here and now without the need for a follow-up visit. Either way, there's no harm in checking the place out, right?"

It was a rhetorical question, but Kjelle felt the need to answer it regardless. "Right." She was smiling now, tracing the tactician's footsteps up the pathway as they made for the temple together. _This is too perfect! Grima's avatar is already secluding himself, and in a place of Naga worship! I can kill him here, tonight, and simply disappear._ _The Shepherds and Khans will search for me once they realise what's happened, but that doesn't really matter. Once he's dead, Grima will be powerless, the Shepherds will be saved - my world will be saved. I can really do this_. She considered running him through with her lance as he walked to the temple, reminding herself with every step that someone could appear behind her at any moment and to not get too excited.

Soon, the duo arrived at the entrance to the ruins of time, the unnaturally blue light from earlier blinding them to its contents. Robin hesitated before entering, turning around to address Kjelle. "If this place actually has something regarding me instead of some relic, it may get fairly personal. Are you sure you want to come inside?"

"Positive." she said, keeping her focus locked on the tactician before her, not daring to look away for fear of somehow losing sight of him, or having him reveal that this was a trap to take her by surprise and kill her.

"Alright." Robin turned back to face the ruins, taking a tentative step over the first pile of rubble. He was enveloped by the vibrant shafts of light that poured out of the entryway, and Kjelle cursed under her breath as she lost track of his presence. She bounded in after him, accidentally colliding with his back and sending him crashing into the floor with an audible splash.

"Ah, sorry, Robin, I… didn't want to fall too far behind." she gave a half-honest apology, helping him back to his feet with one arm. Robin grumbled about carelessness as he righted his posture, refraining from making any noises as soon as he took in the temple interior.

Rectangular platforms lay interconnected by thin pathways, all raised above a shimmering pool emitting a fierce blue light. The light no longer came off as overbearingly bright, not having the moonlit darkness to contrast against, almost causing it to feel welcoming. It illuminated the entirety of the structure, the furthest walls and corners of the single-room interior all being caught in its bright grasp. Stairways on some of the floating platforms suggested the existence of a lower level, though neither Robin nor Kjelle had any idea as to how such a thing was possible with the pool and apparent single level to the building, its roof arcing as one structure high above them.

At the furthest reaches of the temple from where they had entered, a pedestal was visible, a small golden teardrop glistening with its own yellow light in response to the blue surrounding it. Robin carefully stepped onto the nearest platform, recoiling when it sank several centimetres into the pool. The slab certainly felt like stone, but somehow, it was floating in the water as if it were buoyant. The grandmaster placed all of his weight on the platform, causing it to sink further than before but remain afloat, even when Kjelle added her armoured weight to the mix.

"Do you think that's the relic Flavia mentioned?" Robin pointed his head toward the golden droplet, using his arms to balance himself as he crossed a narrow walkway.

"Naga's tear…" Kjelle breathed out as she, too, began to cross the walkway. "It was said to have granted great power to the person who used it in my time, though I never found out who used it or if it was actually true."

"'Great power', huh…" Robin disregarded her statement about her future, barely even registering the last half of her statements.

The two gradually approached the pedestal, Robin circling around to the far side of it in order to examine the tear. He leaned back to research it, trying to take in the whole setting of the monument as though it were somehow hiding something even greater. Kjelle bent forward, bringing her face close to the tear to closely examine its finer details.

"This really is Naga's tear…" she straightened her posture as she surveyed the relic even further, ensuring that her analysis was correct. "They're supposed to be so rare… and yet there's one here." _Is this from Naga herself? Is she trying to grant me the power to kill Grima's avatar? Is… is she finally making contact with one of us again? I thought it would be Lucina, but…_

Kjelle tensed for a split second, then darted one of her hands out to grab the tear from its position on the altar. She brought it up to her face and popped it into her mouth in one swift movement, choking it down with some difficulty.

Robin blinked, mouth falling open at Kjelle's rapid movements. "Did… did you just eat Naga's tear!?"

"...Isn't that how you use it?" Kjelle asked in an uncharacteristic, sudden moment of self-consciousness.

"Uh, no, you just kinda… hold it and activate it." Robin informed. "I mean, if it's like the speedwings, energy drops, and similar stuff the Shepherds found during the Plegian war, then that's how it's used."

"O-oh." she clutched a hand to her chest, hoping to somehow activate the tear externally. Luckily for her, the tear began to glow from within her, light piercing through even her armour as the aid of the droplet took effect. "Hah! No matter; it still worked!"

"Somehow." Robin laughed. "So, what are you gonna do now that you have it? I hope you aren't going to leave us, considering that I may have needed that down the line."

Kjelle stepped away from the pedestal, drawing her lance. "Now, with Naga's strength and blessings on my side, I will do everything in my power to kill you."

Robin raised one eyebrow, then burst into laughter, having to hold onto his knees to prevent himself from falling over. "Seriously? You're going to kill me? No offense, but I saw what Virion did to you; you're not exactly the most threatening person on the planet."

"I don't care!" she cut the air in front of her with her weapon to add emphasis, but only succeeded in heightening Robin's laughter. "Shut up! I'll do what's necessary to stop you from becoming Grima!" The grandmaster's head bolted up to meet her gaze, his laughter instantly forgotten. "I'll kill you here and now, before you're ever able to-" she was forced to stop talking as she diverted all of her effort into evasion, diving to the edge of the platform in order to avoid a head-bound thoron shot.

She backpedaled over the walkway behind her, moving further away from the stream of high-powered magic crashing into the stonework and waterway beneath her. Each shot decimated another section of the pathway, sending chunks of buoyant stone flying across the room or gouging into the bottom of the pool, the abnormal blue light flickering in response to magical contact.

"How do you know about Grima!?" Robin shouted over the sounds of his borderline explosive magic.

"In my time, you were Grima!" Kjelle responded in a similar fashion. "You destroyed the world! You hunted the Shepherds! You became Grima, and you will become him again - unless I can stop you!"

Robin's mouth lowered from a thin line, to a frown, to a snarl as he remembered the ultimately similar convictions he had roped Frederick into adhering himself to, though he then adopted a quantity smile that was nothing short of wholeheartedly genuine yet disturbing. "You know, up until a little while ago, I probably would've begged to have someone like you around. Not anymore, though." He fired off another volley of magic, aiming for the ground behind Kjelle and cutting off any scenario of a possible fighting retreat from the ruins.

Kjelle balked at the destroyed pathway, cancelling her hastily made plan to retreat out of the grandmaster's range and entrap him in the ruins. Robin pulled a wind tome out of his robes, preparing a new round of magical assaults as she rose to her feet. "If you know what you are, and what you'll become, then you know what has to be done." she bought herself time through speaking, drawing her shield to protect against further attacks.

"I do know what has to be done." Robin responded in as cold of a tone as he could manage. "Which is why I'm going to help my friends until such a time arises that I may defeat the Grimleal leaders, and Grima itself if I have to. You won't stop me from doing that, no matter how often you try to kill me. I'll… I'll save them all, no matter what." He fired a blast of wind at Kjelle, the knight swiftly hoisting her shield in front of her to block the magic.

"You're delusional!" Kjelle laughed from behind her shield, the blades of wind lacerating the edges of the steel as if it were wet clay, threatening to topple her from sheer force. "Do you honestly think that you can resist the might of a god? You'll fail, become Grima, and nothing will be any different from my future!"

Robin relented from his casting to speak. "Trust me, I know that I may fail. If I do, I'll… I'll do everything in my power to kill myself in order to stop Grima, and even if I can't, I know others will." He raised his hand, preparing more wind magic. "Honestly, I'd be glad to have you along for that eventuality. Should I fail, someone has to cut me down before anything major can happen - but until then, if it even ever happens, I've had enough of ignoring my own problems and shoving their responsibility onto others. This Grima thing is mine and mine alone to deal with, but if you're offering to help me get stronger for when the final battles come up, then I'll gladly accept!"

The grandmaster released his wind magic, green blades slicing through the air toward Kjelle. The knight raised her shield once more to block. The blades of wind easily cut through it, collapsing the shield in on itself and effectively destroying the weakened steel. Cursing as she realised that she had no means of countering another magical attack, Kjelle leapt forward over the first bridge Robin had destroyed during her scrambling retreat, aiming to connect with the tactician and bring him to the ground before he could make another move.

A set of weaker, more rushed wind magic stopped her mid-air, disorienting her and bringing her down to the floating chunks of broken stone that had once formed the walkway. She clutched tightly onto her lance, preventing it from rolling into the whirlpools that had formed from Robin's missed thoron shots. Attempting to stand, she faltered when her footing gave way, forcing her down to her hands and knees as she struggled to find enough flooring to stay afloat.

She angled her head up to Robin, hoping to see what attack he would choreograph next. The grandmaster stood in place, flipping casually through one of his tomes as he waited for Kjelle to correct her footing. After several long moments of her only struggling to not fall into the flickering water, Robin still stood in place, refraining from attacking her.

Kjelle blinked as she realised that Robin had no intention of letting out another spell anytime soon. "...Are you not going to do anything?"

Robin's eyes met hers over the top of his tome. "Pretty much anything I could cast at you right now would be a killshot, or at least potentially one. I'll admit I went a bit overboard earlier when you mentioned Grima, but I don't want to kill you."

"Why not? And what are you going to do, then?" Kjelle finally managed to rise to a stand on the precarious stonework. "I'm still going to kill you, no matter what you say."

Robin closed his tome, holding it close to his side. "I know you're still going to try to kill me - I'm counting on it, actually. It'll be a great way to get stronger in anticipation for another war and the Grima business. I also sympathise with the whole 'get stronger' and 'look after my friends' stuff from earlier today. Also, like I said before, should I fail to slay the people responsible for my condition and save myself, then I'll need someone there to stop me. That's purely an absurd hypothetical, though, because I know I won't fail."

"So me trying to kill you… you see that as just being practice!?" Kjelle shouted.

"Yes." Robin confirmed. "I'll even show you how to fight me effectively, but that'll have to wait until after this little spar of ours. You ready to fight yet?"

Kjelle teetered back and forth on the broken pathway, bending her legs and lunging at Robin with her lance in hand. Robin flinched at her sudden assault, launching himself backward with a shot of wind magic from his tome. He slammed into the temple's rear wall, falling into the water, and stood in the low pool. The water reached up to his waist, but was draining to lower and lower amounts with each passing second. The grandmaster looked past Kjelle to take in the holes he had accidentally caused on the shrine's floor, water quickly draining from them in large whirlpools.

His opponent punished him for his lack of attention, leaping into the water and swinging her lance down at his head. Robin raised his arms in a panic, blocking the descending weapon before it could contact his exposed face. He pushed against it with both arms, staggering her, and cast another wind spell in followup. She collided with the edge of the pedestal's platform, shaking it in the lowering water level as she propelled herself off of it toward Robin once more.

The floor shifted under Robin's feet as waves rippled out from Kjelle's impact, the blue light dimming before shutting off entirely. Robin raised his hand to cast another wind spell and drive Kjelle further away from him, his right hand glowing green in the early stages of his attack. Kjelle honed in on this ethereal greenness, driving her lance cleanly through his gloved palm and forcing his arm down into the water.

"Agh!" Robin cried out as he accidentally dropped his wind tome into the water, struggling to move his hand. "Y-you're actually really trying right now, a-aren't you?"

Kjelle refused to grant him the dignity of a response as she brought her armoured fist into his stomach. He bent over, winded by the punch. Kjelle followed up by pulling her fist back, never relenting on the force applied by her other hand to her lance, and brought her forearm down on Robin's back. The tactician plummeted into the water at his knees, right arm bending uncomfortably behind him as the lance refused to budge under Kjelle's iron grip.

Dim blue light filled the temple interior as the water's light blinked on, far less vibrant and with more uncertainty than before. Steam wafted up from Robin's right hand, a striking red light contrasting against the blue as his fire-based blood magic made its existence known. He painfully strained his damaged tendons, grasping the lance hilt around his bleeding hand as he finalised the pent-up high-powered fire magic cast, the weapon glowing red, then white as his magic burned against the steel. The lance hilt snapped in two, the lower piece falling out of the hole in his hand as Kjelle wrested back the upper counterpart.

She appraised the broken hilt in her hand, discarding the now useless weapon by throwing it down into the dwindling pool at her feet. Returning her attention to Robin, she barely managed to redirect a flame-coated fist down into the blueness, his punch practically exploding as he unleashed the last of the spell underwater, shaking the entirety of the ruins.

Some loose sections of the ceiling crumbled into the pool, unenchanted stonework sinking deep into what little water remained. Kjelle charged into Robin, crushing him against the temple's rear wall before retreating by several steps to avoid any counterattacks. The floor beneath them quaked once more, the whirlpools from Robin's first spells disappearing as the bottom of the pool cracked open in a horizontal line across the entire temple base. Another, larger crack broke open further back in the temple, near the entrance.

Both combatants struggled to maintain their footing as the floor shook, the first of the fissures widening as the end of the temple near them began to shift downward. Kjelle fell forward as the angle increased, colliding with the wall Robin was already pressed against less than a metre from the grandmaster. Suddenly, she felt as though she were free falling, water and stones floating in the air near her as the ruins slid down the cliffside. Then she was struggling to breathe, water rushing around her head as her body refused to acknowledge anything greater than shock from her second body-on-wall collision as the ruins slammed into the northern Feroxi sea.

She struggled to stand, failing when her limbs refused to respond to her commands. Dull thuds could be heard from stones, both floating variant and regular, as they crumbled in from the temple section's new top and landed on her deformed armour. Her ears then refused to respond as well, the last thing she could feel being the sharp burning of her lungs as she sputtered against more water forcing its way into her mouth when she struggled for air. Then, that too faded, and her world fell into darkness.

* * *

Flavia sat at the dwindling campfire Lon'qu had built, lazily tossing another log and bundle of kindling onto it as she waited for Robin and Kjelle to return. Her whetstone rested pathetically at her feet, her sword having only emerged in order to sketch simple patterns into the ground as a means of wasting time. Now the weapon sat beside her, almost completely forgotten, doing nothing while it reflected the occasional flare from the campfire.

The Khan regent brought her knees close to her upper body, tucking her head into the gap they made with her torso and sighing. _I'm barely even able to properly face Robin now._ She brought her head up to look in the direction of the ruins, their highest point barely visible over a horde of treetops. _Things are going to go so badly if I keep this up…_

She shook her head from side to side in slow, careful movements, then plopped it back into place between her chest and legs. In that position she sat for an extended period of time, lost in murmurs of thought so absorbing that she failed to notice the approach of the Shepherd's resident stalker.

Tharja stopped less than a metre away from Flavia, kicking the woman's foot when she refused to so much as acknowledge her presence. Flavia gradually raised her head at the stimulus, giving the sorceress an almost inaudible greeting, causing her to raise an eyebrow at the Khan's lack of her usual boisterous personality.

"You're looking and sounding as pleased as ever, Khan." Tharja began, her blatant sarcasm earning a groan from the woman in question. She continued when it became evident that she was waging a one-sided conversation. "I assume this is somehow related to Robin and is not simply exhaustion, yes?"

Flavia pulled her legs even closer to her torso, resting one cheek against her knees in order to face Tharja. "...It is related to Robin, more or less."

"'More or less'?" Tharja parroted.

"...Okay, more." Flavia admitted. "I don't know how much longer I'll be able to face him without saying anything."

"So say something."

Flavia bent her head back into her legs. "No, Tharja. I told you that none of this is that simple."

The sorceress pushed against Flavia's shoulder with one knee in an effort to force her to stand. The Khan refused to budge, remaining situated in her melancholy. Tharja nudged her again, frowning when the woman failed to respond entirely, and sat down on the ground next to her.

Tharja stared into the fire as she spoke, treading in ground so personal as to be unfamiliar. "You should at least say something. Trust me, following someone you love around and never truly saying how you feel is… awful."

She succeeded in making Flavia raise her head, but instead of accepting Tharja's wisdom the Khan was watching her quizzically. "You're talking about when you would stalk Robin. ...Even though he was never interested in you, and you're now growing closer to Virion than him, and you didn't get your 'happy ending'."

"The example stands for the point I was making." Tharja angrily reimposed. "I wasn't exactly happy when I 'loved' Robin, and maybe if I had said something, things would be different. I'm happy enough now, but you can still learn from what I've done."

Flavia pressed her head back into her legs, squeezing her eyes shut. "...I guess I can."

"Good." Tharja rose from her position and kicked Flavia again to raise her. "Now, where's Robin? You and I both have a lot to talk to him about."

Flavia shoved Tharja's foot away from her side, grabbing her sword in order to tilt it into the ground and use it as leverage to pull herself up. "He wanted to speak with Kjelle about something at the path to the ruins. He's probably still there now."

Tharja slowed her pace as the Khan's words sank in. "...You left him alone at the ruins, even after he's been adamant about cutting his time away from the Shepherds short? And you… what, simply trusted him to not go inside and wrap up one of his operations while he's here?"

Flavia winced as she considered the consequences of her actions. "That may have been a small lapse in judgement on my part."

Tharja froze as the Khan's first piece of information resurfaced in her mind, her face growing dark as she hid beneath her bangs. "...Please tell me that we picked up some vagabond after I went into my tent, and that this 'Kjelle' isn't the insane knight that was intent on killing Robin."

Flavia's features shrank as she recalled Kjelle's actions from the Dueling Grounds. "That may have been a far greater lapse in judgement on my part." The Khan began sprinting down the forest trail, followed closely by an aggressively muttering Tharja.

Quakes began to rip through the ground at the women's feet without warning, intensifying as they neared the ruins. Flavia caught sight of the first damaged section falling cleanly off of the structure, drifting down the cliff into the icy sea at its north.

"What!? How the everloving-!?" The Khan was cut off by another tremor, a cross-section of the shrine near them crashing downward into the emptiness the first separation had abandoned.

The two were almost within arm's reach of the lightless entryway to the temple when the second segment collapsed fully, rubble skidding down the cliffside in a similar fashion to the first piece as much of the ancient stonework fell apart. They backed away as more of the foundation crumbled, soon being faced with only a hollow doorway to nothingness as almost the entirety of the ruins began to creep deeper into the dark waters.

Tharja crossed her arms as she assessed the total loss of the temple. She slowly began to prepare magic in her hands, knowing that her actions may very well be vital to Robin's survival. "Honestly, that's kind of impressive."

Flavia held her head in her hands, unwilling to take in the damage on the clifftop as she looked down into the Feroxi sea. "Let's just make sure he hasn't killed himself, okay?"

* * *

Chunks of stone clattered down on the wall Robin had landed on, most narrowly missing him and landing instead on the pile around Kjelle. The wind magic he kept casting to protect himself may have played a small hand in redirecting both the lightweight and actual rocks, though he was more concerned with his survival than the possible ramifications of his actions. He had managed to stabilise himself during the fall using his wind blood magic, his tome having been ruined when he had dropped it into the vibrantly blue temple pool.

He cursed as he realised that his redirects were landing on the unconscious Kjelle, retracting his injured hand and refocusing his efforts into dodging. Water was pouring in from every crack that lined the ceiling and floor, filling the upturned room and threatening to compress the building at any moment, though he noticed that it was at an unnaturally slow rate. Trickles of the dark water were appearing higher up the structure, the threat of an insurmountable surge looming ever closer as the open top neared the sea's water level, an eventuality that would more likely than not kill anyone trapped within.

What little moonlight that was able to sneak into the submerging ruins was eclipsed as Robin sidestepped another large stone, the loss of light causing the grandmaster to glance to the sky. His eyes widened when he caught sight of the second collapse, monumental stonework rolling off the sheer drop above in massive amounts and threatening to annihilate what little safety could be found below. He changed his gaze to Kjelle, who still lay motionless in a pile of rocks, face down in the accumulating water.

Robin dashed to Kjelle's side as the first few stones of the delayed collapse hit, desperately heaving the heavier stones from her body and staggering whenever he unexpectedly grabbed hold of a floating variant. More rubble dusted the water at his feet, and he resorted to casting another barrage of wind magic to protect himself and clear lesser debris from his companion. Soon, the knight was clear of all but wet grime, her armour deformed beyond repair from the fall, stones, and magic combined.

"C'mon, you little Shepherd in the making, now's not the time to die." Robin knelt down as more of the structure gave way, gently lifting her head above the water. She refused to respond, her skin cold even through Robin's damaged gloves.

He frowned, the last of any trace of levity abandoning him as their situation become progressively darker. Attempting to drag her into a less death-inducing position, Robin found that he was unable to move her, the heavy steel of her armour combining with the dead weight of her body into a mass that he doubted he could have transported even if he were uninjured.

Ruins collided with ruins as the second collapse met its counterpart, matching almost perfectly along walls, ceiling, and floor as anything that had fallen apart within tumbled downward. The structures shifted, torrents of water gushing in over the higher reaches as the walls lowered ever further, massive seams working their way along every facet of the building.

Hastily removing his cloak from his shoulders, Robin whipped a fire tome out from its depths, then encased his right hand in the hood and stretched the cloth taught. He gripped its sleeves and hemline with his tome-bearing hand, wincing as he finally felt the bite of the cold without his enchantments protecting him. These enchantments held the fabric of his hood together even as he unleashed his spells, the outside of cloth heating to the point where he was able to forcefully rip apart the clasps holding her plated armour in place even through the deformities.

Bone chillingly cold water rapidly outpaced him, enveloping Kjelle entirely and forcing him to plunge his hand underwater despite his impaired visibility. Steam burned into his face at a degree of heat that was met only by his fist, the fire spells heating the hood's interior as much as its exterior. He silently wished for his magical resilience and adrenaline - or whatever was still allowing him to continue - to persist, too focused on the task at hand to provide unnecessary commentary.

He breathed in as deeply as he could when the water threatened to surpass his face, holding his head underwater in order to unfasten the last clasps of Kjelle's armour. The knight was surprisingly slim underneath it all, her frame slight enough that Robin suspected malnourishment had played a fairly large part in her past.

 _Which only serves to corroborate the whole 'world ruined by Grima' thing…_ He shuddered as the freezing cold tore him from his thoughts, reminding him of his life threatening situation.

Finally freed of the weight of her armour, Kjelle floated in place at the bottom of the ruins. Robin donned his cloak, securing it in place before snaking his left arm under Kjelle's shoulders. His lungs burned against his every move, urging him to draw a breath despite the total lack of air anywhere near him. A green glow soon lit the darkness of the water, wind magic propelling the tactician and his passenger upward out of the flooded ruins at as great of a velocity as he could manage.

Accelerating as they neared the surface, Robin and Kjelle rocketed out from the water, redirecting midair to land on the jagged stone shores of the cliff. Robin touched down first, guarding the defenseless Kjelle in his arms as his cloak protected them both from the rubble and naturally craggy land. He refrained from anything but gasping for air for an extended period of time, Kjelle's cold body pressing against him as he lay in place, his arms never unravelling from their safeguarding wraps.

He coughed out a small amount of water he hadn't known he had swallowed, directing his head to the side without ever halting his heavy and ragged breathing. Dampness permeated his cloak, the water resisting enchantments faltering under such great strain as being submerged underwater and brought to oppose his own magic, with his shirt and pants faring far worse. Realising that Kjelle was undoubtedly in even less favourable of a condition, he rolled the knight off of himself and onto her back.

Kjelle's wet clothing clung close to her body, the light garments she wore under her armour providing little protection from the elements. Robin draped his cloak over her, both for the sake of modesty and medical assistance, peeling the almost-dry hood away from her face to begin the process of resuscitation. The shore was miniscule, hard and unforgiving stone providing little space with which to work, but Robin knelt awkwardly beside her nonetheless.

No signs of life materialised now that she was in the comparative safety of the shore, her lack of breath concerning Robin more than he thought it would be able to. She was as cold as when she was underwater, her pulse more negligent than that of the risen. Her skin had lost all colour, paleness unparalleled by even the tauntingly bright moon.

Ending his brief examination of the woman's state, Robin pinched her nose shut and tilted her her head back slightly, holding her chin in place with his wounded hand. He brought his mouth close to hers, leaning over her frail body as his hands transferred their warmth to her face. His lips brushed against hers as he finished drawing in a large breath, the cold being present even there.

He jolted his head away from hers as he reconsidered his options, deciding against placing his face so close to what may very well be a corpse. His uninjured hand clamped around Kjelle's open mouth, forcing wind magic into her waterlogged lungs. The magic proved far more efficient and sanitary than the alternative, the water within the knight's airways spewing forth as soon as he removed his gloved hand from her face.

There was still no sign of life from the woman despite the effects of his magic, her body not so much as convulsing once the wind had dissipated. Robin frowned as he started chest compressions, sliding his cloak further down her body in order to operate without obstruction. After a set of rapid presses over the approximate location under her ribs that marked her lower chest, Robin blew more wind magic into her mouth.

More chest compressions. More wind magic. More chest compressions. More wind magic. More chest compressions. More wind magic. More compressions. More magic. More compressions. More magic. More compressions. More magic. Compressions. Magic. Compressions. Magic. Compressions. Magic.

Compressions. Magic.

Robin repeated himself ad nauseam. Even though Kjelle showed no response to any action, even though he knew it was almost guaranteed that his actions were in vain, he continued.

"Come on, Kjelle." he started talking, both to himself and her body. "You know you can't become a Shepherd if you die, right? You won't be able to get stronger? You won't be able to convince people about the future? You won't be able to kill me?"

No response, as he should have expected. "Seriously, one of those has to be worth coming back for. ...Please? I… I promised I wouldn't let anyone die… that I would be strong enough to save everyone, and even though you're not a Shepherd yet, that still probably applies to you. So... you aren't allowed to die, okay?"

Robin sat back, finally concluding his revival efforts. He felt numb, the greyness he had come to know so closely emerging from nowhere and pressing through the cold into his body. _I… I already failed. I couldn't even save a trainee Shepherd from the results of my own actions, my own attacks. She'll never become a challenge_ _worth overcoming, or one worth saving. I've failed_. The grey wormed into him, twisting his heart with power that he could never hope to rival. The exhaustion from all that he had done accompanied it, bringing him to the ground in a heap and erasing what little sense of touch he still possessed.

Kjelle coughed violently from her spot next to him, the life in her having returned after Robin's extraneous action. She shivered, not due to temperature thanks to the warm coat covering most of her body, but as a result of her hyperactive nerves and near-death experience.

Robin could hear her from where he lay, his eyes watching the moon as it glided across the dark night sky. Somehow, he was unable to raise his head - or he would have been, were he to have tried, but instead he felt more like staying in place for as long as possible.

"Oh. You're alive." he said. His voice was despondent, accidentally conveying his greyness to the knight.

"W-what happened?" Kjelle asked, instinctively pulling the cloak up to her neck for increased warmth.

"You almost drowned." Robin unintentionally deadpanned. "I guess I managed to revive you."

"...How did we get out of the ruins?" she asked in followup.

"Wind magic, probably. It was a while ago." Robin's eyelids drooped, his body growing heavy. "I… I think I need to sleep now…"

Kjelle realised her condition as her nerves finally calmed, the tactician's cloak that blanketed her dripping remnants of the man's watered down blood despite the inviting warmth that contrasted so nicely against her wet coldness. "You… saved me? ...I'm alive? ...I'm sorry…" The cloak was lulling her into sleep, persuading her to succumb to the warmth and ignore her bodily pain.

"It's not your fault I'm tired…" Robin responded, voice shifting in pitch as he barely resisted his exhaustion. "...It's the grey's fault… It never wants to leave…"

 _The… 'grey'?_ Kjelle barely managed to process his statement before drifting off into an uneasy slumber, Robin having already done the same.

Flavia landed between the two a few moments later, Tharja's wind magic dissipating as the sorceress awaited the signal to bring Flavia and her passengers back up the cliff. It was an incredibly slow and consuming process, but one they were both willing to undergo in order to aid their friend. The two had caught sight of Robin and Kjelle when the knight had reawakened, beginning their retrieval immediately.

Scooping Robin up in her arms, Flavia retrieved him first. It was the sensible course to take; the tactician was in far more dangerous a state than Kjelle, though Flavia had no notion of sensibility in mind when she had made the decision. Their combined masses resulted in an almost minute long ascent, the Khan watching Robin carefully to ensure that he would not fall from the magic or her grasp.

She laid him carefully before Tharja, the sorceress quickly treating his wounds with Flavia's on-hand restoratives. Then the Khan was gliding back down to Kjelle, easily lifting the delicate knight and floating back up to Tharja. The sorceress collapsed from the strain of her spells - having already kept the ruins afloat as they sank with an absurd amount of wind magic - as soon as Flavia had touched down, falling to her knees and then fully to the ground as she was rendered unconscious.

Flavia removed Robin's cloak from Kjelle, placing it over the tactician's prone form. She exchanged the knight for him, hefting his body in her arms and trekking back to the carriages from their spot on the cliffside. Lon'qu, always a light sleeper despite any environmental or personal conditions, was awake near the fire, armour and weaponry partially equipped. He caught sight of Flavia the moment she appeared from the woods, running out to help her carry the inert grandmaster in her arms.

"What happened?" he asked as he took Robin from her, taking extra care to not contact the Khan in the transfer despite his urgency. Almost panicking, he covered Robin's exposed Mark of Grima with his hand, an odd hole in his glove suggesting that he had come to blows with something. Notably though, there was no physical damage on his hand, suggesting he had already been healed.

"The ruins collapsed." Flavia explained, taking several steps back from the two Shepherds as she prepared to return to the cliffside. "Robin and Kjelle - the knight we found at the dueling grounds - they were inside when it happened. They fell into the sea, and Tharja and I just managed to retrieve them."

"Where are Tharja and Kjelle?"

"Over at the cliffs near the ruins. I'll be bringing them both over here, and I want the carriages ready to depart for the port by the time we're back." Her voice was defaulting to its commanding tone, ordering Lon'qu rather than requesting. "Place Robin in one of the carriages, piloted by Olivia. You and Tharja are to be inside for when he wakes up, and I want you two to get information on how the ruins collapsed from him. She can inform you about the rescue."

Lon'qu boosted Robin up with one knee as he awaited further orders. "And the other carriage?"

"Piloted by Basilio with Kjelle and I inside. Virion is to remain with either Basilio or Olivia, and cannot go into either carriage unless you or I allow it." Flavia spun around to the path, talking over her shoulder as she left. "I'm going to be conducting my own interview with Kjelle. No one is to disturb me until we reach Port Ferox. Understood?"

"...Why are you separating them?" Something was off with her, the Khan's demeanor and ordinances not aligning with the responses Lon'qu had expected under the circumstances. No evident concern or perhaps fury, but instead a cold and calculated anger partnered with determination.

Flavia stopped to finish her address, never turning to face the swordsman and tactician, hiding the small smile that was playing out across her face. "Robin wanted to talk to Kjelle about something. The end result was the destruction of the ruins, her near-death, and Robin himself fainting with grievous wounds. We're going to find out what happened independently, then see if their answers line up and respond accordingly."

Her tone was growing even colder, forcing goosebumps onto Lon'qu's skin. "What do you mean by 'respond accordingly'?"

"Kjelle's already probably insane." Flavia spoke as she resumed walking, her smile unwavering. "If she attacked Robin, or keeps spouting nonsense about the future, I'll kill her."

Lon'qu's eyes widened considerably as her words sank in. "What-!?"

"You have your orders, Shepherd." Flavia cut him off. "Follow through with them. You know this is necessary - that it'll all be for the best." She walked off without allowing the swordmaster to follow up, leaving him to carry out his ordinance. He stood in place before ultimately accepting Flavia's decision, maneuvering around to the carriages in order to deposit Robin and then wake the others.

Flavia brought Tharja to the encampment next, leaving Kjelle alone in the wilderness. Lon'qu and the others had already prepared for their departure by this time, Shepherds and Basilio constantly yawning in their positions. Virion was seated next to Basilio on his carriage driving platform, intent on maintaining an overwatch of the enigmatic knight he had come to loathe, leaving Olivia to pilot her carriage alone. Flavia rushed as she returned with Kjelle, purposefully radiating an air that suggested she already suspected the woman of vile acts and wasn't bothering with concern for her safety, aside from ensuring that she wouldn't die.

Basilio nodded to Flavia as she passed, unspoken understanding translating between them. The Shepherds were buying their pretend ignorance, believing that they were of the same knowledge on Kjelle as themselves and had no external information. Flavia found herself grinning as she entered the carriage with Kjelle, gently laying the knight down on one seat and relaxing herself on the other. Lon'qu had bought the story about her death threat, Basilio hadn't messed up his part, she was playing her role with genuine emotion atop her script, and even Robin suspected nothing despite her constant urge to inform him of her plan; everything may actually work out well enough.

She lightly tapped the sides of Kjelle's face, inciting the woman's wakefulness. "Time to wake up, Kjelle. You have a Shepherd to kill, remember? You guys'll have to pick up the slack if we fail."

The Khan tilted backward when Kjelle refused to respond, her unconsciousness prevailing above all else. A frown replaced her smile as she waited even longer, the knight sleeping well into the morning.

* * *

 **Seriously, how is 'Kjelle' pronounced? I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be like 'shell', since she's a knight and everything, but I also prefer it to be like 'shelly' since it sounds more natural to me. It's not exactly made clear through the game, and I have no idea if it was ever mentioned elsewhere.**

 **Anyway, there's some stuff in this chapter that could be understood as romantic in the right context, like the clichéd CPR kiss, but I want to focus way more on an (initially) slow relationship, which inevitably begins with Kjelle wanting to save her future. There'll also be things, primarily from Robin much later on, that alter their relationship substantially as well as the overall plot I'm trying to make, so most of the proper relationship stuff is going to come after that point.**

 **Also, I'd like to mention that I'm not intentionally holding back chapters, as while I am further than this in the story proper, I still have a lot of editing and refinement to go through with each chapter that can take a substantial amount of time. The schedule also helps me to keep track of what has to be uploaded and guarantees that I won't easily fall behind on anything. Even if that isn't a very satisfying answer for why these chapters take so long to get out, I hope it's at least an adequate explanation.**

 **Status: As of 16-01-18, I'm working on chapter 14. This update is the normally scheduled one that was set to take place 20 days after the last one on 27-12-17, by the way, not being based off of the last chapter as that was essentially extra. After this, the next update will be on ~05-02-18, 20 days after this. Once I finish the story, I'll start uploading chapters far faster, since I won't have to dedicate as much time to writing new content, but that's still a long ways away.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	5. Chapter 5

Bright morning sunlight obfuscated Basilio's impaired vision, the ex-Khan relying briefly on Virion to guide the carriage as he brushed away the effects of sleep from his remaining eye. Each of those who had been awoken the previous night were utterly exhausted, something Basilio himself despised although he acknowledged that it would be necessary for his and Flavia's plan.

Constantly fighting off the draw of sleep, none of the Shepherds would be able to notice any small errors in their facades, with their plan to slay the Plegian rulers - and Robin, should it be made necessary if he were to become Grima - remaining hidden.

However, that avoidance of rest made Basilio and Flavia all the more prone to making errors. Therefore, the ex-Khan was being intentionally tight-lipped on this day, the one he knew may be his last with the Shepherds. Thankfully, the sniper next to him never attempted to initiate idle conversation, fending off exhaustion in his own right as he furiously flipped through sheet after sheet of paper.

Within their carriage, Kjelle was finally rousing, Flavia staring intently at her with sleep-deprived eyes. The knight's clothes clung to her skin, dampness permeating them despite the hours that had passed from her near drowning. She groaned as she leisurely sat up, her muscles aching against the movement, willing her to both exercise and rest them.

"Nice of you to wake up." Flavia opened in as awake of a voice as she could manage. "Mind telling me what happened at the ruins?"

"What?" Kjelle asked as her ears pounded in resistance to sound. "Wait… where am I? When did I get here? ...What happened to Robin?"

"You're in a carriage on the way to Port Ferox. I carried you here with the help of Tharja after you and Robin emerged from a collapse site at the Ruins of Time, where you nearly drowned. Robin is recovering in the other carriage as we speak." Flavia answered each of her queries in a cold tone. "Now tell me: what happened at the ruins?"

Kjelle sighed as she brought her head to her hands, holding that position as she spoke. "...Robin and I went into the ruins to find the relic that you had mentioned. He knew you wouldn't approve, so he sent you away by pretending to have a need to talk to me. We found Naga's tear inside, which I… uh, ate… and then…" she hesitated as she recalled the fight that had broken out, knowing that it would not gain her any favour from the Khan.

"Then you attacked him, and the ruins sank into the sea as a result of your fight?" Flavia finished for her.

She denied it immediately, the Khan's assumption being almost scarily accurate. "No! Once I took the tear, the ruins just… started falling apart." Kjelle lied, hoping that she sounded certain enough and hadn't ignored anything so that she would be believed.

Flavia shook her head at the knight's response, dissatisfied. "You two were both very badly hurt. You had no armour or weapons, Robin was covered in bruises and gashes… not to mention the hole in his right hand."

"...Ah." Kjelle paled, her lie already failing her. "...Yes, we fought inside. And yes, it likely led to the temple's destruction, although that was almost entirely Robin's fault."

The Khan waved her hand to waive the admission of guilt. "I don't care, really. As long as you're being honest. I have a job for you, Kjelle, and I need to know that you're capable of it."

Kjelle tilted her head, wincing as pain surged within her skull. "What is it?"

Flavia unlocked a pouch at her side, plucking a healing potion from within it and passing it to Kjelle as she noticed the woman's pain. The Khan reached back into the pouch as Kjelle drank, lifting a page of parchment from its depths and passing it to the knight.

Tentatively accepting the paper, Kjelle's eyebrows knitted together in confusion as she was met with an image of herself. It was masterfully drawn, portraying her from the shoulders up in exquisite detail. Her name was shown at the top, with a short biography at the bottom.

"Kjelle - a dedicated and potentially powerful knight, she holds close ties to the Shepherds - Sully in particular - and a hatred for Robin, like the others. She attends the Dueling Grounds in northern Ferox to train regularly under the combat teacher she met recently. It's unknown when she arrived, but she seeks strength in order to aid the Shepherds. I recommend stopping for her last, if possible - she's the nearest to the ruins, and Robin should be starting in the southwest, so he can loop around later. Still, she probably won't last against Cassius, though I don't know when exactly the sorcerer will attack." Kjelle read the blurb aloud, voice growing almost concerned as she progressed through the notes. "What the hell is this?"

"A dossier." Flavia explained. "I've known about you for a while, Kjelle. One of the Shepherds - a guy named Gaius - he's been running recon for me ever since the end of the Plegian war. He's tracked and drawn up reports on anything that piques his interest, with the intent of helping Robin get stronger in order to overcome Grima."

Kjelle met the Khan's eyes the instant Grima was mentioned, bewilderment evident in her face. "You know about Grima!?"

Flavia nodded. "Basilio and I are heading down to the Plegian capital in order to dispose of the Grimleal leaders soon, hopefully saving Robin from himself. Which brings me back to the job offer: if we fail, someone needs to kill Robin in order to save the world."

Kjelle lowered the paper as she processed all of the information that was bombarding her. "So, you… want me to kill Robin?"

"Only if we fail." Flavia clarified, leaning toward Kjelle to ensure that her message got across. "It's a big request, but you and your friends are the ones best suited for it."

"You know about my friends?" Kjelle's eyebrows remained locked in confusion as Flavia revealed more information. "Did Gaius find them, too?"

"And the stuff about the ruins, though he didn't know exactly what was in there. Kudos on getting the tear, by the way, since I can only assume that was what Robin was supposed to get." Flavia corrected her stature as she returned to her seat in full. "The 'vacation' will take you on a path that allows you to find your friends, so I suggest you go along with it. If Basilio and I fail, I want you and whoever else you recruit to kill Robin. So, do you accept?"

"...Do you not care for Robin?" Kjelle questioned, refusing to believe that the Khan's uncomfortable and protective behaviour from earlier was nothing but an act.

Flavia winced under the knight's uncertain gaze. "Trust me, not telling him about what may happen is the hardest part about all of this. I just… need to know that the world, that all of my people, will be safe. Do you accept?"

"I will. Thank you for trusting me, Khan." Kjelle beamed at the notion of having support, even if it were secretive. "If I may ask, why did you not say anything before, or to anyone else?"

Flavia yawned, her restlessness sneaking up on her. "No one can know about what's going to happen in Plegia, or else they'll try to help and another war will inevitably break out. The last thing any of us want is more death, and this incursion is the best way to go about that."

"Robin mentioned earlier that one of my friends appeared several times throughout the Plegian war, and once even in Arena Ferox." Kjelle began another question. "Did you speak with her, or recruit her like this?"

Flavia shook her head, rest eluding her the more inquiries Kjelle made. "I didn't know about the whole Grima thing until after the war, when everything I had seen clicked into place. By then, she had disappeared, and even Gaius hasn't found her since."

"Was she not able to convince everyone about our time travel stuff?" Kjelle asked, the unanswered question about how Robin had known about her yet not the oddity that was her existence plaguing her. "She said that she would try to stop anything awry from happening, and that if she couldn't convince them about our story she would show them Falchion. Did she do any of that?"

"Falchion? You mean Chrom's fancy sword?" Flavia asked, and Kjelle nodded. "She didn't have anything like that on her. The closest thing linking her to Chrom was her obsession with blue."

"...What? But she made such a big fuss over getting it…" Kjelle said, Flavia's answer only opening the floodgates to more questions. _Was she really that set against revealing anything? ...Was it really that big of a mistake to make myself known?_

She shook her head clear and flashed an unassuming smile when she caught Flavia's own perplexed expression. If anyone could be trusted right now, it would be the Khan, but at the same time Kjelle's allegiances rested with Lucina and her friends above all else.

"The dossier mentions that I was to be met last. Why did you come for me early?" Kjelle continued with her questions, much to Flavia's dismay.

"You were on the way to the Ruins of Time, and I wanted to bring Robin to the ruins because…" Flavia brought one of her hands to her forehead, rubbing her temples to dispel any thoughts of the tactician. "...I don't really know why I did it. I just did, okay?"

Glancing at the report once more, Kjelle developed another question. "How did Gaius know about my connection to Sully?"

"He said something about a ring, I think? One that was modeled after hers?" the Khan shrugged.

Kjelle nodded and passed the paper and concoction back to Flavia, no longer having need for them. _Even though she knows who I am, and who my friends are, she still doesn't know that everything about the_ _future is true… she just thinks I'm some fan of the Shepherds who hates Robin._ She dispelled her thoughts with a shake of her head, thankful that she had at least partial support even if her whole story was currently unaccepted. "How will I know if you've succeeded or failed?"

"You'll definitely know shortly after it happens, but in what way, I'm not entirely sure." Flavia deposited the parchment and potion in her pouch and closed it, the rest of her reports sitting at the bottom awaiting use. "If we win, we'll meet back up with everyone at either Ylisstol or Port Ferox. If we fail, then either the Plegian government will announce it, or we simply won't show up."

"I think that's all I want to ask. Thank you again, Khan Flavia." Kjelle beamed once more.

Flavia tossed her the pouch full of reports and restoratives, kicking her feet up along the length of her seat in order to finally rest. "Enough with the titles, Kjelle. They get old fast. Also, take that with you - it has all of the papers from Gaius, meaning all of the destinations and people you'll come across are mentioned, and it has some potions. It should come in handy."

"Of course." Kjelle opened the bag to appraise its contents, satisfying herself with a cursory peek and sealing it anew. "I promise, I won't fail you."

Flavia brought her arms to her head after she had prepared a pillow of clothing, Kjelle's statement keeping her from sleep a moment longer. "Word of advice: don't make promises you aren't one hundred percent certain you can keep. It'll make life a hell of a lot easier."

Kjelle tilted her head at the odd statement, not speaking to the soon sleeping Khan but still analysing her words. She was most likely talking about her planned incursion, though why she wasn't certain of her abilities was a mystery to Kjelle. Flavia was one of the strongest Shepherds in her time, and it appeared as though that sentiment held true even in the past, and even when the Khan wasn't yet a Shepherd. The knight shrugged, returning to the rest her body had been screaming for ever since waking.

* * *

Wooden seats creaked in the other carriage as Lon'qu shifted Robin and Tharja into more suitable positions, both Shepherds asleep and at risk of falling onto the floor with any bumps or jolts in the road. Olivia was easily proving her ability at carriage driving despite her lack of sleep, the ride to the port being more smooth than Lon'qu had thought possible. After several more hours, long after Lon'qu had succumbed to the allure of rest, Tharja began to stir.

The sorceress held a hand to her head to dull its ache, wincing as she rose from her lying position to a dignified sit. She looked around the carriage interior with her eyes still partially closed, taking in the sleeping forms of Robin across from her and Lon'qu near the door far from her seat. Lon'qu awoke as Tharja moved, quickly coming to attention despite his need for more rest.

"What happened?" Tharja asked, voice unexpectedly hoarse.

Lon'qu calmed as he accepted the relative safety of his surroundings. "You had collapsed as a result of aiding Robin and Kjelle, and Flavia carried the three of you to the carriages. We're on our way to Port Ferox as we speak, and will arrive there in… a few hours, I believe?"

Tharja nodded slowly several times, turning to face Robin. Her head pulsed again, the overuse of magic wreaking havoc with its temporary repercussions. "Has he woken up since the rescue?"

Lon'qu shook his head. "Not that I know of."

Gaze shifting to the floor, Tharja found herself experiencing difficulty when she attempted to speak. "...When we found him, he was on the brink of death. I used an entire elixir on him the moment I could, but…"

"He'll be fine." Lon'qu reassured her. "He's strong, and an elixir is powerful enough to restore practically anything. I'm assuming you got it from Flavia?"

Tharja nodded, not daring to open her mouth until she had cleared her throat. She lowered herself onto her side on the seat, using her hands to cushion her face as she closed her eyes.

"Flavia wanted me to conduct an interview, and for you to be present for it." Lon'qu quickly explained before she could fall asleep. "We're supposed to ask about what happened in the ruins, and she'll do the same with Kjelle. She'll cross-reference the accounts, and… 'respond accordingly' to any incongruencies."

Tharja opened then narrowed her eyes at the swordsman's emphasis, immediately suspecting the worst. "...Fine. Wake me when he's up."

Over an hour later, Robin awoke. The grandmaster opened his eyes and was met with the carriage ceiling, brown wooden curves dimly lit by what little sunlight managed to creep into the closed room. Pieces of stone dust stuck to his clothes, the only remnants of the previous night now that his wounds had fully sealed, and were swiftly brushed away.

Lon'qu opened his eyes without a single noise or moving, his careful demeanor returning to him yet again. "You're awake. Good." The swordsman brought his legs up beside him, then kicked out at Tharja to rouse her. "Get up - Robin's awake."

"Gods, would it really kill you to just tap my shoulder or shake me like a normal human being?" Tharja yawned, voice icy despite having just woken up. "Nice to see that you're alive after all, Robin."

The man in question brought his hands to his head, quieting the pounding that fought against him. "...What happened? I remember getting out of the ruins, reviving Kjelle, and then…" _Succumbing to the grey._ His eyes widened as he recalled telling Kjelle about the grey, calming himself with the knowledge that she was delirious - she had apologised to him for surviving, after all - and already knew about Grima anyway. "...I don't remember." he lied in conclusion.

"You collapsed." Tharja filled in the false blank of his memory. "I used wind magic to keep the ruins afloat for a while, then lower Flavia to the shoreline near you, and she brought you and Kjelle up to safety. I healed you with one of her elixirs, and fainted after I had done my work."

Robin winced as the sorceress told of her overexertion. "Ah, that… must have been incredibly difficult, Tharja. I'm sorry, but thank you."

"It would only be difficult for a lesser mage." Tharja scoffed. "I am far more capable than that; you merely caught me in the aftereffects of combat."

"Of course." Robin smiled. "Thanks again. So, where are we right now?"

"On the way to Port Ferox." Lon'qu said. "Flavia gave the order to move out when she first returned to camp. We should be arriving in a few hours. In the meantime, she asked that Tharja and I find out as much as possible about what happened in the ruins. Are you willing to talk to us?"

Robin paused as he reviewed the information he was given. "...Yeah, I'm up for talking a bit. Can I ask where everyone else is, though? Kjelle and Flavia in particular?" _And why did Flavia single out the two of you?_

"They're both in the other carriage." Lon'qu informed. "Virion, Basilio, and Olivia are all driving the carriages."

"Now then, back to the ruins." Tharja cut in. "How on earth did you manage to sink them into the ocean?"

"Kjelle and I… sparred." Robin told what he considered to be more or less the truth. "I went a little overboard with my magic, and ended up destabilising the temple foundation. From there it just kinda… slid off the cliff, I guess?" he raised his right hand to make a descending gesture, freezing when he noticed the hole in his glove, Mark of Grima visibly writhing on his skin.

The other Shepherds present glanced to one another, sharing a look of concern at Robin's shift in bearing. Tharja tilted her head to Lon'qu, directing the swordsman's attention to Robin with another tilt, knowing that they needed to speak before she could offer any information.

Lon'qu accepted Tharja's unspoken request, leaning forward to gather Robin's attention before discussing the mark. "Robin. I've informed Tharja about the Mark of Grima. ...Do Flavia and Kjelle know?"

 _Tharja knows? Damn, that's not how I_ _wanted this to go, I was going to tell_ _everyone personally… oh well._ He lowered his hand down to his side, rubbing it with his left palm to hide the mark. "Kjelle definitely knows, though I'm not sure about Flavia. Do you think she saw the mark yesterday?"

"I covered it as soon as I could." Lon'qu corrected his posture as he addressed Robin. "Before that, I have no idea. She did carry you over a fair distance."

"I don't think it's possible for her to have missed it." Tharja added. "It was actually the first time I had seen it as well; the thing was vibrant and incredibly hard to miss."

"So… she knows." Robin deduced, dejection surfacing.

"Yes, although…" Tharja continued, hesitant as she recalled the conversation on Robin's status she had hosted with the Khan previously. "...she never commented on it. I told her about the curse earlier, for… reasons..."

She looked up at Robin, meeting his expectant gaze and regretting ever mentioning the previous discussion, knowing that it may lead her to releasing the Khan's secret. "She knew something was off, but dismissed the notion of Grima's influence or that of the Grimleal. Even now when she's almost guaranteed to have seen the mark, she's giving no unique response and seems more interested by the battle at the ruins…"

Robin narrowed his eyes as he neared the same conclusion as Tharja. "She knew about the curse beforehand, didn't she? That's why she's not surprised?"

"...I think so." Tharja admitted. "What I don't understand is why she wouldn't say anything if she already knew. It would make sense for her to be concerned above all else, considering… her ties to us." she barely managed to catch herself before exposing the Khan, although the other Shepherds undoubtedly noticed the misstep.

Honing in on the Tharja's slip, Robin was unable to press her further as Lon'qu connected another set of dots. "The excursion to Plegia - the one she mentioned when we met with her two days ago, in her home. She and Basilio are headed to the Plegian capital to ply for aid, but it would also be the perfect opportunity to stem the curse."

"By killing the Grimleal heads, those responsible for it. That's the only way it can be stopped." Robin finished for his friend. "That's why she wants me on this vacation - the Shepherds will be worn thin handling issues across the Ylissean and Plegian countryside, you two plus Virion and Olivia will be preoccupied at the port, and now I won't be able to do anything because I'll be running around Ferox. She wants to keep us as far as possible from this whole thing, because she knows that if we intervene, it'll be an excuse for another war."

"Sumia helped set this all up, though." Tharja rejoined the conversation, remembering the events at the Khan's home. "Flavia mentioned operating with her to form the whole thing. Does that mean she knows as well? Couldn't this be traced back to Ylisse?"

"Only the vacation, not the assassination plot… probably." Robin said. "If anyone in the Shepherds were to have found out about the mark independently, it would have been Chrom, and thereafter Sumia. They wanted to make sure I was occupied, knowing that I would try to help Flavia, and pushed me toward leaving for the vacation in Ferox. They all knew I would intervene and become a liability."

"What are we to do then?" Lon'qu asked. "If they don't want our help, do we just pretend to not know anything? Is there even any way we can help them without causing another war?"

Robin lowered his head to his hands as he ran through scenarios that could potentially unfold were they to help. No matter what, he found that he didn't have enough information to properly plan anything that would result positively. "Do you have any information about the Grimleal that could be of use, Tharja? I'm trying to think of a strategy, but there are just so many outliers…" he trailed off, his sentiment having already crossed.

Tharja shook her head. "I was never one for organised religion. Priests, ministers, bishops… whatever other worshippers refer to them as, they're completely unknown to me. I don't even know what the proper structure for the faith is; I've always just done as I pleased. Not to mention that I haven't been in Plegia since those few fights after I deserted their military."

"...Then we don't have enough information to go on." Robin concluded. "We can try to get Flavia to tell us, but if she doesn't want to involve us, there's nothing we can do."

"You should talk to her, Robin." Tharja suggested, recalling what Flavia had mentioned about a grave coming conflict. "Try to convince her to let us help. We can't just leave her and Basilio to handle something like this."

"I'll try." Robin accepted. He wouldn't admit it to either of his friends, but he wanted to stay behind. For all of his talk about growing stronger, about resolving his problems without having to rely on others to shoulder the burden, he was terrified.

The notion of finally confronting the apparent cause of his curse, of facing so great a potential threat, made him feel weak, and he wished for nothing more than to delay it indefinitely. He subdued a sensation that urged him to shake, his nerves burning against him as he strained to remain orderly. His head remained clear, no tone or greyness pushing itself onto him, and he redirected his stare to the back of his right hand. For what he hoped, but knew wasn't the first time in his life, he found the Mark of Grima - the proof that an evil being like the fell dragon still existed, and they or his followers held some modicum of control over him - calming.

"...Let's try to get some rest in the meantime." Robin proposed, unintentionally smiling at the mark.

His companions paid his actions no mind as their thoughts raced through all that they had learned. The two other Shepherds fell asleep in short order, leaving Robin alone awake in the carriage, no longer staring at his hand but still smiling. The grandmaster untied the bandage from his leg wound, removing his glove as well and wrapping the cloth around his hand to obscure the mark. It felt almost wrong to do, but that feeling subsided once the purple lines were out of sight. He, too, soon succumbed to the need for rest.

* * *

Seagulls squawked over the shingles of Port Ferox's buildings, droves of the birds landing on the shores and piers to pick up stray fish and other waste from the sea and dock workers. Large wooden ships lined the shoreline, many having just returned from midday fishing expeditions. Others bore unfamiliar designs and colour schemes, denoting them as merchant ships from locations across the seas. Few if any were Valmese, much of their navy having been destroyed during Walhart's conquest and were since under the process of being replaced with armoured warships.

Two carriages slowed to a halt outside an inn near the city's entrance, drivers descending from their seats to guide the horses and carts into secure shelter. Virion walked to the door of his carriage, leaving Basilio to tend to the horses as he awoke Kjelle and Flavia. The two women emerged without difficulty, having experienced far greater sleep than the fitful naps Virion had undergone on the path out of the ruins.

Despite the need to care for the horses and carriages, Olivia was already falling asleep in her seat as soon as she had stopped. Virion woke her passengers for her, Lon'qu stepping out onto the cobblestone streets first. The swordsman tended to Olivia, taking the dancer in his arms and carrying her into the inn. Basilio followed them inside after securing their combined horses and carriages, intent on purchasing their rooms for them in an act of good faith.

Virion stopped Kjelle and Flavia as they too made for the inn, body tensing as he accepted the course of action he was about to take. "Khan Flavia; Lady Kjelle. It is good to see you both well."

"Hello, sir Virion." Kjelle greeted, smiling. Her face lowered as she recalled her less than favourable standing with the archer. "Is there something you needed?"

"I would like to know about what happened at the ruins, if I may?" Virion steeled himself. "Lon'qu mentioned that they collapsed, despite how… unusual that would be. Did you happen to have a hand in it?"

"...Ah." Kjelle winced as she considered what to say. Sighing, she decided to be honest. "I got into a bit of a fight with Robin. His spells brought the temple down."

Virion rubbed his chin with his left hand as he lowered his right to his side, thumbing the quiver on his hip. "I thought so." In one swift motion he drew the regal bow from behind his back and nocked an arrow to its string, aiming directly for Kjelle. "You simply couldn't follow my orders, could you?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Flavia shouted as the sniper drew back his bowstring, reaching out to grab his bow and stop him. "There's no need for th- agh!" her shouts were cut off when Virion fired his arrow, piercing clean through Flavia's lightly armoured hand and grazing against Kjelle's cheek. Her shout drew the attention of Robin and Tharja, as well as several onlookers from various positions on the main street they were stood on.

Virion nonchalantly drew another arrow as he pushed past Flavia toward a stupefied Kjelle. The knight quickly adapted, charging Virion as he raised his bow for another shot and successfully bringing him to the ground before he could fire. She wrestled his bow from his grip, spilling the arrows out of his quiver in the process. Virion pushed her off of his body, standing before she could and bringing his foot hard into her side.

Reaching down for his bow, Virion tore the weapon from her hands and began searching for an arrow. "I informed you that I would kill you should you make an attempt on a Shepherd's life. You should have listened." His eyes lit up when he found an arrow on the cobblestone, kicking Kjelle again in the stomach before bending down to retrieve it.

Kjelle curled around the sniper's leg, winded from his assault. She was already missing her heavy armour, the lack of protection becoming evident as she fell so easily to the Shepherd without its aid. Robin and Tharja had run up to Flavia by this point, the Khan waving them ahead to the fight with her unwounded hand.

"Virion! Stop!" Robin hissed, lowering his voice in order to avoid the scrutiny of the onlookers that were gathering.

Virion held his bow in place, training it on Kjelle but not firing. "She's going to become a murderer, Robin. I cannot allow that."

"It's the same thing if you kill her!" Robin argued, voice still lowered as he neared the archer. "Please, just lower the bow."

Virion hesitated, but maintained his lock. "She's going to kill you, Robin. It would be best if she were pacified now."

"No, Virion." Robin shook his head. "There's a long, difficult path ahead of us, and I want her there for it. Don't do this."

Virion tightened his grip on his bow, focusing intently on the knight at his feet. His lips shook before he threw his bow and arrow to the ground, stepping away from her shakily. "This… this doesn't matter. We may as well be dead anyway." he said, desperation and despair wracking his voice. He grabbed his weapon from where he had thrown it, collecting his arrows from the ground as he exited the city from where they had entered, coldly passing the other Shepherds and Khan on his way.

Robin watched the sniper leave with his eyebrows raised before turning around to face Kjelle. The knight shrugged, more confused by Virion's actions than anything else. She rose and approached Flavia, offering her a vulnerary from her bag. The Khan took it and used it to heal her wound, thanking Kjelle.

"Someone should probably have a word with him about that, right?" Tharja spoke up, her tone making no indication that she should be the one to leave. "Robin, the three of us can handle rooms for tonight. Go defuse whatever that was - you are the tactician, after all."

"Which means I don't need to take orders from other Shepherds." Robin glared at her before he acquiesced with a sigh. "...But, I guess I'm never opposed to gathering information."

He passed the Khan and Kjelle as he exited the city, concern evident on his face as he appraised their statuses. They themselves showed little more than concern, Kjelle slightly indignant now that the moment had passed and Flavia looking wounded without physical pain from the first shot. Robin gestured for them to follow Tharja as he passed, and Flavia nodded, pulling Kjelle in the direction of the inn. Crowds of people pressed in around them, murmuring about their Khan and the archer as Robin pushed his way through them.

"Did that guy just shoot the Khan regent?"

"They're Shepherds, aren't they? Those guys from last year who won the tournament for Flavia?"

"Was he supposed to be some kind of assassin?"

"Does this mean there's gonna be another war?"

"No wars!" Robin shouted out as he exited the crowd. "As… interesting… as that would be, this is all just a tiny misunderstanding. Got it?"

The crowd behind him muttered as they dispersed, surprisingly trusting of the grandmaster they had come to recognise over the past year. Robin raised an eyebrow at how easily they went about their business, as though the attack had never occurred. He shrugged and returned to his pursuit of Virion.

 _A war against Ferox, huh? That would definitely be a learning experience, at least._ _It would help me get stronger. Maybe I should take Basilio up on that fight, or_ _challenge Flavia… Not to a real fight, though!_ he hastily corrected his thoughts before he could be pushed into Grima-influenced territory. _Just to-_

He was broken from his thoughts as he passed the stable, a loud sneeze from within being followed by incessant neighing.

"Is that godsdamn horse still-" Robin was cut off by another sneeze. He brought his hand up to the bridge of his nose to massage it. "One problem at a time…"

* * *

Virion fired off the last of his arrows into the tree before him, blowing off steam through target practice. He hit the same spot over and over again, distancing himself further each time until the tree was a mere point on the edge of his vision. Robin had appeared at some point and was watching him intently, not daring to disturb the archer in his moment of concentration.

Now that he had emptied his quiver, Virion lowered his bow to address Robin. "I apologise for overreacting earlier, but my sentiment stands."

"That you're going to kill Kjelle?" Robin asked. "...Or that we may as well be dead?"

"Both." Virion confirmed in a completely lifeless tone. "When I was transcribing those correspondences for you, I noticed an error on my part. There was only one report that mentioned Walhart's soldiers - one of the most recent letters detailed their efforts and composition. What I realised as I poured over them during the incredibly short time I had between here and the Ruins of Time is that every single report from before then was about the conqueror himself, and him alone. You may very well be my final hope against his wrath, and if Kjelle wishes to kill you, the world will suffer for it."

"What do you mean?" Robin's eyebrows furrowed as he considered the archer's statements. "Are you saying that you think I'm the last line of defense between you and the conqueror?"

"You are the only line between him and the rest of humanity." Virion corrected. "There were soldiers hundreds of times our superior in Valm, ones who had been tempered by ages of war. The conqueror has broken them all over his knee. Alone."

"He has an army behind him, though. He couldn't do that all alone." Robin understood now why Virion had overreacted, but it seemed incredibly petty to him. "Besides, I'm not capable of stopping someone if they're that absurdly powerful. I mean, I'd like to pretend I am, but I have to stay realistic."

"You guided the Shepherds through the entire Plegian war without a single death in their ranks-"

"Phila. Emmeryn. A couple dozen thousand Ylissean soldiers and civilians." Robin corrected him. "It could have gone far, far better with a better tactician at the helm."

"...Without a single unnecessary death in their ranks." Virion corrected his statement, grave inflection lining every word. Robin hardened his eyes on the sniper as he suppressed a growing fury at the lack of respect for the dead - for his failures. "If you could manage even a fraction of that against Walhart, then I know we will succeed."

Robin's emotions dissipated as he narrowed his eyes. "What exactly do you mean by 'a fraction'?"

"There are, what… about five or six million people, civilian and soldier combined, in all of Ferox, Ylisse, and Plegia?" Virion began in a direction that justified Robin's hesitation. "If you were to sacrifice each and every one of those lives in order to so much as slow the conqueror's gait, then I would consider you to be the greatest tactician to ever exist."

Robin's gaze softened as he took in his friend's shaky and uncertain demeanor. "You're afraid, Virion. You're not thinking properly."

"I was duke of Rosanne for years before Walhart rose to prominence. Never had my military struggled with any threat, even that of dynasts that had come to claim our sovereign lands." Virion reminisced, setting up another example of the conqueror's might. "When Walhart's forces invaded, I had assumed that his army had attacked in full, but it was apparently just one man. My forces had been routed in the two hours I expended to flee my home."

Robin sighed as he dismissed the sniper's claim. "Come on, Virion, that-"

"Do you recall the final fight against Gangrel, Robin?" Virion cut him off and gathered his attention wholly in one sentence. "The drunken conversation about being born to die in the service of something greater, and how you readily dismissed the notion? Well, I would gladly perish knowing that my only purpose in life had been to so much as inconvenience the conqueror. I would gladly sacrifice each and every Shepherd a hundred times over in order to kill him."

Just like that, Robin began to take everything Virion had said in absolute seriousness. The conqueror was now an immediate and immense threat, one that excited him as much as it terrified him. He struggled to focus on it, but was dragged down into the recesses of his memory at the mention the final battle in Plegia, and the drunken stupor that had plagued Vaike and Gregor.

* * *

Many of the Shepherds had already lost themselves to merriment, the final battle of the Plegian war having concluded in absolute victory. Soldiers that had once been their foes were laying down their weapons, seeing to it that their comrades followed suit, and were relishing alongside their Shepherd counterparts in the freedom of the conflict's end. Chrom was having a personal conversation with Sumia, an event that Robin and all others present had excused themselves from, leaving the two alone in one of the captured enemy forts. Robin returned to the Shepherd convoy, intent on basking in the afterglow of his tactical success alongside his companions.

"Ah, sir Robin. There you are." Virion approached him before he could access the caravan, walking out to the edge of the plain they had situated themselves on. "I was wondering when you would return from the fray."

"It's not a 'fray' anymore, Virion. The battles are all over now."

"Why, you sound almost disappointed." Virion quipped, tentative as he avoided the inkling of truth he was engaging. "Regardless, there may be more conflict that has yet to emerge. I trust that you will be ready for that eventuality, should it ever arise."

Robin smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes as he accounted for the archer's foreboding tone. "I'll always be ready to help the Shepherds, Virion."

"Of course you will." Virion bowed his head as his tone grew even more portent. "But… what if another conflict did call for you, one that was far more difficult than anything you have faced so far? Would you be prepared then?"

"Always." Robin repeated himself.

"And if Shepherds start to die? Even then, you will be prepared?" Virion raised his head to look intently into Robin's eyes, gauging his will. "If there is an army so great, that even the Shepherd's efforts are negligent, will you still be able to fight?"

Robin scoffed as he walked past the archer, pulling him along toward the caravan. "If such an army ever did exist, it sounds like I would have to be the one to bring it down. Now come on - enough war talk, it's time to celebrate."

Virion shook his head as he followed the tactician. "Of course you would be the one to say that. I must admit, Robin, I am almost afraid of you."

Robin slowed to a stop on the outskirts of the Shepherd camp, the sounds of celebration coming across as he neared. "What do you mean you're 'afraid'?" He forced himself to pay little attention to Virion's conversation, waving over a keg-transporting Vaike and his accompaniment, the already drunken Gregor.

"You remind me of... a man from my youth." Virion caught himself before mentioning what the present Robin now knew would have been the conqueror of Valm's name. "He was fearsome, and pleasured himself through conquest."

"Hm. Kinky." Robin maintained his focus on the coming alcohol, paying just enough mind to Virion as to barely register what the archer was saying. "I'm flattered that you think I'm 'fearsome', but I'm pretty sure my tastes are a lot more vanilla than that."

"I can see how much you enjoyed the war, Robin." Virion finally drew the tactician's attention away from the approaching Shepherds with his statement. "You treated it as though it was a game; a test of ability similar to our chess matches. I know you would be willing to sacrifice a few pawns for the opportunity to win another battle."

Robin spun on the archer. "Okay, if I'm being perfectly honest here? Yeah, I treated the war kinda like a game. Yes, I enjoyed defeating strong opponents like Gangrel. And yeah, I'd have no real problems with another one if it meant I got to defeat more, stronger, foes. But I would never even dream of sacrificing 'pawns' for the opportunity to face powerful people. It's like you don't even remember the chess matches - I always kept as many pieces going as I possibly could, no matter what."

"Yo, speaking about 'sacrificing pawns'!" Vaike entered the conversation as he approached the two Shepherds. "I gotta hand it to you Robin, keeping me alive through all that must've been hard, but you never even showed doubt. Well done!"

Robin blinked as his attention was pulled away from Virion. "Vaike? What the hell are you talking about?"

The fighter passed his keg along to Gregor, who stumbled under its weight. "People like me and Gregor here, we ain't like Chrom and you. We're expendable - you know, guys born to die so that other people can keep on keepin' on. Like the last war, when all those farmers and civil workers were conscripted? They were the fodder that kept the war going, so that nobles could stay happy."

Robin resisted the urge to allow his mouth to drop as Vaike spoke. "You can't seriously think that you're that expendable, can you? You're a Shepherd!"

"That's what it is!" Vaike laughed, slapping Gregor on the back and pumping his fist in the air. "Y'see, I always thought I would be one of the pawns who went down as some footnote in battle, where I was used to divert forces or cover cavalry or somethin'. Even as a Shepherd, I thought I would die like some loser in a ditch as an aside. Now you're here, though - and you don't treat us like pawns, even when you should. That's why I'm still alive!"

"'Even when you should'? You would die in order to win a battle for another?" Virion asked, using the Shepherd to prove his earlier point. "How… virtuous."

"Yep!" Vaike confirmed cheerily. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy being not dead and all, but I know what happens in big wars. People like me get used up to win 'em - so please, Robin, know that this pawn'll go down swinging whenever you want!"

"What the hell's wrong with you?" Robin took a step toward the fighter to emphasise his point. "None of you are pawns - you're people, who have lives outside conflict and deserve the chance to live them. I'm not going to sacrifice anyone in my strategies, not now and not ever."

"Is good ambition!" Gregor slurred out words for the first time in the conversation. "Gregor sees flaws, and knows he may die for greater purpose under not-Gregor, but is still good ideal. Gregor is not pawn - is Gregor! When Gregor is remembered he will be Gregor, not Gregor, thanks to not-Gregor's Gregor!"

"What?"

"Shhhhhhhhhh." Gregor dropped his keg to hold Robin's lips in place. "Shhhhhhhhhhh." The tactician slapped his hand away before he made contact, but respected his request for silence.

Gregor brought his hand to his own face, holding one finger up to his lips. "Shhhhhhhhhhhh. ...Gregor forget what Gregor say. But! But but but! Gregor know he can die happy as pawn of not-Gregor... er, Robin, since Robin treat pawn like Gregor! …Like king!" the mercenary laughed aloud as he successfully grabbed hold of Robin, pulling him toward where the victory celebration was about to start. "Come! Is time for drinking!"

"No - stop!" Robin twisted out of his grip, bringing up his hands to will the Shepherds to hold in place. "No one is a pawn, got it? I like facing strong opponents, but I'm not going to let anyone die for it. Never forget that."

Virion passed Robin, gesturing the others along. "We won't, Robin. Your naivete is far too charming to forget."

"Come! Party!" Gregor bellowed as he ran ahead of the group, followed shortly by Vaike.

"It's not naive…" Robin murmured as he proceeded.

"You've done well to save so many soldiers so far." Virion walked alongside the tactician. "That may not last, though. They just want you to know how prepared they are when that day comes. You should be proud." the archer flashed a smile before he, too, went ahead of his friend.

Robin stopped as he watched Virion fade into the clamour of the camp. _It won't happen. I'll never have to face so strong an_ _opponent. I'll never have to face another Gangrel, only… Grima…_ He shuddered. _No, Frederick will stop me by then. There's no need to worry - no one will ever, ever face Grima in combat. Ever._

Somehow, that thought both warmed his spirit and gave him a sense of dread like none other had.

* * *

"...You were always willing to sacrifice the Shepherds, Virion. Treat them like pawns." Robin had finally snapped back to reality. "You're a fool if you think that I would do the same."

"You won't have a choice, Robin." the sniper shook his head as he began the trek to reclaim his arrows.

"I always will." Robin countered. "No matter how powerful you think Walhart is, none of the Shepherds will die - not Kjelle, or you, or anyone."

"I knew you were naive over a year ago; I can see now that you haven't grown in the slightest." Virion jeered as he passed the grandmaster.

"If Walhart is really that strong, I'll just have to get stronger than him, or outwit him, or something." Robin followed after the archer.

"Did you hear nothing I just said?" Virion asked. "The conqueror will decimate you, no matter what, especially if you continue to allow people like that errant knight in our rank to persist."

"I'll be strong enough to defeat him."

Virion stopped as he suppressed a laugh. "I'll apologise to Kjelle. Clearly, she was in the right for trying to run you through before you are able to sacrifice every Shepherd in a vain attempt to save a pawn."

"I swear, I'll be able to do it!" Robin shouted. "You know what I'm capable of!"

"The Robin I knew from the Plegian war was fed by bloodlust, a warrior who took pleasure in defeating stronger foes flawlessly." Virion saw Robin wince, but dismissed the action. "Your willingness to prepare for Valm speaks to your warmongering attitude. I had hoped that you would see the need for sacrifice through your ideals."

"I… I'm not like that!" Robin rebutted emphatically. "That was all Grima, not me! I would never sacrifice people for the sake of war!"

Virion could no longer suppress his hollow laughter. "Is that the lie you tell yourself to escape from the consequences of your actions? I had never taken you to be such a fool."

Robin scowled as he tore off the bandage and glove from his right hand, baring the writhing Mark of Grima to Virion. "Do you see this, Virion? This is the proof that the fell dragon can exert control over me - that I need to get stronger in order to defeat it, and save everyone! Walhart will be nothing compared to it!"

Virion blinked. "That is… pitiful, Robin. You cannot truly hope to blame the flaws of your identity on an evil dragon god."

Robin staggered back a step, faltering. "W-what? ...You don't believe me?"

"Actually, I think I may." Virion brought a hand to his chin as he delved into thought. "It would explain many of your tendencies in the war, and Kjelle's actions."

"So how is it 'pitiful'?"

Virion lowered his hand to stare at Robin, gauging the other man's expression. "Have you never considered that your malevolence may be your own, and that Grima is merely a justification for what you have done?"

Robin's mouth fell open, the feeling of grey beginning to press into him again. "No! You have no idea what I've been through because of Grima; there's no way it's already dead! It is my ultimate challenge - the proof of who I really am, and no one is going to take that away from me!"

Virion tilted his head in confusion. "...What? …'Already dead'? And what do you mean by your 'challenge'?"

"Grima somehow lived beyond his last felling and can debilitate me through these tones that tear through my head." Robin recited, his vision of the grey silently congratulating his ability to do so. "When I finally manage to kill it, without losing any Shepherds, that will prove how powerful I really am - Walhart is negligible in comparison."

"Your drive in life is to prove your might over a god?" Virion recoiled at his own question.

"Yes, Virion. That is the ultimate challenge. The final game of chess, which I will win. With every Shepherd at my side."

Virion balked. "I… you know what? Sure. Why not. Go ahead and do as you please; even if you fail, as long as you kill Walhart and defeat his forces, I'll do whatever you ask of me."

Robin tilted his head at the sniper's change of heart. "Wait, is… is that your resolution to this whole argument?"

Virion shrugged. "I suppose so."

Robin tilted his head in the opposite direction. "You'll apologise to Flavia and Kjelle?"

"I will."

The grandmaster tilted his head further. "And you won't cause any more problems?"

"I will not."

"Why?"

Virion smiled genuinely to Robin. "I wholeheartedly believe that you are the only one capable of guiding us through the Valmese onslaught. You may not see us as pawns, but know that to the Shepherds you are our… queen, I suppose."

Robin's head tilted comically low. "I'm what?"

"The most significant piece in any game of chess." Virion explained, still smiling. "If you truly believe that Walhart will be a non-issue, then I trust that you have made the right call, for you are the most well-suited Shepherd for the role."

"Yeah, but why the queen?" Robin protested. "A grandmaster would make more sense as the bishop or rook or something, right?"

"Do you at the very least admit that Chrom would be the king?"

"Uh… yeah?" Robin agreed tentatively.

Virion's smile transitioned into a smirk. "Then clearly there is no other role for you than that of the queen."

"What!? But that just - no!" Robin gave an over the top reaction to humour his friend, glad that the archer had returned from their earlier gloom.

"Ah, but it is a storybook romance!" Virion began to wax poetic. "An amnesiac, saved from the harsh world by a caring prince, who gave them renewed purpose!"

The levity abandoned Robin as Virion progressed, being replaced by apprehensiveness. "Uh, I mean… that did happen."

"The two endured the hardships of war together, growing close with every passing moment!" the sniper began to incorporate theatrical hand gestures into his display, clutching his heart periodically to add emphasis to the notion of romance.

"Gods, you're starting to sound like Sumia…" Robin cringed at the unique memories of discovering that the real queen 'shipped' her husband and tactician.

"Then, once the war had concluded, the tactician realised that they had learned something they had never anticipated from the prince…" Virion paused to emphasize his final point. "How to love."

"Please shut up!" Robin yelled, beginning the run back to Port Ferox.

"Ah, but that was not all!" Virion shouted halfheartedly after the retreating grandmaster. "For their romance would be wrought with peril and intrigue, the likes of which the world had never known!"

Robin never stopped sprinting until he had reached the city limits, falling at least twice, and only then noticing that Virion had not followed him. "Gods… that got way too real…" he panted out.

Virion watched Robin disappear into the city, the tactician's hands covering their ears the entire time, even as he tripped over nothing. Virion sighed.

"The world is doomed."

* * *

Sounds of footsteps padded down the cobblestone streets of Port Ferox. Myriads of people went about their daily business, many unaware or uncaring of the presence of their Khans and Ylisse's Shepherds. Most of the Shepherds had retired to the inn in rooms that had been rented by Basilio and Flavia, the Khans intent on providing for their friends.

Khan Flavia was one of the few in full wakefulness, strolling through the city with as carefree of an expression as she could muster. Virion's informant was yet to arrive, or at least yet to make her presence known, and so the Shepherds were enjoying a moment of proper rest.

Flavia, however, was on a mission. She always had been.

Discreetly glancing over her shoulder to ensure that the Shepherds hadn't followed her, the Khan ducked into an armoury. Inside this armoury, she finally allowed her blithe smile to fade, replacing it with a seriousness she knew to be unavoidable in her situation. She drew close the blinds on the storefront windows, dimming her surroundings to a low torch-lit orange.

"Ah, Khan Flavia!" the store's front worker greeted her as she approached the counter, though it was of no difficulty - the short, plump man was entirely unoccupied beforehand.

"Good day." Flavia nodded to him. "I'm here to pick up a delivery. I trust you know what it is I'm here for?"

The shopkeeper clapped his hands together before bending down below his counter. "Of course I know! I've been holding onto these for well over a year now!" He brought a set of dark wooden cases onto his counter, bending down to pick up more until tens of the cases were stacked atop one another.

Flavia brought a hand to her chin as she appraised the containers. "Mind if I see inside them? I don't want any damaged goods."

"Absolutely, Khan Flavia." the shopkeeper smiled. "I assure you, I have cared for these beauties as if they were my own children."

The shopkeeper flipped open the first of the cases and began descending down the top row, flipping case after case open as he passed them. A variety of weapons gleamed in the torchlight, the glare intensifying as each case opened to reveal another sword, axe, lance, or bow.

Flavia lifted one of the bows in a single hand, cold metal weighing more than she had anticipated. "There are specially made arrows to accompany each bow, correct?"

"Correct." the shopkeeper confirmed. "Two full quivers of thirty arrows apiece for the brave bow, and two full quivers of twenty-five arrows apiece for the Parthia replica."

Flavia placed the brave bow in her hands in its case, shutting the polished lid. "There were some tomes as well. Where are they?"

The shopkeeper knelt to reach the lowest corners of his stores below the counter, disappearing from Flavia's sight only to reappear a moment later at a spot far to her left that was clear of cases. He was holding three books wrapped in cloth and string, and laid them carefully down next to one another next to the last of the wooden cases.

"Valflame." he pointed to the book nearest the cases, descending down the short lineup. "Mjolnir. Forseti. Each in as flawless of a condition as any of the other weapons."

Flavia approached the counter, tentatively lifting one of the tomes. "I'll need to return later tonight to pack these all away. How late do you stay open?"

The shopkeeper patted the sides of his colourful robes until he found a certain pocket, removing a slip of paper from its depths. "Today, it'll be… an hour before midnight."

Flavia grazed her hand over one of the lids near her, a 'replica' of the legendary regalia Gradivus resting within. "I'll swing by two hours after midnight with a carriage. Meet me on the street."

"For a sale like this, I'll do just about anything." the shopkeeper laughed. He glanced to the twenty-something cases on his right, his smile fading. "Khan Flavia… these weapons, or at least the brave ones…" he took in the brave sword already at her side, this one appearing slightly worn in comparison to his stock. "You aren't planning to open a museum or anything of the sort, are you? These are the weapons wars are won with."

"With any luck." Flavia snapped the lid of Gradivus' case shut and began moving down the line, doing the same for each container she passed. The shopkeeper stopped her as she stood over the brave bow, holding the case's lid in place with one surprisingly strong hand.

"Tell me, Khan Flavia…" he began. "...Is there anything that I, as a citizen of Ferox, should be aware of?"

Flavia paused before answering, biting her lower lip in a clear sign of unease. "...There is."

She remained silent, pushing back the merchant's hand as she closed the lid. He waited for her to explain herself, scowling when it became clear that she would be doing no such thing. Flavia turned to leave the store, stopping in her tracks when the door opened and revealed Robin, the grandmaster flicking his gaze over the shop interior before settling on her and smiling.

"Hello, Flavia." he greeted. "You doing a little shopping, too?"

Flavia dodged his eyes with her own, studying the floorboards intently. "...I was just leaving."

Robin angled his head toward the cases on the counter, a movement Flavia was barely able to see from the edge of her sight. "Did you buy those?"

"The fair Khan decided that my store would be the perfect venue for an inventory appraisal." the shopkeeper answered for her, easily detecting the secretive nature of his ruler's actions. "I believe she found everything satisfactory?" he directed the question to Flavia, hoping she would pick up on his deception.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, nothing was… bad, I guess." she replied, the quietness and trepidation in her voice wholly unintentional.

Robin tilted his head in confusion as he noticed the Khan's odd tone, but was unable to speak before the shopkeeper. "Oh, my dear Khan! You wound me!"

Flavia brushed past Robin as she made to exit the store, twisting her head in order to look over her shoulder at the actor shopkeeper. "...Sorry."

"Are you okay, Flavia?" Robin placed his hand on her shoulder as she stopped, lightly holding her in place. He looked over her to the cases of what he instantly knew to be weapons, with sealed tomes and quivers visible on one edge of the counter. _She's arming herself. She's leaving for_ _Plegia soon. I guess now's as good a time as any to ask about her mission…_

An odd feeling surfaced within Robin as Flavia nodded, the Khan attempting to dispel his concern. In the back of his mind, an echo of a whisper spoke to him, telling him that she was targeting Grima. That she would fail, and die, and that that would be okay.

He slowly removed his hand from her shoulder, allowing her to exit unopposed. "I hope you know what you're doing, Flavia."

The Khan smiled silently to herself as she rested her hand on the door. Not a smile of happiness, or affection, or love; a smile born of equal parts resentment and bitterness. "I know in full, Robin. Goodbye." She opened the door and exited in a single movement, disappearing into the soft light of the city.

Robin watched the door for a moment after she had left, suppressing the halfhearted grin that he had to remind himself would be absurdly inappropriate given his circumstances. He spun around to face the shopkeeper, the man having already begun the process of putting away the items from earlier.

The shopkeeper brought his attention back to his new potential customer, temporarily ignoring the mess of cases and cloth on his countertop. "So, what can I help you with?"

Robin approached the counter, his smile from moments ago becoming a genuine mask as he spoke. "I'm looking for healing potions - vulneraries, concoctions, and elixirs, if you have them."

"I have exactly what you need!" the shopkeeper's eyes lit up as he targeted another sale. "May I ask how much you intend to buy?"

"We're gonna need… let's see… if the roads hold up well enough throughout Ferox, and we go at a pace of, say, half of these past few days… the fights would be, uh…" the tactician was muttering to himself, any sound coming from his mouth tapering off as he glided through calculations and assumptions in his mind.

"...If it's of any help, I'll have you know that I'm currently holding a surplus of vulneraries and concoctions." the shopkeeper prodded him into making a decision. "Elixirs are significantly more rare, but for a friend of Khan Flavia, well… I just might be willing to part with some."

Robin waved his hand in the air as if to silence the man, his thoughts entirely focused on the lack of information he was running on about his 'vacation'. _I don't know how long I'll be away from well-stocked stores, or where I'm even going yet. I'll just need to plan reasonably then._

"I'll take an elixir, uh… four concoctions, and… ten vulneraries."

The shopkeeper gave a pleasant smile as he walked to shelves lining the store's rear wall, plucking several vials from their ranks. He spoke without turning to face Robin. "May I be so bold as to ask what this is for? Perhaps I have some staves and medical supplies that will interest you as well, or maybe some weapons?"

"Hm…" Robin rubbed his chin in thought. "Yeah, some weapons would be nice - I'd like a powerful wind tome and a lance, if you have any."

"Of course I have some!" the shopkeeper laughed as he returned with Robin's order of restoratives. "The best lance I have up for sale as of the moment is silver-level quality, and there are some steel and iron ones lying around in storage. As for wind tomes, I have a few arcwind books on me, and a brand-new rexcalibur tome that could be yours for as little as one thousand five hundred gold - discounts included."

"I'll take the rexcalibur tome and two lances, one steel and one silver." Robin rubbed the back of his head as another thought dawned on him. "You don't happen to do armour fittings around here, do you?"

The shopkeeper frowned, his face communicating far too much sorrow for anything Robin would consider natural. "Alas, I do not." His face brightened in an instant, the depressing facade forgotten entirely. "I do have an associate who would be more than pleased to both fit and craft armour for you, though."

"That'd be great, thanks. How quickly can it be done?"

"Oh, at the earliest… perhaps he could start the day after tomorrow, if your schedule permits?" The shopkeeper said.

"Uh… it might?" Robin answered weakly. "I still don't really know when I'll be leaving, but it'll be as soon as possible. I'll make sure to wait for the fitting, though."

"I'll get my associate here as soon as possible, then." the shopkeeper said. His eyes were gleaming at the prospect of even more sales, Robin awkwardly averting his own gaze to hide from the odd intensity that radiated from the man.

 _Gods, I hope none of Kjelle's friends are as_ _intense as this guy… ah hell, who am I kidding? Kjelle already wants to kill me,_ _and none of her friends are probably any better._ "Alright, how much gold for all of this?"

The shopkeeper pulled another slip of paper from his robes, tallying prices with one finger. "The armour will have to be weighed and appraised after the fitting, but it's going to be expensive. As for everything here, for you it'll be…"

"You don't have to discount me just because I know Flavia." Robin cut in. "I'll pay in full for everything."

"Then it'll be… ten thousand six hundred gold."

Robin paled slightly. "And how much would that be with discounts?"

The shopkeeper shrugged. "About… eight thousand eight hundred."

Robin's head fell as he wordlessly weighed his coin purse. "...I'll take the discounts."

The shopkeeper give a tight smile. "Understandable."

Robin held one of the vulneraries in his hand as he poured gold coins onto the counter. "Hey, do you know if these work on horses the same as people?"

The question ripped the shopkeeper from his focus on the growing pile of coins. "Uh, I assume so? Equestrian aid should be of no difference to human for magic potions."

Robin nodded as he set the vulnerary down next to the shopkeeper's newly appeared coin weighing scale. "Cool."

* * *

Kjelle pushed open the door to the inn, having finally needed to cut her training regimen short after her body had screamed in protest, the healing magics from earlier offering surprisingly little respite aside from sealing her wounds. She had exited Port Ferox in order to exercise, the world growing dark around her before she decided to retire early for the night. It was a decision she resented, knowing that she always had to become stronger in order to stand a chance against Robin, but one that she felt was necessary to avoid greater pain or debilitating injury.

Torches were used sparingly to light the inn's interior, many already extinguished for the night. Only the bar and serving station remained fully bright, many of those with rooms at the inn partaking in a late bout of drinking. Flavia and Virion sat among their ranks, the archer determined to have the Khan accept his lengthy apology in full.

Kjelle had shrugged the apology off as soon she heard it, dismissing Virion's expression of regret in order to train. The attack had actually wounded her, and while the arrow's gash had healed easily with the aid of a restorative, the knowledge that a Shepherd so readily despised her was another matter entirely. Flavia had immediately forgiven the sniper as well, but for whatever reason, the Khan had lost her boisterous nature in favour of a downhearted composure. Virion had made it his mission to find out why, but it was evident even from Kjelle's uninterested position that he was making no ground.

As far as Kjelle knew, Basilio, Olivia, and Tharja were all sleeping, the two carriage drivers having never emerged since the morning and the sorceress having retired late into the day. Lon'qu had exited the inn at midday, and while he was likely somewhere within the city, Kjelle didn't know where. Aside from them, Flavia and Virion were at the bar, and Robin had returned to the inn from a shopping trip for a meal shortly before she had left to train.

Robin was seated at the same table he had chosen hours ago, head buried into a green-backed tome with his plate, cleaned of food, still on the light wooden surface before him. He noticed Kjelle as she entered, waving her over to a free seat across from him as she neared the staircase to her room.

"Hello, Kjelle." he greeted. "There's some stuff I have to run by you. Is now a good time?"

"As good as any." the knight took the seat across from him, resting her hands on the table. "What are you reading?"

"A new wind tome." Robin placed a scrap of cloth between the book's open pages, snapping it shut in order to give Kjelle his full attention. "It's a bit stronger than the arcwind tome I lost in the ruins, and I'm just going over the new spells it has."

"...Do you not know how to cast wind magic?"

"No, not at all." Robin replied with a note of bitter sarcasm. His voice then returned to a more pleasant tone as he continued. "Rarer and more powerful tomes have rarer and more powerful magic, and the ones I found in the Ylissean royal library weren't inscribed with spells like this. Most tomes are copies of another, and therefore I'll have to learn this spell once before I can recognise it or cast it as blood magic."

Kjelle quirked her head. "What is 'blood magic', exactly?"

"Tomeless magic." Robin explained. "Mages can cast spells using their own bodies as conduits instead of tomes, but it drains their energy in the process. It can take either a lot of time or a lot of healing magic to recover from overuse."

Kjelle began to drum her fingers on the table, caring surprisingly little for the world outside her conversation. "So how the hell do tomes prevent that if all you get from them is an inscription? And how do things like vulneraries or staves work if they can be used in the same way?"

"Tomes and staves act as conduits instead of an individual, meaning that the user doesn't have to expend any of their own vitality in order to cast anything." Robin answered, matching the easy tone of her voice. "I don't think vulneraries work in the same way, but I also don't know how they would work if that were the case."

"So when tomes and staves break, it's just because they got worn down to the point that they can't act as conduits?" Kjelle asked, further diverging their conversation from its original purpose.

"I mean, they won't break if you take care of them properly, same as any other weapon." Robin leaned toward her as he absorbed himself solely in his explanation. "See, magic-based stuff like this can actually recharge over time, like how blood magic can be used again after resting enough. If you keep tomes and staves in good condition and leave them for long enough, they'll be as useful as ever before."

Kjelle brought a hand to her head as she considered the new information. "It just… recharges? That's it? ...And all you need to use tomes or staves is to have read about them before?"

Robin rested back into his seat as he continued. "Only tomes. Staves can recharge, but you need a specific staff in order to fulfill a specific function at a certain potency. Tomes can also only be as powerful as the book allows, and most that have rarer spells will be more powerful."

"That sounds…" Kjelle paused as she considered the right words to get her point across. "...ridiculously stupid. Gods, magic is dumb; just use a lance or a sword or something and that way you don't have to worry about this nonsense."

"...I almost feel as though I should take that personally." Robin frowned. "Anyway, there was the stuff I wanted to talk to you about. I bought you some lances to compensate for the one I broke, and I'm hoping you'll train with them. One steel, one silver."

"You want me to train?" Kjelle asked. "Why? Wouldn't that just make me more of a threat?"

"Well, that's the plan. You want to get stronger, as do I, so we can help each other - at least, once you get stronger."

Kjelle frowned indignantly. "What, you think I'm not strong enough now?"

Robin shook his head. "Even after the Naga's tear stuff, I still had to hold back. I have no doubt you'll get stronger, since you seem really… determined, to say the least, but it might be a while before you can properly oppose me - or any other Shepherd, for that matter."

"I don't care about fighting other Shepherds, though."

"Right." Robin's head fell before whipping back up to meet her with an eager smile. "We can start your Robin-killing lessons as early as tomorrow, if you'd like. There's an armour fitter coming in soon, though, so you may need to take that time off to get replacement gear."

Kjelle winced and checked over her shoulder for Flavia, thankful that the Khan was preoccupied with a drink and had not overheard the 'Robin-killing' comment. "Not necessary." she waved the earlier question away. "I have a set I'm willing to use at my teacher's home. It's on the way to the capital, which we'll have to pass through in order to reach the first destination. We'll just have to make a tiny detour."

Robin's face returned to a frown. "Okay, first of all, why would you not want a brand-new, custom made set of armour? Just how good could your other set possibly be? And second, how the hell do you know where the first destination will be?"

Kjelle's face became unreadable. "The armour isn't that good, it's just… an heirloom, I guess. It'll suffice." Her face lit up with a menacing glow. "Hopefully, it'll give me the strength I need to… 'train'. As for the destination stuff, Flavia gave me some notes on where to go and what to do. I can show you some of them tomorrow, but most of them are a little too revealing of my friends."

"I already pretty much believe your whole time travel spiel. Concealing information isn't going to make me any more trusting."

"I'd like to protect their identities for as long as possible." Kjelle shrugged. "That way, they can decide whether or not to conceal themselves on their own, like 'Marth'."

"Fair enough, I suppose." Robin stared at her, and she stared back fully alert. "Out of curiosity, is your name really Kjelle?"

She relaxed into her seat, alertness partially fading. "...Yeah, it is." She saw no reason to hide this truth from him, especially considering how idiotic the entire notion of concealment was to her.

"I guess I have no choice but to believe you, then." Robin rose from his seat, gesturing for the knight to follow him. "I can give you the lances right now; they're just up in my room. Can I get those notes from you, as well?"

Kjelle nodded, allowing the grandmaster to continue. "Thanks. I don't know how long we'll be here before the informant arrives, so you might be training without armour for a little while until we can return to the capital and pick that other set up."

Kjelle froze before she could ascend the staircase to their rooms. "How long will we have to wait?"

Robin tapped his chin as he tried to form a timeline. "Uh, I don't know… Virion said his informant would be here soon, so probably only a few weeks at most?"

"A few weeks!?" Kjelle shouted, earning her glares from several other inn residents. "My friends are in absurdly dangerous locations - slave running fields, a secluded island full of risen, a desert full of magical mirages!" she continued at a more measured pace. "We can spare a few days here, at the absolute worst!"

"I won't be going until after I meet the informant." Robin asserted. "If things go poorly enough with them, I may not even be able to go on the 'vacation' at all."

"I'll just have to go on my own then!" Kjelle threatened lamely.

"Go ahead." Robin waved her off as he ascended the staircase. "I'm not going to abandon the Shepherds if things get grim. A Valmese invasion would require me to be either here or in Ylisstol, nowhere else."

"The Valmese invasion…" Kjelle saw the lifeline he had unintentionally thrown, her foreknowledge finally coming in useful and ensuring her Robin-killing lessons would come to fruition. "How long has it been since Gangrel was defeated? Er, killed?"

Robin watched her intuitively as he slowed to a stop. "...About a year, maybe a few weeks more."

"Then the Valmese won't invade for another year." she proclaimed. "We should have that entire time to help my friends and find those Flavia hasn't, and you can start training me to kill you!" She didn't bother to try hiding her excitement, or the more sensitive information in her statement.

"...Maybe." Robin resumed walking. "My time has differed a lot from yours so far, so the invasion may happen far earlier, or maybe not at all. We'll just have to wait and meet the informant."

"If they take too long, then we have to leave early!" Kjelle reasserted.

"Not me. I promise, if I even have only a few weeks to make this trip, I'll do it. Nothing can get wholly in the way of my planning, though, and I want to guarantee that every Shepherd makes it out of this no worse for wear, so I'm going to need a lot of time to plan."

"...Right." Kjelle acquiesced. "I'll stay here for a few days, but if it takes too long, I'm leaving. You can follow after me if you want, but I won't be waiting around."

"Got it." Robin spun around on the upstairs landing to face Kjelle. "Hey, just out of curiosity, do you know the name of Virion's informant?"

Kjelle blinked at the unexpected question. "Uh, I mean… it's probably just lady Cherche, right?"

"I think so." Robin said. "I just have to be sure about you, y'know?"

He turned back around and walked the short distance to his room, grabbing the lances from where they were slanted against the wall. Kjelle picked out the few dossiers she was willing to share from her bag, as well as a few hastily copied manuscripts of locations that she had removed compromising information from, passing them to the tactician in the dim hallway in exchange for the weapons before returning to her bed for a night's rest.

Robin clicked the door to his room closed, laying the papers he had received down on a small desk against the inn's rear wall and sitting down on the edge of his bed. He propped his arms up on his knees and stared at them, pulling Virion's correspondences from his cloak a moment later and placing them next to the parchment, and returned to his bed.

 _I'm going on this vacation. If Kjelle is going_ _to leave, I'll have to follow her, to make sure she becomes either someone strong_ _enough to be a Shepherd or a challenge that's actually worth defeating. No, no,_ _that's not right…_ he mentally corrected himself, realising only now the conclusion he really wanted from her training. _She'll be_ _a challenge worth killing, or one worth killing me_ _Someone who will be an actual_ _challenge - a person capable of and willing to kill me above all else, and once I kill_ _them, it'll be the ultimate proof that I've gotten stronger… or vice versa._

He felt a growing warmth in his chest, the feeling spreading from an unknown happiness and contentment. He would be strong enough to kill someone designed to fell him, and it would be the ultimate proof of his strength.

After all, he wouldn't be killing Grima. No one would ever kill Grima, because only Robin is able to, and Robin didn't want to. Grima was the evil he couldn't overcome, and that was somehow perfectly okay, because Grima was the evil in him.

Grima was the murderer, the warmonger, the one who wanted to become strong by killing others and enjoyed doing it. Robin wasn't like that; even before he knew Grima existed, it was Grima that warped his mind and made him enjoy killing bandits, and risen, and want to kill Chrom. It was Grima who would possess him to kill Kjelle, and start the war against Walhart, and kill any opposition. It was Grima who allowed Robin to do as he pleased, and the dragon would never be overcome.

Robin passively thought that it was a shame that he would never be able to escape Grima, but he accepted his fate all the same. It couldn't be avoided; Grima was going to kill everyone, and that was how the demon would become stronger. It was how Robin would become stronger. That was all that mattered: becoming stronger.

Power was what mattered to Grima, the ability to kill and conquer its opponents being what shaped it. Robin knew that it was impossible to avoid the dragon's influence, as only killing the beast would end it, but that simply couldn't happen. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but deep down, Robin knew that killing Grima would rid him of his excuse to kill. That was the last thing he ever wanted, because he wanted to become stronger, because power was what mattered to Robin.

* * *

 **For some reason, Lucina and Falchion wasn't something that clicked with me until your comment, Calpyso. I mean, I've been purposefully writing my current chapters and plans for the fic around Lucina very pointedly not having it, as that sets up a lot of appearances from some antagonists, but still. Somehow I knew that she wasn't going to have it, but forgot to comb over the first few chapters in editing to make sure I didn't mention her having it. I control+f'd 'Falchion' for my copies of the first few chapters and didn't find anything, and checked a few of the scenes I thought I might have mistakenly mentioned it, but didn't see anything, so hopefully everything's fine.**

 **I actually didn't have the full direction and outline of this story decided until ~chapter 10, as while I knew the general stuff like themes and a few major scenes, I didn't have the finer details worked out. Like Lucina and Falchion. There are probably a few more things like that in the next few chapters, but I'll be extra careful to make sure nothing unintentionally contradictory gets past.**

 **Retconning is always something I could do if I messed up, but I'd rather avoid that at all costs, so I would probably change the story overall to fit the error. The part of the initial scene where Kjelle mentions Falchion to Flavia is probably the closest I'll ever come, since that was added to address the problem of Falchion directly during editing.**

 **Anyway, for this chapter specifically: Virion was the most difficult part of the chapter, since it took a surprising amount of work to make his scenes be not-narmy or anything of the sort. Well, less narmy than what you see here, anyway. Flavia and Basilio are going to be put on a bus very soon, but they'll return eventually. Most of the Shepherds have and will be put on one bus or another, but they'll all be back for the later parts of the story.**

 **The order for screen time in this story is likely going to be Robin first, then Kjelle, then Lucina, then Chrom, then Sumia, then Flavia, provided that I can stick well enough to my plans. Flavia doesn't do as much as Lucina or even Sumia in the end, but since she has way more presence early on and in the middle area of the story, I placed her in the summary over them. I may change that and the description later on to better represent some of the later developments, but that's a ways away still.**

 **SirGregSloth: Speaking of Flavia: after you left your comment, I started working on a oneshot of her and Robin. I don't know if it'll be what you want or not, but I hope you'll like it. It'll be up one the 15th, 10 days from now (and almost valentines!). Also, the edge you mentioned in your comment is actually something I want to keep down in the story, but I also keep playing it up once in a while to keep the asshole factor in play. There won't be too much of it after the first major turning point, but it'll always be present in some form.**

 **Status: As of 05-02-18, I'm beginning chapter 17. I'm happy to write any oneshots or short stories between chapters, but this story will always take precedence over others, so if you want one you may be waiting for a little while. Still, I'll do my best to fulfill any request, so message me or leave a comment if you want one. Unless it's insanely messed up, in which case I reserve the right to refuse the request - I've seen how bad the internet can get, and there are definitely certain things I don't want to write about, no matter what.** ** _cough_** **mpreg** ** _cough_**

 **As always, thanks for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

Darkness pervaded the inn's upper floor, seeping into every floorboard and window and forcing itself onto those sleeping. Downstairs, Flavia and the recently awoken Basilio sat at a table with unconsumed drinks in their hands. Light existed in the form of fire, several torches lining the walls having yet to be extinguished. The innkeeper had retired for the night less than an hour ago, and now the two Khans were simply biding their time until they were able to exit the city.

The Khans' carriage was to be loaded with the weapons they had prepared in preparation for the Plegia incursion, and the two had no intention whatsoever to wait at the port for Cherche. They had planned long ago to delegate their responsibilities to Robin, who they knew would be able to handle the matters leading up to the invasion before he even departed for his 'vacation'. Their task, after all, required them to be in the Plegian capital in less than a week's time, and they were now required to keep a rigorous frame of reference.

Once Flavia estimated the time to be slightly less than one hour after midnight, she rose from her seat to inform Robin about his added authority, pick up the weapons, and then depart. Basilio rose a moment after her, wordlessly navigating the darkness of the inn toward an exit and making for the stable at which their carriage rested.

The ex-Khan saw, despite his impairment, the unknowable shroud that manifested over Flavia when near Robin, and knew that she needed to overcome whatever plagued her through the means he thought best - direct confrontation. Therefore, he removed the option for her to take care of the carriage, effectively pressuring her into waking the sleeping tactician and handling her problems firsthand.

Flavia shook her head as she ascended the staircase to the second floor, already seeing clearly through her lesser counterpart's thinly veiled plot. Nonetheless, she approached Robin's room, preparing her words in advance so as to effectively convey the essentials of her request without slipping up.

Raising her hand to knock on his door, Flavia hesitated. If she were to do this, it would mean having to actually face Robin, and now that she thought about it, she was unable to confront him, to confront everything that was brewing in the reaches of her mind.

She sighed as she retreated down the stairway, away from the emotions that scared her so terribly, from the heinous mixture of affection and hatred. After several minutes she, the great Khan regent of Regna Ferox and champion of countless vicious battles, slipped a shakily written note underneath the door that separated her from the sleeping grandmaster of Ylisse.

The Khans reconvened outside the inn, Basilio having fully readied their carriage for loading and departure. Flavia said nothing to him, but even then he was able to recognise the shroud that hung over her as they creeped through the port city.

He refused to speak as well, knowing that Flavia would be the most capable to handle her own matters, despite what he may consider best - it was best for her to decide for herself, as Robin had once said an age ago, and Basilio had always acknowledged the truth of that sentiment.

Weapon after weapon was set with care into the body of the cart, joining the restoratives that had been signed away into various compartments days before the departure from the capital. Then, the Khans simply left, the highroads to Plegia welcoming them without any hint of trepidation into their silent embrace.

* * *

Over an hour after the sun had first risen from the horizon, Robin awoke. He refused to rise from his bed, his mind playing and replaying every aspect of last night over and over in his head, every single word spoken by and to him in his conversation with Kjelle, and all that he had thought upon returning to his room.

 _...I'm really going through with this, aren't I?_ He lay awake for hours on end, his body ignoring his commands once he finally decided to begin his day. A feeling that he may still be lying to himself gnawed at the recesses of his mind, that something he had said or thought was untrue and that even he was uncertain of what the lie had been.

He dismissed his thoughts, as he so frequently found himself doing, and eventually managed to rise to a half-sitting position underneath his cloth covers. An odd yet familiar sensation pressed against him, weighing his body down and pulling longingly at every fibre of his being, and after several extensive moments of consideration, he realised that the grey had somehow managed to follow him into his sleep and now his wakefulness.

Every aspect of his body, from his persistent, out of place yet familiar exhaustion to the dull pulses in the recesses of his mind, urged him to rest again despite his utter lack of a desire to do anything of the sort. He sat in the bed for longer than he bothered to keep track of, sliding out from underneath the threateningly calming covers only to sit at the edge of the bedspread for even longer.

A knock sounded against his door after another unknowable length of time, a brusque voice sounding from beyond it by a short distance that may have well as been hundreds of kilometres.

"Hey, Robin, you up yet?" It was Kjelle; obviously it was Kjelle, who else would it be? "I was wondering if we could start our, uh… 'training' soon."

Robin sighed as he pushed himself up off of his bed, pacing up to his travel bag and rummaging through it for a set of clean clothes, forcing aside vulneraries and concoctions as he went. "I'll be out in a minute." he called out over his shoulder, hardly diverting his attention from his task. "Also, don't say 'training' with so much emphasis. It makes it sound… weird."

For a brief moment he wondered if his voice had always possessed such a hollow tone, and eventually accepted that it had; after all, he could remember for it no other descriptors.

Wood creaked as his door was gradually pushed open, Kjelle barging into his room once she was able to surmise that the grandmaster was decent. She paused in the middle of her stride as she caught sight of a sheet of paper on the floor inside Robin's room, and bent down to pick the parchment up.

"Hey!" Robin shouted out as he brought his cloak up to hide his bare chest. "I'm still changing in here!"

"Don't care." Kjelle ignored his partial lack of clothing as she unfolded the letter, buffing out the crease along its width in order to read it properly. She glanced over its contents before dismissing it as uninteresting, holding it out to the now-clothed grandmaster at slightly less than her full reach.

"Nice tattoo, by the way." she added, arcing her head toward the pulsating Mark of Grima that had been exposed when he was changing clothes. "It really brings out your… you-ness."

"Shut up." Robin snatched the note from her outstretched hand in a single abrupt movement, turning to hold it up against the faint light of his window.

'Robin,

Basilio and I received new information from one of our informants. The situation with Valm will require our attention soon, and so we have begun our journey to Plegia prematurely. Don't worry about the vacation, though - we'll settle everything we need to in Plegia, so feel free to go ahead and clean up the Feroxi countryside. Kjelle already has the papers your little quest will be based around, so ask her for the necessary information. In the meantime, we've decided to grant you temporary authority to make decisions on the behalf of Regna Ferox in regards to Virion's informant, who should be arriving soon after you read this.

Just as an aside, while I suspect you already know this, there's a small chance we won't be returning. We should be back in either Port Ferox or Ylisstol within a few weeks, but if we aren't there, then you should know that things went bad. If that happens, it makes the need to find the people on the path we've set all the more important to find, so please follow through with that, no matter what.

Stay safe,

Flavia'

Robin stared at the shaky writing for some time longer, eventually folding it back into half its length and setting it aside on the desk near him next to Virion's copied correspondences. He clapped his hands together as he turned to face Kjelle, his dour mood from earlier superficially forgotten.

"So, you want to start training now?" he asked, and she nodded. "You know the letter said that Cherche would likely be here today-ish, right? Flavia's informants have been pretty good so far."

"I know how good the informant is, but that's no reason we can't train until she shows up." Kjelle argued. "C'mon, just the basics of bird killing will be fine for now."

Robin switched his gaze between the knight and the letters on his desk, trying his absolute best to disregard her comparison that somehow managed to amuse him. He sighed when the fierceness and determination within Kjelle's eyes reared their head once again, and he shoved some of the letters into his cloak before walking with her out of his room and down the inn stairs.

"We're going over magic before anything else." he explained. "That's what I always fight with more than anything, so it's what you'll need to know best."

Lon'qu and Olivia sat at the table Robin had used the night prior, chatting quietly as they picked away at plates of food. Olivia yawned between her statements, the wear from battle and constant carriage operation refusing to abandon her after only one night's rest.

Robin stopped and stood awkwardly at the side of their table, waiting for them to come to a natural pause in their conversation. Kjelle paced up to the inn's exit and paused to await the tactician there, crossing her arms impatiently. The two seated Shepherds quickly forced a lull into their discussion, giving Robin the opening he needed to speak.

"Oh, uh, okay, so…" Robin began as awkwardly as he had been standing, fumbling in the depths of his robes for the note Flavia had written. "Flavia and Basilio have… well, left, and they've pretty much promoted me from Ylissean ambassador to mini-Khan." He finally managed to pull the letter from his cloak, passing it to Olivia as she yawned once more. "So, yeah… I thought you guys should know."

Olivia blinked as she read over the letter, then passed it over to Lon'qu. The myrmidon appraised it, his eyes closing as he read over the second paragraph. He passed it back to Robin, his eyes remaining closed.

"You didn't manage to convince her not to go." Lon'qu stated flatly, with less trace of emotion than perhaps ever before.

"I guess she's really determined." Robin shrugged, placing the letter away in his cloak pockets.

"Did you not speak to her at all yesterday?" Olivia spoke up, her lover having evidently informed her of his, Robin's, and Tharja's conclusion from earlier.

"Sadly, no." Robin lied without a shred of hesitation, knowing that he would in no way be exposed and that the falsehood would be far more beneficial to him than the truth - that he had allowed her to leave almost unopposed. "Anyway, I've got some stuff to do with Kjelle, so I probably won't be around for a few hours. Find me if the informant shows up, okay?"

Lon'qu nodded as Olivia resisted sleep for a moment longer, her head bowing before jerking up into wakefulness. She shot Robin a halfhearted smile before yawning, Lon'qu rising from his seat to help her upstairs into their room for another period of rest.

Kjelle exited the inn as Robin approached her position, the tactician noticing for the first time that day the steel lance strapped to her back. He considered asking about the silver variant he had purchased, but considered that Kjelle may not yet be able or willing to use it and held silent.

"You always that awkward around your 'friends'?" Kjelle asked as they stepped onto the streets of Port Ferox, firmly extinguishing the grandmaster's thoughts.

"I didn't think you would be one for small talk." he said, trying to dismiss her statement before he had to actually end up answering any personal questions. "Also, they are my friends, regardless of whatever you've thought up from your experiences in the future."

"You're avoiding the question." she said, effortlessly bypassing his redirection.

"...In that case, with them, yes. They're a couple, so they were probably talking about… I don't know, mushy crap." Robin reluctantly responded. He glanced from side to side across the street before turning to Kjelle. "Did you have some kind of place you wanted to do this, or…?"

Kjelle nodded and began to walk away from the inn. "There's a place on the northern docks that's unoccupied during the day - I saw as much during my endurance training yesterday. We should be able to spar there without even needing to leave the city."

She took the lead as she guided them to the pier she had selected. Robin followed wordlessly behind her, taking in the greyed sights and dulled sounds of the vibrant port city as he went. The two only made one stop on their path, informing an oddly exhausted shopkeeper that they would not be needing an armour fitting, much to the man's dismay.

* * *

"So, what's first for magic training?" Kjelle drew her lance with a single hand as she tapped her feet against the polished wooden beams beneath her, judging their durability. The platform they stood on was raised and thick, massive rectangular prisms having been cut from what were undoubtedly some of Ferox's eldest trees to fashion the hundred-ish metre long time-worn dock.

Robin faced away from her at an angle, watching the rise and fall of waves off the Feroxi coast intently. He barely registered what the knight said as he fixated on the rhythmic movements of the dark blue seawater, and rather than engage her he decided to feign having lost himself completely in the atmosphere of the coast. For what reason he did so, even he wasn't entirely certain.

"Hey! Robin!" Kjelle shouted at the tactician when it became apparent he was paying her no mind.

"Huh?" Robin jumped slightly at her call, his shock only partially falsified. "Ah, sorry, but you know how life is. It's all these little things you have to stop for that make it so amazing." _Have I always sounded so… hm._ he failed to find the proper word for his situation, getting caught between 'inauthentic' and 'impassive'.

"Whatever." Kjelle rolled her eyes at his overtly cliché sentiment and pointed her lance directly at his chest. "Should we start with sparring?"

"Not yet." Robin brushed her lance away from him and she reluctantly set it aside on the pier. "Okay, first things first, you'll have to understand what fighting basic mages is like."

Kjelle eyed the rexcalibur tome he was equipping, her fingers aching to reach for her lance. Robin leafed through some of the pages before flipping back to one near the beginning of the book, nodding to himself and looking up to meet Kjelle's wary gaze.

"Alright, for now I'm just going to hit you with magic, and I want you to react however you would normally. Got it?" Robin asked, smiling disarmingly at her.

Kjelle frowned and bent to pick up her lance. "There's absolutely no chance that I'll ever let you do something like that."

"Aw, come on!" Robin protested. "This'll be the best way for me to evaluate where you're at and how I can help you."

"Just because you didn't manage to kill me at the ruins doesn't mean you won't succeed now." Kjelle said. She thrusted her lance out to the point that its tip was mere centimetres from his chest to emphasise her words.

Robin blinked as he pushed the weapon to the side again. "You know I'm the one who got you out of the ruins after they collapsed, right?"

"You were the one who caused the collapse!" Kjelle exclaimed with a barely contained ferocity that almost caused Robin to flinch.

"That was as much your fault as it was mine." he rebuked.

"No… you've been planning this, haven't you?" Kjelle retrained her lance on him. "This is what you do as a tactician, you plot and scheme… this has all been orchestrated since before you ever even met me."

Robin stared blankly at her. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Trickery and deceit are how strategists operate, right?" she continued.

"Not in the slightest!"

"Which means that you, Grima, have probably known about my existence this entire time." she kept going, ignoring him. "You've lied to the Shepherds, to the Khans, to everyone, knowing that you would have to kill my friends and I since we posed so great a threat to you!"

"That's not - ugh!" Robin cut himself off in frustration. "First of all, I'm not Grima. Second, I would never play with the Shepherds like that - like they were pawns. That's kinda my golden rule. And again, I saved your life, even if I was sort of the one to jeopardise it in the first place. I wouldn't try to kill you, especially not when you're so weak."

"Weak!?" Kjelle almost screamed, managing to restrain herself. "Oh, I get it, you're trying to incite me to attack you! You really do want to kill me - that's why you lured me here to a secluded pier, so you could fight me, and when you inevitably lose you would pull out some underhanded trick to cripple me and leave me here to die! The stuff at the ruins was just to trick the Shepherds into thinking you cared about me, and now you're going to convince them I'm insane, attacked you, and died during your self-defense."

"You were the one who brought me here!" Robin argued in return. "Also, you've been trying to attack me since the day we met!"

"Then prove your honesty to me!" Kjelle tightened her grip on her lance, but held back from actually attacking him. "Duel me here and now, and prove your merit through combat!"

"...How does that make any sense!?" Robin took an instinctive step away from the point of the weapon before him, holding up his wind tome defensively. "You know what? Fine, fine, I'll duel you. Know that you don't stand a chance, though."

"Took you long enough." Kjelle smiled, her anger eclipsed entirely by her newfound cheer.

Robin blinked as the extent of her ploy sank into his conscious. "Wait, did you just… trick me into fighting you?"

Kjelle continued to smile. "For a grandmaster you're not exactly… well, you're an idiot, to say the least."

Robin frowned as his hands moved to his hips, hoping to maintain some shred of dignity through his posture. "Well… maybe this is still part of my master plan."

"Oh yeah? How?" Kjelle held back her laughter at his loss of confidence.

"Maybe I do want to kill you, and this is just a ridiculously elaborate plot." He brainstormed less absurd excuses, but found none above the grey.

"I thought you were adamant about not doing stuff like that - you know, using the Shepherds like pawns, or killing people you know." Her smirk faded slightly. "...At least until you became Grima." Her smile abandoned her entirely.

"...Was I like that in your time?" Robin asked tentatively, adopting a tone similar to hers in gravity.

"...Yeah." she said, her grip wavering for a split second. She took a step away from the tactician to clear her mind from its gloom, keeping her lance raised and signaling for him to prepare for the duel. Robin sighed as he accepted her challenge, flipping his tome open to a random page as he drew the levin sword he always held close.

"Y'know, Khan Flavia actually wants for me to keep you alive for as long as possible. I'm not gonna listen to her, but still, the sentiment was there." Kjelle spoke before lashing out at the grandmaster, her overly prepared jab easily being deflected into the pier by an offhand swipe of her foe's levin sword.

Refraining from electrocuting her in a counter with his magical blade, Robin decided to pry some information from the knight. "So, Flavia accepted what you told her, then?" If his theory about Plegia was correct, then the Khan actually knew about Grima long ago, but he could glean the necessary facts from whatever answer Kjelle gave.

"Not quite." Kjelle leapt away from him, holding her lance up to its full length and leveling it at the tactician's chest. "It seemed like she knew about you and I in advance, and wanted to go to Plegia to help you out with the Grimleal."

"By killing their leaders." Robin said, preparing his wind magic as he spoke. "I had thought as much, though I don't really get why. Grima is strong enough that it could probably decimate the Shepherds and Khans with ease."

"Sounds like you're making excuses not to help her." Kjelle lunged for him before he could get his cast off, but he simply sidestepped her and shot the weak spell into her side, sending her lurching toward the edge of the pier and down to her knees.

"...Do you think she'll survive?" Robin asked as he prepared even more wind magic.

Kjelle grunted as she pushed herself up to a standing position, her feet teetering at the edge of the wooden boards that separated her from the sea. "If anyone can do it, it'd probably be her."

"That wasn't the question."

Kjelle eyed Robin carefully, anticipating his next spell as much as she was trying to read his expression. "...She'll more than likely perish in Plegia."

Robin lowered his head as he accepted her appraisal, Kjelle barely managing to catch the ends of a twisted grin plaguing his lips before his head shot back up, his wind magic fully primed. He shot the spell out against her and she dived sideways to avoid it, failing to evade entirely and being spun by her legs when it contacted her shins.

Robin paced carefully up to the fallen knight, his sword and tome both in hand should she suddenly attack. "Tell me, why are you so intent on disobeying Flavia's orders?"

"I know what you really are, and I know that you have to be stopped. I won't doom the world's future because of some naïve wish, even if it is Khan Flavia's." She lashed out with her lance at the tactician's exposed legs, hoping to land a decisive blow before he could react.

Robin deftly dropped his sword in order to blow her lance down into the wood of the pier before stepping on it with his left foot, his right kicking her in the stomach and away from the weapon. "It's good that you're driven. Things will turn out well if you stay determined enough to see them through."

"Even if my only goal is to kill you?" Kjelle coughed, clutching her stomach in an exaggerated display of pain.

"...Even if your goal is to kill me." Robin slowly confirmed, bending to pick up his sword and deposit it somewhere within his robes. He rolled her lance further down the pier with his left foot, away from his competitor.

Kjelle watched in dismay as her lance was rolled away from her, the grandmaster before her already preparing another bout of wind magic. "...Say, Robin, do you care for Flavia?" she attempted to stall him, not daring to so much as consider that she may be so easily defeated that her opponent hadn't even broken a sweat.

Robin maintained his track on her form with his glowing right hand, but his expression became somewhat more uncertain. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean." Kjelle grinned as she came across an opportunity to taunt the grandmaster, her smile fading when his confusion became all the more authentic. "You know, do you care for her? Like, 'love her' care for her?"

"I beg your pardon?" Robin asked in borderline incredulity, his hand wavering from its trace on Kjelle as he unintentionally mimicked Virion's voice. Kjelle charged him in the opening he gave, immediately being battered down across the pier by a stream of wind magic that slid her off onto the cobblestone paths that had once been metres away.

"I'm not entirely sure what my relationship status with Flavia is, but it's not like that." Robin relented on his attacks, allowing Kjelle to rise and take in her new surroundings. "And on a completely different note, I don't think there's any way for you to realistically win right now."

Kjelle fixated on Robin, rapidly judging the distance from her, to him, to her lance, and devising a strategy that Robin would have immediately shut down. To begin with, she would need to distract him again. "Khan Flavia cares for you. It's why she's going to Plegia, to help you. Do you really feel nothing in return?"

Robin's face hardened before warping into a frown of such sadness that Kjelle hesitated to act. The grandmaster's voice became ice, an unnatural and frightening darkness enveloping it as he spoke. "You have no idea what's really happening. Things are going to get way, way worse before they ever have any hope of getting better. I don't know how bad they'll get, but they will get bad, of that I'm absolutely certain."

Kjelle resisted the urge to pause and mull over his shift in demeanor, but the grandmaster showed signs of returning to focus on their battle. She necessitated steeling herself and bent her knees in order to charge past him, hoping to slam him off the pier and reclaim her weapon in one dash.

"Nothing that bad will happen ever again once you're dead." she said. "No more death, or suffering… no more Grima." She rushed him, her boots pounding against the hard wooden boards in a steady, rapid rhythm.

Robin effortlessly batted her off the side of the pier with a burst of wind magic, one that was almost powerful enough to pierce clothing and skin, intent on ending their duel without having to invest too much time in the matter so as to avoid the feeling that willed him to agree with her. His shift in mood was as disturbing to him as it was to her, despite being almost completely orchestrated.

He forced the knowledge he unintentionally held about the true and inevitable path of the future down through the layers of his mind, through the tactics, through the hope, the despair, the identity as Grima's avatar, the malice, and through even the grey as it descended into a depth he knew was nigh impervious to remembrance. He willingly forgot it, dismissing his memories again and leaving his mind clear.

Kjelle's body launched sideways from his magic as her momentum carried her slightly forward, and a second later she broke the surface of the Feroxi port's water, her skin instantly constricting against the oppressive cold from which it was composed. She flailed against the water hopelessly, sinking further and further into the depths of its darkness as she struggled for air. More water poured in around her face, seeping into her mouth and nose and forcing her to close her eyes against the chill, although any shred of light had long ago been lost on the other end of the water that blanketed her world.

Robin blinked as he stood on the edge of the port, waiting for Kjelle to reappear on the surface so he could lecture her, or taunt her, or insult her, or do anything at all with her that would either ensure her hatred remained strong or better them both as fighters. After several disconcertingly long moments, he redrew the wind tome he had been swift to place away and used it to carve through the surface of the dark seawater before him that concealed the knight from view.

Failing to locate her, Robin grumbled as he hid his tome within his cloak, sealing the fabric and readying wind-based blood magic. Apparently, Kjelle didn't know how to swim, and the fact that he had never learned anything above 'don't drown' - at least that he could remember - was proving to be deathly troublesome.

Dark and foreboding waves lapped at the pier's supports, reaching for Robin as he teetered on the brink of the wooden platform. He placed his left hand over his lower face, creating a seal with weak wind magic that would hopefully prevent him from drowning, and jumped feet-first into the sea.

Frigid water burned against his eyes as he searched for Kjelle, the knight having almost fully disappeared in the depths of the water. Bubbles trailed up from a spot further out from the shore than Robin had anticipated, and he directed his right hand behind his body and shot of a series of spells, propelling himself toward Kjelle's muffled movements.

The unarmoured knight was still beating helplessly against the pull of the sea, her limbs thrashing about in unusual directions as she struggled to so much as right herself, her movements growing weaker with every passing second. Robin grabbed hold of one of her flailing arms, pulling her close to his body in order to wrap his right arm past them, breaking his left hand's breathing seal in order to do so. He shot off more wind magic in order to propel them out of the water, and a moment later was met with the comparatively enjoyable sensations of chilled air and damp sand.

Kjelle gagged on the water that had forced its way into her lungs, coughing violently the moment she touched land. Robin, for his part, coughed once or twice in order to clear his mouth of seawater, having undergone a far less brutal experience than Kjelle. He waited for her to cough several times more before he began to say his piece.

"Okay, so that last hit may have been a bit of a mistake on my part." he began, Kjelle glaring at him over her shoulder between coughing fits. "In my defense, though, I had no idea you couldn't swim, and you were kinda the one who chose to fight by the sea, so…"

"Of course you would have to cheat to win a duel against an honourable opponent." Kjelle accused, finally rising to her feet as her coughing subsided. "Leave it to a tactician to manipulate everything into winning an underhanded victory."

"I thought I was just an idiot, 'to say the least'?" Robin smirked.

"'Idiot' and 'manipulative' aren't mutually exclusive." Kjelle brushed past him as she returned to the pier to reclaim her lance. "I know I'll be stronger than you, and maybe I am even now if you would undergo a fair fight, but until you're willing to duel without your absurd magic, I'll be stuck waiting to prove myself."

"Seriously?" Robin followed her, lagging behind by several paces in order to speak comfortably. "You can't fight a mage, so you just give up? You know that if you really do want to kill me, you'll have to be resilient, right?"

"I'm not giving up!" Kjelle protested as she retrieved her lance. "I'm smart enough to know when my friends are better suited to a task than I am, as painful as that is to admit."

"So what you're saying is that you acknowledge you lost the duel?" Robin said.

"I acknowledge that you cheated by using magic for the decisive blow, and therefore invalidated the duel." Kjelle brushed past him again, making for the cobblestone paths that led back to the inn. "I'm willing to challenge you as many times as it takes, because even if you do cheat, I'll just get strong enough to kill you no matter what, with my friends at my side."

"That's almost heartwarming." Robin said, and he too began the trek back to the inn, the prospect of dry clothes becoming increasingly enticing as all of his unenchanted garments began to sting and bite with cold. "Tell you what: next lesson in bird killing will be teaching you everything there is about basic magic, so that you can use it yourself and know how to react to my attacks."

"I doubt I'll ever have need for magic, or anything else so disgraceful." Kjelle sniffed as she walked back to the city, not bothering to turn and face Robin.

Robin shrugged, already planning his next lesson. "Eh, you never know."

Kjelle disregarded him, biting down what she knew to be her actual defeat and focusing instead on halting the shivers of her skin. Despite having already considered that Grima's avatar would be next to impossible to kill on her own, she could still barely tolerate having been so easily defeated by him. Robin, on the other hand, gave off as carefree yet thoughtful of a mood as ever, silently planning her first proper magic lesson as they walked determinedly toward the inn.

* * *

Travelers fed in and out of the inn over the course of the day, none bearing the signature pink that Virion was awaiting. Robin and Kjelle had left some hours ago, before returning after shortly over an hour, both completely drenched and as of yet having not reemerged from their respective rooms. Now, Virion sat alone at the inn parlour in anticipation of Cherche's arrival, Lon'qu and Olivia having disappeared even earlier than Robin and Kjelle's return.

Lon'qu had encountered Virion in the upstairs hallway of the inn early in the morning, shortly before the swordsman and his lover had sealed themselves within their room, at which point he had learned of Khans Flavia and Basilio's absences. He hadn't seen Tharja since the prior day, and so he theorised that the sorceress was likely resting or doing whatever sorceresses did alone in her room.

Minutes bled into hours as Virion waited, hoping that Cherche would soon arrive and dismiss his concerns about the conqueror of Valm, hoping against hope that his fears were unfounded. Despite knowing that she would likely not appear this day, and perhaps not the next, and that she may take weeks to reach Port Ferox, the sniper still felt a mounting sensation of dread which increased with every passing moment.

Kjelle, Robin, and the others likely exited their rooms at some point in order to purchase meals and tend to whatever matters necessitated leaving the second floor, though Virion never saw such a thing take place. Granted, he was largely focused on the inn's entryway, and would have easily missed any of their excursions.

He intermittently exited the building in order to stroll around the city, keeping a wary eye on the horizon for Cherche's wyvern, heavy rain clouds soon blurring the distinction between land and sea. He returned to the inn frequently in order to eat and drink, as well as check whether or not Cherche had arrived without his noticing.

Tharja greeted him once, and after exchanging a few short words, returned to her room with a plate of food in hand. No other Shepherds appeared at any point in the day, and soon almost all people in the inn had either left or returned to their rooms. As Virion was about to dejectedly retire to his room for the night, he was met with an unexpected once-familiar face.

"Duke Virion." a voice sounded from behind him, feminine underneath a refined accent. Her footsteps were muffled enough that the sniper had not so much as heard the inn doors open or boards creak.

Without needing to turn and face her, Virion was able to recognise her from diplomatic meetings and parties a lifetime ago. "Princess Say'ri. What brings you across the long sea? Am I to believe that you have finally abandoned your 'resistance'?" he said, unintentionally holding hostility in his tone at the mention of the resistance he had considered to be so futile over a year ago.

"Fie! I am no craven, duke; I have the decency of honour. I would never desert my kith and kin in the face of the conqueror's wrath." she practically spat, Virion easily detecting the curse against his past actions.

Virion turned to face the princess, smiling effortlessly at her angered and rain-dampened features. "Perhaps then you, too, have bent for Walhart, like that 'honourable' brother of yours? Your 'kith and kin', as you so put it?" Even Virion was uncertain as to why he was being harsh with her; she had always been amicable during their exchanges in Valm.

"You would be wise to hold your tongue, duke." Say'ri glowered at him, her hands clenching and unclenching almost imperceptibly. She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly, opening them a moment later without any trace of her earlier fury. "I have accompanied the fair lady Cherche here to Ferox under the assumption that I would be able to find warriors capable of defeating Walhart once and for all. The situation in Valm has deteriorated rapidly, and I fear that there are simply none there capable of felling the conqueror."

"Lady Cherche is here, now?" Virion asked, disbelieving but excited.

"Aye." Say'ri nodded. "She said that she would be here momentarily, after finding a place outside for Minerva to rest. I was to come here, as she said that she had selected this inn as a rendezvous point."

"That she did." Virion gazed to the door of the inn, waiting for the moment his aide would come into the room and set his mind at ease, despite the information Say'ri had let slip. Rainfall could be heard coming from outside, dampening any amount of sound that he may have been able to differentiate from the relaxed sounds of the inn. "Pray tell, what is the current state of Valm? And fair Roseanne, for that matter?"

Say'ri's face fell in the corner of Virion's eye, though he never averted his attention from the doorway. "...Walhart's reign now borders on absolute. The resistance has been exterminated, save only myself, and the empire had begun civilian purges shortly before my leaving."

Virion paled as he stared at the doorway, no longer holding onto the vain hope that his fears would be assuaged. "...Damn. Do you really not think that you abandoned them?" he asked, no longer projecting anger and instead failing to hide a sorrow he had always resented himself for.

"...I did abandon them." Say'ri hesitantly admitted. "I must stop the conqueror, no matter what. If I must abandon them temporarily, to flee from his reach and gain support overseas, then… gods… I-I was so afraid…"

Virion turned to face her at this, her voice wavering uncharacteristically as she was pushed to the brink of tears. "Princess Say'ri? ...Are you alright?"

"I… I ran, like a coward." she lowered her voice to a nearly inaudible tone. "I left them all there to die…"

The door to the inn opened, but Virion no longer cared for it as he focused solely on Say'ri. "Peace, princess. I know that feeling all too well; know that we will stop the conqueror or die trying."

Say'ri forced away tears as Cherche approached them, glancing at the wyvern rider before facing Virion once more. Cherche was smearing water off of her armour, the distinction between silver steel and her specially cut black doublet somehow emboldened by the rain. She stopped next to them, allowing them to finish talking as Say'ri continued.

"I would never undo it."

"What do you mean?" Virion cocked his head in confusion as he was surprised once again by the swordswoman.

"If it came down to it, I think I would always run if I were given the chance." she said, allowing tears to run from her eyes before closing them tightly. "I suppose that's how much my talk of honour and duty are truly worth."

"You have come here, today, in order to better oppose Walhart and his empire." Virion attempted to encourage her - it had been this reasoning that had once made his nights easier to sleep through, after all. "Do not dissuade yourself with this talk of abandonment. You are merely… biding your time, just as you undoubtedly did during your tenure at the resistance."

"That must be easy for you to say, duke." Say'ri reopened her eyes, revealing the spark of anger within them. "You hid across the sea as Walhart conquered all of Valm. You hid as he decimated nations and tore armies apart. You hid from your own demise. Oh, how easy it must be to look down on those suffering and say that you are 'biding your time' until you may aid them, while you hide from your fate!"

"Now, now, Say'ri." Cherche interjected, placing a firm hand on the princess' shoulder, her voice already working wonders to calm both of the speakers. "Surely you do not intend to suggest that lord Virion has abandoned his people during his recruitment mission in Ylisse?"

"We have all abandoned them…" Say'ri attempted to pull her shoulder free from the other woman, but was held perfectly in place by her steel grip. "After everything that has happened in Valm, I would be truly surprised to learn of any survivors that do not serve Walhart."

"No one knew how horrible things were getting in Valm." Cherche adopted a placating tone, calming the princess as much as she could. "Even we didn't realise until far too late."

"Pray tell, exactly how grim have matters become?" Virion addressed Cherche, disregarding any concept of proper reintroduction as he cut to the chase.

"You came here with the Shepherds, yes?" Cherche smiled to him, releasing Say'ri's shoulder from her hold. "Please, collect them here, and then we may begin in earnest."

"...Of course." Virion retreated further into the inn, ascending the staircase to the upper floor in swift movements. Cherche yawned as soon as her employer was out of sight, pulling out a chair from a nearby table and relaxing into it. Say'ri took a seat opposite her, rotating it to face the stairway as she studied the archer's disappearing form.

The princess turned to face her travel companion without rotating her torso. "Do you think that we will actually be able to defeat Walhart? That we will be able to save anyone?"

Cherche folded her arms into her lap, considering the question genuinely. "Perhaps. Virion claimed that the Shepherds showed great potential in his letters, and there is supposedly a fearsome tactician amongst their rank. Not to mention the aid from the Ylissean and Feroxi militaries, and possibly even that of Plegia…"

"Do you truly believe that will be enough?" Say'ri asked as she turned to face the stairs again.

Cherche's gaze dimmed as she realised that no matter what forces they gained, they would always be at a grave disadvantage, and that even everything may not be enough. "...I can only hope we will succeed, milady."

"Hope, you say? As if that had never failed us in Valm." Say'ri shook her head as she fixated on the inn's upper floor. Cherche lowered her head as she suppressed another yawn, the wear of her constant air travel catching up with her. She wished to dispute the Chon'sin princess' claims, but knew that she would ultimately be unable to especially after all that had occurred after Virion's departure, and so simply rolled her eyes under closed eyelids.

* * *

Virion knocked gently against the first of the Shepherd's doors, the room nearest the stairway belonging to both Lon'qu and Olivia. The swordsman, somehow always absurdly alert and aware, tentatively opened the door a second later.

"My informant has arrived." Virion announced before Lon'qu was able to quietly greet him, his lover still asleep on the bed that was visible from outside the room, through its open door. "She has requested the presence of everyone accompanying me before she begins her account of Valm and the need for her appearance. Please, awaken Olivia and meet us downstairs."

He walked immediately to the next room, leaving Lon'qu no time to either refuse or accept as he advanced to the next Shepherd. Tharja had claimed the room next to the lovers, and he knocked on her door as gently as the first.

"What is it?" she called out from within, not bothering to open the door.

"Cherche has arrived and requests the presence of the Shepherds on the main floor. Please meet us there momentarily." He waited before her door, the sorceress grumbling behind it before jerking it open.

"Let's make this quick." She brushed past the archer coldly, headed for the stairway.

Virion watched her depart before shaking his head and moved back to Robin's room on the opposite side of the hall, disregarding the door next to Tharja's that would have led him to Kjelle. He considered for a brief moment informing the knight, but shot that idea down faster than the Plegian wyverns he had grown to so easily detest.

Robin responded to his knock with little lag, urging him to open the door rather than need to shout through it. Virion complied, pushing the door open and having to search for a while before being met with the tactician's hunched form.

"Robin?" Virion asked tentatively, approaching the corner of the room the other man had secluded himself to. "What are you doing?"

"Going over your letters while I have the time." Robin answered without averting his line of sight from the correspondences. "I don't know when Cherche will arrive, so I'm leafing through as much of them as I can in the meantime."

"Well, she has arrived now." Viron announced with a flourish of his hands, though the grandmaster was unable to see it from their position. "If you would please join us on the main floor?"

"Hm? Oh, uh, sure. Give me a second." He hurriedly placed the letter he had been reading in a pile to his right, shoving that pile into one of his pockets and the other, more haphazard pile on his left into another pocket. Taking a quick inventory of his desk, he shuffled a few supplies into various alcoves of his cloak and rose to meet Virion properly.

The two Shepherds stepped out into the hallway, Lon'qu and a still-exhausted Olivia shuffling out of their room toward the stairs. Robin nodded to them politely before redirecting his head toward the rooms further down the hall.

"You can go on ahead; I'll get Tharja and Kjelle."

"I've already met with Tharja. She's downstairs as we speak." Virion waved the tactician toward the stairs, but the other man refused to move.

"And what about Kjelle?"

Virion frowned and shook his head. "You truly intend to trust her with information as sensitive as that of a coming war?"

"I don't see why not." Robin shrugged and walked up to her door, leaving Virion to haughtily descend the stairs alone.

Kjelle was livid. She struck repeatedly at the phantom grandmaster that stood near the walls of her room, her lance piercing his torso with every thrust and slash until he was lying dead on the ground, another phantom taking his place in an endless loop. Focused so greatly on her attacks, she failed to notice the soft knocking on her door, instead fighting off yet another ghost.

 _Stab, parry, dodge, stab, smash…_ Kjelle pantomimed an entire battle against the spectre, killing it a hundred times over without breaking a sweat. Earlier, her loss had been only mildly irritating, but now that she was left alone to the echoing confines of her room and mind, the entire matter became infuriating.

 _I couldn't beat him - hell, I couldn't even_ _land a hit!_ her thoughts screamed into her conscious, urging her to strike again and again. _Our entire fight was only an_ _afterthought to him! He's already powerful_ _enough to beat me… he'll tear apart the_ _Shepherds, just like he did before._

She ran through dozens of scenarios in her head, the hundreds if not thousands of ways she would break the tactician down fading in and out as she focused and refocused on her attacks. All the ways she would have him admit to being Grima, the ways she would annihilate him with her friends and the Shepherds at her side, the ways she would teach him the suffering and fear she had always known so well because of his actions.

What angered her more than anything, what propelled her into more slashes and stabs that met only with air, was the insensitive thought in the back of her mind that every single Shepherd managed to be wrong and so, so stupid. Even after her entire future, after meeting Robin now, after seeing the Mark of Grima for themselves, she simply couldn't understand how she hadn't convinced them, how they all remained rooted in their vain ignorance.

Grima was Robin. Robin was Grima. For Kjelle, there was no simpler truth in the world, and she knew that the man would have to die in order to save everyone. In her world, the Shepherds had agreed wholeheartedly with her - the few that remained after the Valmese war, that was. The original Shepherds had despised Robin to so great a degree that it was what united them after their initial collapse, becoming what drove them into the final battle that would ultimately prove their undoing.

These Shepherds, though, they were all either naive to the point of utter carelessness, or somehow actually believed that Grima was a force Robin could overcome. To Kjelle, they were fools, blinded by their faith in the tactician to the point that she and her friends were needed to save them.

Even the Robin of this time was as insufferable as she had been led to believe, albeit for different reasons. Gone was the man she had feared, the ruthless tactical mastermind who ripped apart nations and families as though they were a child's toy during their tantrum, and in their place was a weak, pathetically morose man who had failed the Shepherds in more ways and earlier than she had thought possible.

A man who, despite being undeniably less powerful than in her time, she still had no chance of defeating.

Kjelle stopped her movements and held her lance in place upright, tip pointing to the ceiling. _I will defeat him, though. One day,_ _I'll be the one to kill him, to stop everything_ _before it can even start. I'll save_ _everyone… mother and father, they can_ _live happily, without fear or death… we can_ _be a family again… we can be happy…_

She shook her head clear of her thoughts and resumed her onslaught, decidedly less enraged than earlier. _I'll show them all what_ _Robin is really like. I'll show Robin what it_ _means to be afraid, to be weak. I'll kill_ _Robin, and save the world._

"Ahem." a voice from the entrance to her room cut her thoughts off, and she quickly spun to face the intruder.

"Robin!" she jumped slightly in both surprise and embarrassment. "Why the hell are you watching me!?"

"I tried knocking, but you were too busy doing… whatever that was." He raised one hand then let it fall limply to his side, failing to demonstrate her unusual actions. "Virion's informant, lady Cherche, has arrived, and everyone is to gather downstairs to hear what she has to say."

"Time travel, remember?" Kjelle dropped her lance on her bed and sat down next to it. "I don't need a briefing on any of this. Now please, get out of my room."

"You know it was only earlier today that you walked into my room while I was changing, right?" Robin glared at her. She pouted and rubbed her hands under her eyes as though she were wiping away tears, mocking him.

"Okay, fine then, don't come." Robin turned and began to leave her room. "You can go ask Gangrel about how to deal with Valm."

"And Emmeryn." Kjelle added as he left, relishing more in his discomfort regarding the former Exalt than she herself was discomforted at the mention of the woman. He scowled as he exited her room, closing the door behind him and leaving Kjelle alone.

Smiling as she sank down into the soft blankets lining her bed, Kjelle contented herself for a moment longer in the memory of Robin's displeasure. Her smile eventually faded into a frown, and she rose from the bed in order to attend the meeting.

 _Enough things have already been screwed_ _up in this time, undoubtedly by Grima - by_ _Robin. I suppose I can't risk anything more_ _going awry until I can kill him._ She descended the staircase, nodding to a partially confused and partially annoyed Robin as she stepped into the semicircle facing Cherche.

The assembled Shepherds stood in silence, staring at the wyvern rider and princess that sat at the table nearest them. No onlookers, aside from the lone innkeeper, remained on the lower floor, all having either left or succumbed to sleep some time ago. Cherche blinked, tilting her head slightly as she patiently awaited the arrival of more soldiers. Lon'qu and Olivia shuffled over to a table on their right, pulling out its chairs and taking a seat as they waited.

"...Is this everyone?" she eventually asked.

"Ah, yes, I forgot to mention." Virion spoke up as he followed Tharja to a table on his left, moving a seat to face his retainer. "Not all of the Shepherds were available, as you had requested. However, I did manage to negotiate for the presence of Robin - our tactician - and several of the fiercest fighters of their rank, myself included. The Khans of Ferox were here, but, well…" he trailed off, ignoring Robin's scoff at the memory of his pleading negotiations.

"I see." Cherche closed her eyes as she processed the new information, reopening them in an attempt to take it in stride. "They will need to assemble here, at the port, in due time. Minerva and I can courier messages, if need be."

Virion nodded, then gestured for her to continue. Robin and Kjelle were left as the only two present standing, Kjelle remaining in place resolutely as Robin shifted and stretched.

"Well, then, I suppose that introductions are in order." Cherche rose from her seat and gave a small bow. "I am Cherche, retainer to former duke Virion of Roseanne, a small nation within Valm." She raised her head and gestured to the elegantly dressed woman that sat across from her, returning to her seat. "This is Say'ri, princess of the nation Chon'sin and leader of the former resistance movement within Valm."

' _Former' resistance?_ Robin thought to himself. _...I really should have read those letters._

Virion cleared his throat, drawing the attention of his companions before he began speaking. "I, for those uninitiated," he smiled wryly at Kjelle, "am already familiar with them both."

He gestured to Tharja, who had preoccupied herself with glaring away the attention of the innkeeper. "This is the fair lady Tharja, the finest sorceress in all of Ylisse"

Cherche frowned as she took in the woman's unseeming yet fittingly sorceress-esque appearance. "I seem to recall one of your letters mentioning that she was the only sorceress in all of Ylisse."

"That too." Virion shrugged as his hand waved down the line of assembled people. "This is lady Kjelle, a deranged vagabond intent on dooming the world."

"Hey!" Kjelle shot a glare at the sniper, but quickly returned her attention to normalcy out of respect for the Shepherds and Cherche.

"This is sir Robin, grandmaster tactician of Ylisse and the man most likely to win our war." Virion continued, ignoring the knight's brief outburst. "He will be accompanying Kjelle on a series of peacekeeping missions across Ferox for the next few weeks to months at the request of Khan Flavia."

Cherche frowned once more as Robin smiled to her and Say'ri both. "...I see. How long, exactly, will you be gone, sir Robin?"

"Just 'Robin' is fine." he lost his smile as he returned to thought. "We'll probably be gone for… at least six weeks, maybe a bit more, if we don't need to rush. From what I've seen so far of our destinations, it'll take at least four weeks of near-constant travel just to reach each point, not to mention that Flavia mentioned there would be battles."

Thanks to Flavia's plans for journeying around the entire continent, Robin knew that estimate would require persistent travel, the likes of which Olivia had evidently not managed to recover from even after over a full day of rest. He accepted that he would never be capable of doing the same, let alone allow or condone such behaviour in the future.

"That… may be a problem." Cherche's frown deepened. "Walhart is set to arrive here in Ferox alongside an invading force in little over seven weeks' time."

"What!?" Kjelle shouted out. "Seven weeks? That can't be right! There has to be more time!"

Cherche nodded to Say'ri, who carefully unfurled a roll of parchment from within her robes, handing it to Kjelle and Robin. The two reached for it simultaneously, both attempting to pull it their way in a nonverbal dispute that devolved into each person tugging it toward themselves while taking care to not damage the parchment as Cherche watched on helplessly.

"That's an invasion plan I stole from a Valmese stronghold shortly before my departure, when I was searching for princess Say'ri." she spoke as the two quarreled over reading the document. "I have no reason to doubt its authenticity, and I believe it to be accurate."

"I understand." Robin finally managed to pull the paper from Kjelle's grip, straightening it against one arm as he skimmed through the text. All it mentioned was that an invasion would be occurring, giving no information as to specific troop data, and so had an air more of a notice letter than anything else. "Okay… I can plan around this. If you have any other information regarding Walhart's forces, it would be of immense help."

"May we finish the introductions first?" Cherche yawned. "I would be glad to impart all that I know onto you, just as soon as I am fully aware of our current situation."

"Of course." Robin nodded to Virion, ignoring the scrutinising glare Kjelle was aiming at both him and Cherche from her position next to him. Virion nodded in turn, and cleared his throat to speak again.

"Well, the next in line is lady Olivia, dancer for the Shepherds and an incredibly skilled swordswoman." Virion gestured to the woman, who was lying facedown on the table before her, asleep.

"She's a… 'dancer'?" Cherche tilted her head as she examined the sleeping mess of pink.

"She dances for soldiers in the field to reinvigorate them, and it somehow works really consistently." Robin explained. "Trust me, if I knew how it worked, I'd be exploiting the hell out of it, but I seriously have no idea how she does it."

"Uh… alright…" Cherche turned her gaze onto Lon'qu, who simultaneously attempted to intimidate and shy away from her.

"That is sir Lon'qu." Virion continued. "He's a fine swordsman who arrived due to the sway of Khan Basilio, although he is incredibly gynophobic save only his lover." he motioned toward Olivia, finishing his set of introductions.

Kjelle blinked, unaware that Olivia and Lon'qu had struck up a relationship before finding their respective partners, Virion and Lissa. She dismissed the trace of fear at the thought that she and her friends may have disturbed the Shepherd's relationships, knowing that their interactions so far had been minimal and that many of the old Shepherds had been close enough that unsuccessful partnerships would have been likely to occur at some point.

Cherche flicked her gaze over the assembled Shepherds and Kjelle, her frown breaking through the mask of her face. "When will the others be able to arrive here, at the earliest?" she asked, addressing both Robin and Virion.

"A little under a week, at absolute best. I'm not having them move at the pace we did…" Robin responded. "Realistically probably about three, considering things in the capital will need to be tended to properly, and more for anyone on peacekeeping missions."

"And how long will you be away on your journey, knowing now of the looming invasion?" Say'ri spoke up, addressing Robin over Kjelle.

"Let's say…" Robin brought a hand to his chin as he blurred through dates and estimates within his mind, eventually deciding upon a course of action. "Some of our destinations are in Plegia, which takes forever to navigate since the roads are so poor. Only Chrom and Sumia should be needed to handle court procedures, so… Frederick and Cordelia can lead the Shepherds to the places we would need to hit in Plegia before making their way to the port, shaving off time from our journey."

"Would they be able to assist Flavia as well?" Lon'qu cut in.

"I wouldn't want them to get in her way, so unless she specifically asks for them, no." Robin answered without missing a beat. "With that out of the way, Kjelle and I can follow the rest of the path across Ferox and down the eastern coast, hitting up Ylisstol to return here with Chrom and Sumia after, say… a month-ish, maybe less?"

"If you think that's enough time, then all should be good." Cherche smiled to him before breaking into another yawn.

"I can write up some documents for Chrom and the others that show them my plan, and knowing them, they're incredibly likely to follow what I say." Robin smiled in return. "If I may ask this of you, could you and this Minerva person carry the papers to Ylisstol and wherever else they may need to go?"

"Of course." Cherche's eyes fluttered shut, remaining closed for an elongated time as her speech gradually slowed. "Minerva is my wyvern, not a person. She's capable of practically anything I ask of her…" she trailed off.

"Ah, right, I should have made that connection." Robin said. "Anyway, could you share what's pertinent about the Valmese forces now? Any little bit helps."

Cherche did not respond, her head tilting downward. "Cherche?" Robin called to her when she remained silent and slumped into a more awkward position. Say'ri leaned over the table and snapped her fingers underneath the wyvern rider's head, causing her jolt back into wakefulness.

"S-sorry, where were we?" she asked, blinking rapidly as she rubbed the side of her face with one hand. "...It was something about… Valm?"

"...No, I was just asking if you two wanted rooms here." Robin smiled effortlessly, earning him an inquisitive glance from Say'ri.

"Ah, yes, that would be greatly appreciated…" Cherche trailed off again before pushing herself to a stand, shaking the weariness from her head. "Minerva has been fully attended to, but will require a fair amount of rest. The poor girl's flown for over three days nonstop…"

"Three days?" Robin asked, as curious about the wyvern's capabilities as he was concerned for the beast. "...I'm guessing you barely slept during that time either, huh?"

"Why on earth would I sleep? I could never leave Minerva alone like that..." Cherche yawned, slowly walking toward the innkeeper in order to bargain a room.

Robin moved to follow her, stopping after only a few steps when Say'ri refused to rise. He turned toward her, gesturing toward the counter Cherche was leaning on as the wyvern rider discussed lodgings with the innkeeper. "Don't you need a room as well, princess?"

"I am no longer deserving of such a title." Say'ri shook her head before refocusing on Robin. "As for the room, I would appreciate one as well. In the meantime, however, I am more than rested enough to answer any questions you may have."

"Awesome!" Robin clapped his hands together and pulled out an untouched chair from next to the not-princess. "Okay, first question: I just remembered that I have practically no money left on me at the moment, and need what I have left for the journey. Would anyone be so kind as to buy Cherche and Say'ri rooms? Please?" he addressed the other Shepherds and Kjelle without facing them, remaining in place across from Say'ri.

"Flavia left behind some gold for our trip when she left." Kjelle spoke up. "I don't know if you want to use that, but it's there."

"Nonsense." Virion pushed himself up and out of his chair, straightening a creased segment of his shirt as he went. "Cherche is - or, I suppose, was - my subordinate; it would only make sense for me to fund her and her companion both."

"Thanks, Virion." Robin smiled as the sniper passed by him, though he never fully averted his focus from Say'ri. Kjelle took the seat Cherche had originally sat in, intent on gleaning as much information from the exchange between tactician and ex-princess as she was able. Lon'qu, Olivia, and Tharja moved their chairs nearer to the main table, Tharja pulling Virion's along with her.

"Alright, first question, for real this time." Robin said. "Virion was insanely spooked by Walhart, and I want to know if that's at all founded."

Kjelle opened her mouth as if to speak, but held silent and allowed Say'ri to respond. "Yes, it's founded. Though I doubt Virion would even know the half of it, considering the timing of his departure."

"What happened after Virion's departure?" Robin asked.

"Virion fled Valm after his duchy, Roseanne, fell to Walhart close to two years ago." Say'ri began. "It was… a little over one year ago when his regime shifted, adopting far more brutal and ruthless tactics than ever before."

"When, exactly, did this shift begin?" Lon'qu spoke up, voice as cold as ever.

"I don't see how that matters." Robin cut in, attempting to dismiss the swordsman in order to continue his line of questions.

Lon'qu pressed on, disregarding his friend. "Did the shift occur shortly after the final weeks of spring, possibly in the early stages of summer?"

"Aye, it was around then. How did you know?"

"You're thinking this is somehow related to the end of the Plegian war?" Robin asked Lon'qu after Say'ri had affirmed the man's suspicion.

"It's a possibility." Lon'qu said. "If remnants of Gangrel's forces somehow made their way to Valm, it's possible that they joined with Walhart."

Robin nodded as he followed the revelation Lon'qu had come across. "But who from Plegia could… Aversa." Robin cursed, bringing his hands to his head as he remembered the dark flier that had caused him such difficulty over the course of the war. "Of course; she was the closest thing Gangrel ever had to a tactician. She was never accounted for after his fall, so if she managed to reach Valm…"

"It's possible, though I never learned of anything of the sort." Say'ri answered the unasked question.

"What happened to Walhart's tactics during the shift?" Robin asked. "Did things like fake bandit attacks and hostage situations pop up more? That was pretty much how she liked to do things, then she would launch attacks while forces were dealing with other matters."

Say'ri shook her head. "Walhart never stopped destroying all forms of opposition to his rule, bandits included. Also, as far as I know, the man himself never took hostages, even after the shift."

"Well what did change, specifically?" Tharja entered the conversation.

Say'ri paused before responding. "He became a thousand fold more brutal. He hunted resistance members without reservation or hesitation, his troops soon growing to mirror his intensity. Initially, Walhart himself led every operation, even if it resulted in him alone challenging entire armies and legions of dynasts. He never faltered. That was also how Roseanne fell, to Walhart alone."

"One man was able to take on entire armies alone, without fail?" Robin raised one eyebrow as he interrupted her, understandably skeptic at what should have been such ludicrous information, despite Virion having already mentioned something similar to him.

Say'ri nodded solemnly. "He never actually called himself a conqueror, to the best of my knowledge; that name began with the resistance. Before there was a legion, before there was anything other than a single man, whose very identity was lost under mountains of bloodshed, there was simply nothing. No information existed on Walhart, initially not even a name, and so he was identified as 'the conqueror' in discussion and writings from the very moment the resistance came into being."

Robin's eyes widened slightly as Say'ri bolstered and explained the man's reputation, letting her continue in the hopes that she would reveal some critical flaw to the conqueror's very being.

"The first of the major changes to his tactics occurred following the time sir Lon'qu mentioned. The creation of an elite cavalry that had mastered both swordplay and magecraft, known as 'dark knights', came into existence. They were as ferocious as Walhart himself, and almost as lethal, and without a doubt would be the vanguard of an invading force."

"Next was an advancement to the empire's aerial forces. In the early stages of the empire, when only those zealous or cowardly enough to follow Walhart's every word were in his employ, flying warriors consisted almost solely of wyvern and griffon riders, seeing as the mounts were native to regions of Valm. Now, pegasi have been imported from across the sea, and many have been given riders trained in lances, staves, and magic."

Robin and Lon'qu shared a quick, concerned glance, knowing that what Say'ri had described so far was perfectly fitting of Aversa, meaning their Valm campaign was going to become far more difficult. Something about what Say'ri said was rubbing Kjelle the wrong way, although the knight was unsure as to what was doing it or why, and so she remained silent.

"As you all likely know, Valm is already renowned for its cavalry and armour." Say'ri continued. "Walhart has only perpetuated this; almost all of his soldiers have been trained to use some form of mount or heavy defenses, the likes of which few have seen outside of Valm itself." Her eyes followed Virion as he stepped back into the scene, the man smiling aimlessly as Cherche lazily ascended the staircase to her newly purchased room and left the others to their business.

"And, most recently, Walhart has developed a full navy of invasion-ready ships, and proudly flaunts them about his harbours. It was the discovery of these ships, and the fact that they would so easily be able to transfer a mass of the empire's forces across the sea in so short a time as was mentioned in the document Cherche obtained, that persuaded her to journey here."

"What about you, princess?" Virion asked. "Earlier you mentioned leaving out of fear, and said that Walhart had begun civilian purges. Care to elaborate?"

Say'ri closed her eyes to hide away a set of painful memories, keeping them closed as she talked. "Before I left, Walhart had managed to almost entirely eliminate the resistance, with many of my comrades' final words urging me to stay and fight one last time. Cherche found me, and as we fled, we saw the mass graves that had been dug to burn the corpses of civilians. Many had been filled to the brim when we flew over them."

Robin winced slightly as he envisioned the graves. "Why would Walhart do that to his own people?"

"I wouldn't put anything past him, even slaughtering his own people. He is a monster, plain and simple."

"Why and how did Cherche find you?" Lon'qu asked, unable to withhold the cold skepticism in his voice in response to her claims.

"You would have to ask her." Say'ri replied in kind.

Robin leaned back in his seat, completely avoiding the frigid atmosphere radiating from the two swordmasters as he lost himself in his thoughts. _Seven weeks to_ _handle everything… Okay. That's fine. I_ _guess it won't really matter in the end,_ _considering everything with Flavia, and_ _Plegia, and…_ He shuddered, rising to make his leave and return to his room.

He excused himself abruptly, intent on studying Virion and Cherche's correspondences before falling asleep. The other Shepherds followed suit soon after, Say'ri moving to the counter with Virion to bargain a room, with the others clearing out until Kjelle was left alone at the table.

Hands crossed and tentatively placed near her face, Kjelle stared aimlessly over the tables and walls of the inn. Her Valm was already vastly different from this time, and she was growing progressively more concerned the more she learned of this world's alterations.

Emmeryn, Gangrel, and undoubtedly more people she had never considered dying so early were already gone. Walhart, despite being one of the greatest threats of her time, was somehow far more intimidating now even though the war against him had yet to begin, not to mention that Aversa was fighting against the Shepherds rather than alongside them.

Then, there was the issue of Robin, who Kjelle highly doubted she would be able to kill anytime soon, though she would be damned if she didn't try - and hopefully make him suffer a little bit along the way. For a brief moment, she considered keeping Robin alive as Flavia had requested, hoping that the grandmaster would be able to see the Shepherds safely through a Valmese invasion, before remembering that even his vastly superior future-past self had failed to successfully do so with far more favourable chances.

Sighing, Kjelle rose from her seat, only now noticing that she was the sole occupant of the floor, save the innkeeper cleaning various spots on the tables and counter. She knew that allowing Robin to live would result in the annihilation of the Shepherds, but his loss may leave them weakened during the Valm campaign, and so in an instant she decided to hold strong to her original ideals - that Robin needed to die as soon as possible, so that the Shepherds stood a fighting chance to save their own futures.

Stairs passed underfoot as she walked to her room, and she barely registered her own movements as she finalised her course. She would kill Robin as soon as possible, with besting him in a fair duel being both the best route of doing so and the least likely means of vilifying her to the Shepherds she sought to protect. Once she managed to do that, it would be simple to find her friends, reconnect with her family, and fight alongside them in Valm, for better or for worse.

Virion was propped against the door to her room by the time she reached it, his arms crossed over his chest and an unctuous smile written across his face. Kjelle's lances, few personal effects, and Flavia's bag were lined up against the wall at the sniper's side. He bowed graciously to greet Kjelle when she appeared on the upper floor.

"Ah, hello again dearest lady Kjelle. I regret to inform you that your room has been… repurposed." he said, his smile only intensifying. "This fine establishment was fresh out of rooms for tonight, and so ladies Cherche and Say'ri will be using yours."

He picked up the item nearest him, Flavia's bag, and tossed it to Kjelle. "I recommend you find somewhere else to sleep. I would suggest the stables, as at least then you would be protected from the rain - not to mention that an exceptional wyvern should be resting there, and she is an excellent judge of character. Perhaps she'll save Robin the trouble of having to put up with you."

The bag connected with Kjelle's chest, and she reflexively caught it before it was able to fall. "...Why are you doing this?" Her voice was more dejected than questioning, as she knew well enough that this Virion had grown to hate her in the short time since they had met.

"Why, you make it sound as though I am no more than a monster!" Virion recoiled exaggeratedly, bringing a hand to his chest in a flamboyant display of shock.

"I'm trying to help you, though - to help everyone!" Kjelle failed to keep the register of her voice low as she grew indignant and brazen.

"Sh…" Virion held out the hand from his chest to silence her, glancing warily over his shoulder at the closed door to the room. Seeing and hearing no disturbance from within, he resumed speaking. "They need rest. If you must speak, do so quietly."

Kjelle fumed, snatching her lances and miscellaneous items from their positions against the wall. When she spoke, her voice was as quiet as she could manage. "I don't care if you listen to me now, but you'll see eventually what he really is, and by then you'll be glad that I was here to stop him."

"You are terribly mistaken." Virion leaned back against the door to Cherche and Say'ri's room, shielding it from the knight. "You may have worked it through your head that your delusions were horrid, and perhaps you truly believe that eliminating Robin will somehow help you. Know then, that if you do manage to kill Robin, you will be hunted by the Shepherds, and only then will you know how terror truly feels."

Kjelle's grip tightened on her steel lance as she strained to withhold her resurgent temper. "If he doesn't die, then everyone will. I'm not going to let that happen!"

Virion's eyes widened at her aggression and he instinctively reached for his quiver, his hand being met only with air. Kjelle followed his movements, the sniper's hand shaking visibly as it returned to his waist.

"I… I'm not going to hurt you…" Kjelle said, loosening her hold on her weapon and faltering. One of the Shepherds was legitimately afraid of her, and it twisted her heart in a way she had never anticipated. "I-I would never…"

"You are going to murder a Shepherd." Virion reminded her coldly. "You think that won't hurt anyone, even disregarding Robin himself? Do you think we would be able to survive an entire war, down both a friend and tactician?"

Kjelle winced, but maintained her stature as she applied the conviction she had mustered earlier. "We can only try. I know that leaving Robin alive will doom everyone, and I can only hope that killing him changes fate."

Virion sighed and lowered his head. "One way or the other, Shepherds will die to Walhart. Perhaps Robin will be able to save even one of us, who would have died otherwise?"

Kjelle shrugged. "It's possible, but they would just end up dying to Robin later on."

Virion slid down the door, bringing his knees up to his chest and sinking his head into them. "Tell me, Kjelle, what will you do after the war? If Walhart dies, and Robin is truly revealed to be Grima, and you manage to kill him?"

Hesitantly following his lead, Kjelle too sank to the ground, sitting against the opposite wall as the archer in a far more casual position. "Grima is my ultimate challenge. Rather, the ultimate challenge of everyone from my time… my 'delusions', as you put it. All that matters is his death. After that… I don't know. Probably try to live a normal life with my family. Maybe go on a journey and get even stronger than ever before."

Virion chuckled, his knees muffling the noise. "You sound exactly like Robin. Grima is your ultimate challenge… heh. You're practically the same person."

Kjelle tilted her head, recalling her spar with the tactician at the Ruins of Time. "He mentioned something about that to me. That he would kill Grima… but that's absurd. There's no way he could ever kill Grima."

"But you will?" Virion quietly laughed in disbelief.

"I'll never stop trying."

"Of course you won't." Virion shook his head as if to derail the circular direction of their conversation. "Is there anything else he said? Maybe about how he would manage to stop Grima?"

Kjelle hesitated, knowing how sensitive the area she was about to tread would be - not to mention the curiosity that Robin had informed his friends of Grima, but not the method of eliminating himself he had considered taking. She decided to lie, hoping to avoid the matter a while longer until she was able to make sense of it. "He never talked about anything like that."

Virion bowed his head further into his knees before beginning the process of rising. "I see. Please, if the opportunity arises, work alongside him rather than against him. For the good of all." He began to walk down the hall, headed to his room.

"I can't do that, sir." Kjelle rose as well, recollecting her belongings as she went.

Virion sighed, then stopped moving and spoke to her again without turning to face her. "I am sorry for the complications with the room. If you still somehow believe that Robin is evil, or that he holds any trace of Grima within himself, then go ask him for aid. See what happens - what he's really like - for yourself. Beneath everything, beneath all that he has constructed for himself in his short time with memory, he's…"

The sniper sighed again, this time more out of disdain for his own imperceptive traits rather than any gloomier emotion. "I don't know what he's like, and I don't know if anyone does, himself included. He's just… not what you think. He's not Grima."

 _He will be._ Kjelle corrected the sniper without ever opening her mouth, watching him maneuver down the hall past her few belongings.

She stood in place for an extended period of time, long after Virion had already disappeared into his own room. She recollected the last of her items before making her way several steps down the hall.

Robin was hunched over his desk when she knocked on his door, alternating between studying Cherche and Virion's correspondences and writing missives to Chrom and the Shepherds. A single candle lit his workspace, though it was more light than he was used to and he found it almost blinding at times. He jumped slightly when the knock broke him out of his concentration, accidentally striking through one of the words he had written with fresh ink.

"Just a second!" he called out, hastily crumpling the letter he had been writing and burning it away into nothingness with a weak fire spell before shoving most of the other papers into certain pockets within his cloak.

Pulling his door open a crack, he was met with the unusually soft face of Kjelle staring directly at him. Gone was her usual evident hatred, though it was still visible behind a shroud of tentative curiosity and hesitation.

"Lady Cherche and princess Say'ri are using my room." she explained. "Virion said I should talk to you about it?" It was as much if of a question as it was a statement, seeing as how she was understandably uncertain as to what the tactician would be able to do for her.

"Oh. Uh, alright…" Robin glanced back into his room before opening the door fully, inviting her inside. She stood in the hallway unmoving, watching him carefully.

Robin rolled his eyes as he stood by the edge of the door. "C'mon, I'm not going to hurt you or anything. I'll probably be up all night reading and writing, so you can feel free to use my bed."

Kjelle still refused to move. "I'm not sharing a room with you. I'm not going to sleep anywhere near you."

"You haven't forgotten the whole 'multiple week long vacation around the continent' thing, right? You'll probably end up sleeping near me at some point."

Kjelle shook her head, taking a step backward into the hall. "Not yet. Hopefully it'll never happen."

Robin opened his mouth to speak, but cut himself off before saying anything. He looked back to his desk again to ensure that he had grabbed everything off of it, and confirming that he had, stepped swiftly past Kjelle into the hallway, blowing out the candle he had written by with a gust of wind magic as he went. He gestured her into the room, frowning when she merely stared at him as curiously as before.

"I'm not going to need the room to read and write." he smiled at her, only slightly forcing his pleasantness. "We'll be leaving tomorrow, so get a good night's rest. I'll take a nap in the morning after you get up, talk to Cherche, say my goodbyes, and then we can leave, okay?"

Kjelle spun to face him, her face returning to its usual indignant nature. "Hey, I'm not-"

She was cut off when he blew her back into the room with a light burst of magic, closing the door with the same forced smile as before written across his face. She was instantly aware of her surroundings, clutching tightly to one of her lances as she searched for any traps the grandmaster may have placed before his departure.

Robin's room was a mirror of hers, a single bed placed against the far wall with a small amount of space on either side and with a large window at its head. A desk sat near the corner right of the door, and save a few chairs, decorations, and a side room for personal care, the room was barren. His window had the blinds drawn shut, unlike hers which had remained open, and she brushed them aside in order to check for anything that may cause her harm.

Ultimately, she decided that there were no traps of any sort in the room, and lowered her possessions to the floor near the foot of Robin's bed. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, her thoughts were filled with even more caution and curiosity than before, and she contemplated her situation as she forced away her weariness. This was undoubtedly what Virion had intended for her to see, but now that she had seen it, she was uncertain about what it meant or how she should respond.

 _Was he trying to show me that Robin isn't_ _Grima? I know that he isn't yet, but he will_ _be eventually, and therefore has to be_ _stopped._ She yawned as her exhaustion wormed its way into the forefront of her actions. _So what if he does something nice._ _He's a threat, and needs to die so that the_ _world can live. Is this supposed to convince_ _me otherwise?_ She suppressed a laugh with another yawn.

 _Robin needs to die… no matter what…_ She fell asleep soon after, no longer able to force herself awake and descended onto the bedspread out of exhaustion.

Robin tore into a makeshift meal the innkeeper had been kind enough to provide him, the friendly yet homely man still tending to the upkeep of his business even so late into the night. Seated at one of the six large tables that lined the lower floor, Robin had pulled one of the inn's many chairs to his side and placed his unattended papers on it as he addressed the few on the table before him. Each of the windows that lined the main floor had their blinds drawn even though there was next to no light coming from outside, as per Robin's request, and the only light within the inn was drawn from torches that lined the wall.

The correspondences had detailed much of what Say'ri had covered earlier in the night, occasionally going into more or less detail, though never once did it mention the capabilities of Walhart's navy. Much to Robin's dismay, many of the letters appeared to be simple situation updates with little to no strategic value, and he set aside the few that specifically mentioned facets of the military.

Early in the morning of the next day, Robin switched over to finalising his missives to the Shepherds. He included the modified dossiers he had received from Kjelle in them, the two locations - a series of villages denoted by the charming name of 'Law's End' and a mercenary fortress, both in southwestern Plegia - requesting the presence of as many Shepherds as possible in each location until a potentially powerful and seemingly insane soldier was met. He mentioned the story of their time travel, hoping that Chrom somehow read the letter before Frederick and would believe him.

From there, he asked for the Shepherds to make their way to Port Ferox, mentioning specifically that Frederick and Cordelia should take command, that everyone was to avoid the Plegian capital, as well as that that Chrom and Sumia were to handle business in the capital. He considered writing about Kjelle, but refrained from doing so, knowing that a full explanation would make him come off as insane himself, and so merely mentioned that he too would be meeting with powerful people.

At some point along the way, the innkeeper had retired for the night, leaving Robin alone on the lower floor. The sun was beginning to peek out over the horizon as he pulled out the final piece of paper he had begun writing, an initial draft of the one he had crumpled when Kjelle showed up unexpectedly at his door. He scrawled a few more lines on it before reclining in his seat, each piece he had written fully completed and tucked away into one pocket or another.

He dozed off periodically as he waited for Kjelle to trade off with him, never once meeting another person as he waited. Eventually, he fell completely asleep, the innkeeper waking him several hours later with a complimentary plate of food. Accepting the offer graciously, Robin ate away what little tiredness remained in his body and prepared for the new day.

* * *

 **'** **Naive** **' can be spelled as both naive and na** **ïve, with the version with the two dots instead of a normal i being an older version that's still considered correct, and just isn't used much because it's less easy to write. The two dots are called a diaeresis, and indicate that a vowel acts as its own syllable within a word. I used the diaeresis because I write the majority of my initial work on mobile in between other stuff, so I had access to the special i easily and thought it looked better. Knowledge is power!**

 **I noticed while I was working on some of the newer chapters that I misspelled 'reins' as 'reigns' a few times in earlier chapters, and I'm going to pretend that that was due to autocorrect and not the fact that I was too stupid to google a word. Things like that would absolutely be caught if I were to work with an editor/beta reader, but I'm still way too arrogant to get help with this story, at least for now. The errors should be fixed now.**

 **If you checked out the oneshot or are reading this after I've made more stories, you'll probably notice that there were some small changes in sentence structure, primarily using commas properly in speech (i.e. "Hi." he said. would be "Hi," he said.). When I first started writing this fic, I actually intended to write like that, but found it easier to write with periods while promising to change it while I was editing. As you can see, I forgot to do that for the first few chapters, and when I realised the mistake I was too lazy to fix it and kept writing like that intentionally. I'll probably fix that way later, when the story is closer to being finished/is finished completely, and I have more time to do things like that.**

 **I've also written a lot of this with weird capitalisation ("Hi," he said. would be "Hi." He said.), at least in my initial drafts. That was mostly to make sure I was paying attention while I was editing, but it's honestly led to more confusion on my part than anything else, so I wouldn't recommend doing something that stupid to anyone theoretically asking.**

 **Flavia and Basilio are now officially on a bus for a while, and practically everyone but Robin and Kjelle are going to join them there for a while after next chapter, when the journey finally gets underway. Robin was also considerably more edgy before editing this time around, but considering how unnecessary a lot of that was, I edited most of it out. I still want to keep that edge in play for the asshole stuff, but at the same time I want it to fit some themes that come up later rather than being around purely for the sake of edge, which is where most of it came from anyway.**

 **Status: As of 25-02-18, I'm on chapter 20. Progress is going well, and I'm definitely enjoying writing, mostly because I like to prove that I can do things and like to write out my ideas. These status updates are the proof that I'm still going, as well as a reassurance to myself that I'll actually be able to complete something like this, and act as a record that I've actually done things.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

Kjelle awoke easily early in the morning, Robin's bed proving equally as uncomfortable as hers had been. She climbed out of the covers without much hesitation, reaching for a change of clothes and simultaneously ensuring that her weapons were still in place at the foot of the bed.

She stood as she changed, taking in the entire room in order to guarantee that Robin had never appeared at any point unannounced, be it for whatever nefarious means he could enact. She jumped back slightly when her foot contacted a bag that wasn't hers, falling back onto the bed and reached for one of her lances.

Tossing the weapon aside when she realised how idiotic she was acting, Kjelle approached the bag that had startled her and peered inside. Despite the overall low light of the room, she could tell it was filled with clothes, toiletries, some kind of makeup kit, a few non-magic books, and other things that were all what Robin had wished to bring with him yet was unable to store in his cloak. She pulled a few of the supplies from his bag, seeing as she was short on her own after being unable to properly pack anything more than what she had brought to train at the Dueling Grounds, and retreated into the side room in order to freshen up for the day ahead of her.

She reemerged from the side room some time later and, knowing fully that Robin needed to rest before they were to say their goodbyes and depart, sat herself down at his desk with one of the books from his bag. Skimming through several pages of that book, then another, and another, she failed to find any sections that interested her, even when she skipped to random points of the text.

The fourth novel managed to instantly catch her eye. Whereas the others had largely been relevant to locales of Ferox that Robin was undoubtedly studying up on, this one was host to a wide variety of information on the Plegian war. Each page was filled with refined yet rushed writing, hand drawn pictures of landscapes and tactical maps occasionally accompanying certain passages.

Despite having never seen Robin's writing before, Kjelle was able to surmise that he was the one who had written in the book. She began to read every single word with intense focus and scrutiny, examining each passage for information that would expose Robin and rectify her standing with the Shepherds. It was smaller than any of the novels she had read, or those that had been assigned to her during her studies in Ylisstol, being less than fifty pages in length, but she progressed carefully in order to properly analyse every passage. After well over an hour of study, she was almost finished with the book, dismayed that it was centred on spells, enchantments, and tactical information from the war for which she would have no practical use.

Turning over the next page, she blinked as if to clear her vision and refocused on the lack of paper. The last few pages of the text were gone, the glue that had once bound them sporting several scraps of their former existence from where they had been torn out - in the few places that had not been melted and blackened by flame, that was.

Kjelle lifted the book up to eye level, holding it flat as if that would somehow reveal a clue on its history. She lowered it back to the desk and glossed over the last section of writing, the paragraphs before the removal bearing the same tenses, strikethroughs, and factoids that suggested Robin had written it both during and after the Plegian war as some form of idiosyncratic journal.

'Now that the Plegian war is over, there should be a substantial period of peace. I'm not entirely certain of what will come next, but there will likely be at least one more war somewhere down the line. No one among the Shepherds will die during this period if I have anything to say about it, but it's possible that I won't be able to do anything, considering my plans for Plegia.'

Kjelle narrowed her eyes at the passage, with the mention of the plan for Plegia being the only thing in the entire book so far that had not been a recounting, bar the entries that were made in anticipation of combat and political events. Not to mention it had been the most ambiguous section so far, and that she had somehow ignored it in her first examination. Troop positions, battle plans, prospective conflicts, some enchantments and spells, even passing mentions of 'side quests' and references to Flavia's missions had all been written with incredible detail in either past or present tense, or had already occurred, with the Plegian plan being unique in its unfinished nature. She continued reading.

'Walhart may be the best option for ultimately removing Grima's taint, though he needs time and space to operate, and is distracted by his conquests. I may be able to assist both him and the Shepherds and bring their forces together in order to defeat the fell dragon's influence, but I sincerely doubt that possibility. His ideals are simultaneously similar and vastly different from Chrom's, and I doubt the two would mesh together well.'

The text gave Kjelle the impression that Robin was familiar with Walhart, and considering that he had only learned of the conqueror in full last night, she was beginning to suspect that he knew more than he was letting on. It would be impossible to use this information to incriminate Robin, as Kjelle knew that even the Chrom of her time had professed a similar ideal of cooperating with Walhart, had the man not focused so greatly on his conquests. She found herself frowning as she considered the next passage, the final paragraph on the page having been blotted out entirely by a mass of ink in order to conceal its contents.

There was an almost negligible chance that Robin had written the Walhart passage last night, but if he had, then that would mean that the last pages of the book were either empty or full of similar writings that he would either have no reason to remove or every reason in the world to eradicate. At the same time, Kjelle knew that he would have been unable to burn the pages between the time she surprised him and when she entered his room, meaning that he must have done this some time in advance.

She flipped back a page, skipping several paragraphs in reverse as she looked for more information. Convinced that some great secret was hidden just below the surface of the text, only being visible if she were somehow able to examine it under a completely different lens, she reread a section near the middle of the last page's untouched side. The first paragraph had a large check mark and question mark next to it, the second a dash that told her next to nothing, and the third an 'X' that covered much of its contents.

'Once Sumia hits the first of the forts, Chrom will rush forward to cover her because I swear to Naga that man can hardly keep it in his pants long enough to fight and will help her whenever he gets the chance. If Olivia ends up exposing herself to attacks by helping him with her dances, she'll need to be covered by whoever is able to spare some time. Virion will be a good option, since they're likely to hit things off.

Gaius and Anna will be able to open the chests south and southwest of their starting positions. Frederick is a good option to back them up, since they won't be taking too many hits, and a healer - maybe Maribelle - should accompany them so that she can heal any attacks that happen to connect.

Miriel advances to counter any remaining fliers with wind magic, supported by Libra. He'll probably propose after the war, but may need a little push. Miriel cares for him, but won't be able to realise her own feelings until he makes a move, so they should stay paired up whenever possible even after the war. Donnel and Sully can handle most if not all of the reinforcements, wherever they may appear, and they almost assuredly will show up at some point. They made need a little push as well, come to think of it.'

Kjelle flipped back to the beginning of the book, the later pages making it evident that she would be able to learn nothing but play-by-plays of battles and gossip about the inevitable Shepherd relationships. The purpose of the markings next to each of the paragraphs was unknown to her, but she assumed that they denoted whether or not each piece of the strategy had come to fruition. Nevertheless, she unintentionally smiled at the notion that even someone like Robin already held her parents in a fairly high regard.

Holding the book by its first cover, she only now realised that a page was missing from the beginning in addition to those at the end. This one was not torn and burned as the others had been, but instead was surgically cut incredibly close to the glue binding. Only a thin strip remained to signify that a page had once existed, one so miniscule that it would undoubtedly have been impossible to notice without Kjelle's relentless examination.

She frowned as she read the apparently second page in the book, a section giving a brief recount of Robin's first day of memory. It was nothing she hadn't known already; his amnesia had eventually been explained even in her time, despite how much many of the Shepherds had grown to resent the man at the time of the explanation and subsequent sacrifice.

Recalling something she had once heard from Noire about one of her father's miscellaneous spells, she moved to the section of the journal that detailed enchantments. Almost a full page was dedicated to warnings and technical jargon she couldn't be bothered with reading, and so she flipped over to the next page.

Approximately five full pages in this section were dedicated to the history and processes of blood magic, with another five pages after that being full of dozens of enchantments and the means of applying them. They had been arranged alphabetically, disregarding titles such as 'advanced' and 'basic', and so Kjelle scrolled past many of them until she reached the set she was searching for.

'Time Reversal'. She finally located the incantation Henry had used during his interactions with the Sumia of her time, and intermittently thereafter. With any luck, she would be able to restore the lost pages of the journal and find something in what had been removed with which she would pin Robin, showing precisely how vile the man could truly be.

Kjelle blinked. The words used in casting the enchantment were in common, of that she was certain, but for whatever reason she was incapable of reading them. Whenever she focused on one word, the others fell apart on the page, and whenever she looked to another the original was lost in a similar manner. She didn't know if this was due to her inexperience casting magic, or some ward placed over the book, but after a few minutes of failing to read the enchantment she slammed the book shut in frustration.

Noire had learned to cast this very same spell before, and if Flavia's reports were accurate, the archer would be the first of Kjelle's friends that she and Robin would encounter, meaning that she would be able to decipher it and restore the book. A long, long time ago, Noire had forced herself to learn the incantation and had strived to save lives with it, but had failed. Though Kjelle could remember her being able to cast a surprisingly powerful form of the spell at that time, the only other aspect of that day to have remained with her was the knowledge that she should never use the enchantment on a living being. Tharja, being Noire's mother and a capable mage in her own right, may have been able to help as well, but the sorceress' iciness and current unwillingness to aid the fight against Robin held her at bay for a while longer.

Somehow, she was both incredibly close and yet as far as ever from finally stopping Robin. There was no guarantee that this book held the secrets she needed to know and abuse, but she knew she was close to something, and so reopened it in order to glean anything at all more from its contents. She swept past the enchantments and spells, glossed over the tactical texts she had already read through at depth, and skimmed over the notes on developing relationships within the Shepherds.

Certain passages in the designated relationship section mentioned that Robin had once planned for Lon'qu to grow close with Lissa and for Olivia, Virion, but another set of 'X' markings denoted that those plans had failed. Out of both curiosity and slight concern, Kjelle flipped over to where her mother and father were discussed. No damage that had been done could as of yet be irreversible, considering how the vastly accelerated and seemingly unforgiving nature of this time would reasonably restrict the Shepherd's more intimate relationships, but she feared the possible lack of a check mark beside her parent's passage all the same.

Her fears were assuaged when she finally pinpointed the paragraph she was looking for, though she still felt unease at the foreboding question mark that decorated the margin near the passage.

'Sully is one of the more powerful and capable Shepherds for the time being, and she'll probably be on par with Frederick in terms of combat by the end of the Plegian war. Donnel is another matter entirely; he's probably the weakest person in the Shepherds, but with enough time and experience, his natural talent will carry him to heights few others could manage. They'll fall for one another eventually, given time. I'd say that it'll be some months after the Plegian war before they wed, give or take a few weeks.'

Kjelle examined the page a minute longer, throwing out random guesses as to what the question mark may mean amidst the concern that her parents may not be together, appreciating the reassuring lack of an 'X'. She found it vaguely disturbing that Robin had played with the Shepherd's lives to so great a degree as to determine their love interests, especially after his mention of not treating them as pawns, though she remained notably grateful that his intended pairings mirrored those of her time.

Convinced that she would be able to restore the damaged sections of the book with Noire's assistance, Kjelle resolved to conceal her knowledge of the journal until such a time as she would be able to use it to her advantage. If Robin were to find out about what she knew, he may hide or destroy the book entirely, ensuring that she would never be able to discover its secrets. Until such a time arose that she would be able to steal and restore the book, being able to use its lost pages to expose Robin, she decided to play the fool. It would make her victory all the more satisfying, after all, were she to outwit the fell dragon itself.

She blinked, then stared without looking at the book and desk before her. Wouldn't killing him be enough? Granted, she had already resolved that his death would come after his defeat in fair combat, and she had vowed to cause due suffering for the grandmaster earlier, but was that really worth wasting time until she became strong enough to defeat him fairly?

It would be a simple matter, really, to kill him as he slept. She could invite him back into the room this very instant, lie about oversleeping, and grant him the rest he had requested. Then, she could simply run him through then and there, ending all of her problems in only a few minutes, if not less time.

She could do exactly what she was so afraid Robin was going to do this morning.

Shuddering at the notion that Grima may somehow have higher moral standards than her, she began to legitimately consider the negatives of such a resolution. She would be unable to grow stronger by dueling him, for one thing, and she would need to be incredibly strong to defeat Walhart if the conqueror were truly as powerful as Say'ri claimed. Then there was the issue of the Shepherds, and how they would be likely to imprison her, if not far worse, once they realised what she had done, not to mention that she would be unable to reconnect with her friends if such a thing were to happen.

She would have failed Flavia, and even though she had no intention of obeying the Khan, the concept still stung; both Khans had always been a great asset and friend to the Shepherds in her time, Flavia especially. Her parents would never know who she was beyond a murderer, at least if the Shepherds she had already encountered were of any indication. Additionally, she would never even be able to guarantee that they had found the right person for one another. She would never have the chance to live her normal life, to do whatever she wished without the threat of the fell dragon breathing down her neck.

No, if she were to kill Robin, it could only be after he was exposed in full to everyone for what he really was, or if she were able to definitively retroactively prove his villainy. If he were to die before then, it would only rob her of the life she wished for, and those of her friends who stood by her, and without their aid the Shepherds would likely perish in Valm.

But did any of that even matter? Wasn't the sole purpose of travelling through time to kill Robin before he could destroy the world as they knew it? Could her life, or those of the Shepherds, or those of her friends ever compare to the future of all of humanity?

For the first time since arriving in Ferox, Kjelle was experiencing the all too familiar feeling of being insignificant. Killing Robin would be the only guaranteed means of stopping Grima, of that she was certain, so why would she ever hesitate? Even if it cost her everything, wasn't it worth it to stop Grima? Were she to kill Robin as soon as she could, there existed the slim chance that everything would turn out okay.

Sighing, Kjelle closed the journal and swept it to the side of the desk with her arm. She had never been one for extensive planning, after all; she would just have to make a call whenever the opportunity arose. Holding the book in her hand, she slipped it back into Robin's bag at the very spot she had removed it from and plucked out another novel, intent on reading until the grandmaster appeared on his own.

* * *

Robin knocked on the moderately sized wooden door before him, taking care to do so gently and not awaken anyone who may have been asleep. Seeing as how Kjelle had never exited the room to awaken him, he had skipped past using an actual bed to sleep, sustaining himself instead with the short rest he had undergone on the inn's lower floor. He now stood before the door Cherche and Say'ri's room, hoping that he had not made a mistake and that the two were, in fact, residing in the room that was once Kjelle's.

"Hey, Say'ri, you up yet?" he half-whispered into the doorframe, hoping that the swordswoman would somehow be able to hear him. "Is Cherche up for talking?" No response. He knocked again.

The door cracked open, Say'ri's beleaguered face popping into focus from inside. She was evidently tired, her hair disheveled and her eyes lined with bags. Clearly, she too had slept little on the journey to Ferox, regardless of what she had said the night before.

"Good morning." Robin smiled to her, attempting to ignore her exhausted demeanor.

"...Good morning." she slowly replied. "Lady Cherche is awake at the moment, though she is incredibly exhausted. I urge you to make whatever matter you have to discuss with her swift."

"Of course." Robin kept smiling. "May I come in?"

Say'ri cast a glance over her shoulder, judging the acceptability of the sections of the room Robin was unable to see. She pulled the door open, stepping backward and waving Robin inside.

A pillow placed on top of the desk to one side showed Robin where Say'ri had slept, the image of being slumped over the side of the desk half-sitting half-laying coming across as uncomfortable as he could remember from his own experience. Cherche was sitting up in the bed, the covers held up to her face with both of her hands as she scooted over to one side, giving Robin space to sit beside her. The door to the hall closed, and then the only door within the room creaked open, with Robin managing to see Say'ri disappear into the side washroom as he sat next to Cherche.

"What was it you wanted to talk to me about?" she mumbled from behind the covers. "You wanted… what was it, information on Valm?"

"Say'ri already told me pretty much everything I need to know about Valm." Robin dismissed her course of thought, sliding a few centimetres away from Cherche as he realised their close proximity.

"What do you need, then?" she asked, shifting toward him in order to better hear him speak from underneath her blanket fortress.

"Well, first of all, I have some letters I'd like for you and Minerva to take to Ylisstol once you two are feeling better." Robin slid further away from her, simultaneously pulling a set of envelopes from his cloak and passing them to Cherche, who unfurled one hand from within her blankets to take them. Each letter was uniform in design, addressed to either Chrom and Sumia or one of the various Shepherds, aside from one - a lighter and larger parchment than all the rest, it was addressed 'Chrom only' on the front, with a subtitle reading 'Seriously, not even Sumia for this one. Only open this if I don't make it back in time for Valm'.

"And second?" Cherche placed the letters on the side of the bed, not daring to try and examine them at the moment, fearing that she may fall asleep again at any moment. Frowning when she realised what Robin was doing, she shifted herself back over toward her side of the bedspread in order to give him more space. She allowed her wrappings to fall down to her shoulders, enabling her to hear him while remaining covered and warm.

"Second is more of an offer than a request, just so you know." Robin grabbed another paper from one of his pockets, passing it to Cherche alongside one of the spare sealed inkwells and quills he always held on him at any point. "Virion said you would be capable of becoming a Shepherd in your own right, and from our first meeting yesterday and the knowledge if what you've done I think he was right to say it. If you want to, you can fill out that form and pass it along to Chrom once you reach Ylisstol, and you can officially become a Shepherd."

"You're… offering me a place among the Shepherds?" Cherche asked, the hand holding the paper shaking as she lowered it to the bed.

"Uh… Cherche? You okay?" Robin tentatively raised his hand as if to comfort the wyvern rider, but wearily held it at a significant distance from her.

"And… you're doing this, knowing that I'm intrinsically tied to Roseanne, and therefore Valm?" she asked, her voice adopting the same uncertain quality as her hands.

"...Yeah…" Robin progressed hesitantly, having no idea beyond a mere inkling where the conversation was headed.

"Does this mean that Ylisse will be standing against Walhart!?" Cherche leaned emphatically toward him, awaiting his response eagerly.

"Uh, yeah, I kind of thought that was a given already…" Robin was watching her uncomprehendingly, the notion of never challenging Walhart's might having not once crossed his mind. "Ferox will support this as well, once I get some missives to Flavia's second in command."

Cherche smiled brightly before retreating back into her blankets. "Thank you. After everything that happened in Valm, after all the nations and dynasties that either fell immediately or ignored the conquests around them, it's comforting to know that there are still those willing to stand and fight."

"I'll always be ready." Robin couldn't help but smile even brighter than she had at her praise.

He had noticed nothing off about his words or their inflection, but Cherche's glance in his direction held a trace of concern all the same. Shaking her head to dismiss her worry, she took hold of the form in her lap again and shuffled over to the desk in order to fill out on it all that she could. Robin watched her movements as she shifted over to the desk still wrapped in blankets, pulling out a second paper similar to hers and placing it atop the pile of letters to Chrom.

"There's another of those forms here for Say'ri, but I don't think she should fill it out until after speaking with Chrom." he said. "She's likely eligible for a position among the Shepherds as well, though her status as a princess may complicate things a bit, so she should head to Ylisstol if she's interested." Cherche nodded in acknowledgement, still focused largely on her paper.

"I'm not a princess anymore!" the swordmaster shouted from the side room, Cherche and Robin both whipping their heads toward the door as she did.

"You can hear us from in there?" Cherche called out a second later.

"...The walls are thin." Say'ri called back.

"Anyway…" Robin began, rising from his seat on the bed and making for the exit doorway. "...I think that's all I wanted to say. Kjelle and I will be leaving soon after I manage to get her up, so in case I don't see you two in the meantime… bye."

"Goodbye." Cherche half-rotated in her seat to smile warmly and wave after him as he departed. He heard some muffled noises coming from the side room that he could only assume was a goodbye as well, but it was lost to the sounds of the swordswoman bumbling her way out of the room. The door to the hall had already closed behind him, and he was well on his way to his own room, before the ex-princess had reentered the main room.

Lon'qu and Olivia were shambling down the hallway together to Robin's side, headed toward the stairs that descended down to the inn's lower floor. They waved silently to him as he walked in the same direction, aiming for the room nearest the stairs that was containing Kjelle, and he waved amicably in return. Between knocks on Kjelle's door, he was able to hear Virion's voice echoing up from the lower floor, and he could only assume that the archer was talking with Tharja based on his boisterous yet restrained tone.

"Just a minute!" Kjelle shouted from within. Apparently, only the side rooms had thin walls, as she was almost inaudible even when she raised her voice.

The door lurched open a few seconds later, Kjelle appearing with a dark brown book in one hand in the space that was made visible.

"Is that one of my books?" Robin instantly asked, eyeing the novel attentively.

Kjelle glanced to the book before looking back to Robin and shrugging. "Actually, I'm pretty sure it's Basilio's, if the foreword is anything to go by." She stepped away from the doorway in order to give Robin access to the room.

"Flavia insisted I take it before our group left Ferox." Robin brushed past her into the room, beelining directly for his open bag.

"...From Basilio's personal library?" Kjelle flipped the book over in her hands as she followed the tactician to his bag.

"Honestly, I didn't even know he had one. Turns out he has terrible security, though." Robin said, rifling through the contents of his bag before he touched something, whatever it was stopping his movements entirely. He withdrew his hand from the bag, and Kjelle could only assume that he had found his journal where she had left it.

She returned to him the 'borrowed' book, and he placed it inside the bag before sealing its flap and hoisting over his shoulder. Almost tempted to call him out on the journal then and there, Kjelle held her tongue knowing that saying anything that would reveal her knowledge would only complicate things further.

"What did you use from the bag?" Robin asked, his casual tone almost managing to fool even Kjelle into thinking that he wasn't probing for information.

"Just some basic stuff. You know, hygiene and supplies and all that. I'll get my own things once we reach my teacher's home and I have the opportunity to pick it all up." She answered in as casual of a nature as he had spoken, already thinking of ways to lead him off of his inquisitive train of thought.

"As a side note, I think you've got more makeup in there than I've ever owned." she said, finally decided on a course that would hopefully distract him enough that he would lose interest, the fact that she may be able to rail on him a bit being purely an added bonus.

Robin glanced to his bag, then to her. "Do you even wear makeup?"

"Do you?" she shot back.

Robin passed her on the way to the side room, needing to change out of his clothes from yesterday, maintaining eye contact with the door rather than her. "There are a lot of little cuts and scrapes you get during fights that aren't worth using up staves or vulneraries, so I've taken to covering them with makeup. There's a disinfecting kit just below it too that you probably would've seen if you had dug a little deeper."

"Oh… that's way better of an answer than I was hoping for." Kjelle said, watching him move into the side room.

Robin turned to face her, his body half in the side room and half out. "What kind of answer were you hoping for?"

"Something really embarrassing, I guess?" Kjelle shrugged.

Robin stepped fully into the side room, closing the door behind him and talking through the thin wall that separated him and Kjelle. "Trust me, if Chrom or Sumia or probably half the Shepherds ever found out, they'd pour so many vulneraries on me they'd end up killing me."

"They would?" Kjelle asked far too eagerly.

Robin sighed, her joke understood and unappreciated. "Figuratively."

"Damn." Kjelle cursed energetically, smiling as she moved to sit on the edge of the bed. She sat there for several minutes, bringing her lances and bags together at her feet when Robin took longer than expected.

He reappeared from the side room after a few more minutes, wearing different clothes aside from his eponymous cloak. In the time he had expended Kjelle had already packed away all of her belongings into her and Flavia's two bags. Only her lances remained set aside, as she would be carrying them with her at almost all times, and she had nowhere to place them properly until such a time as she acquired more armour. A third bag from Robin contained the rest of his restorative purchases, with the fourth and final being the one which contained his journal and supplies.

"You not have a change for the cloak?" Kjelle asked, seeing now that he hadn't altered the single article of clothing.

"Don't need one." Robin puffed out the front of his coat, boasting its craftsmanship to his audience of one. "You see, this cloak is no mere cloak - it is a masterpiece; surely the finest work of the finest tailors in all the lands of the world would only pale in comparison to its radiance. Oh, and don't even get me started on the silks used on the interior linings, th-"

Kjelle buried her head in her hands. "Oh gods, this all sounds way too familiar…" she smiled at the recollection of Owain's overzealous behaviour in the face of the mundane, but hid it beneath her hands.

"-ockets, they're better at compartmentalising than I am!" Robin continued his rant throughout Kjelle's interjection. "Not to mention all of the amazing enchantments piled onto every thread of this thing; it won't burn, or melt, or freeze, tear, shrink, it can't be cut or pierced… I think."

Kjelle looked back up to him when he paused. "You 'think'?"

"I mean, I can only assume that strong enough hits would be able to break the enchantments and cut through."

Kjelle frowned at him as he flourished his cloak for her. "So you really had rigged each of our duels before they had even taken place…"

Robin darted his attention away from his cloak and toward her. "How do you figure?"

"You just said that you're pretty much invincible in that thing." Kjelle held her hand out to gesture at the cloak. "How the hell was I supposed to stand a chance against you if I can't even hurt you?"

"Last time we fought, you didn't even manage to hit me." Robin reminded her.

"Because of the magic." Kjelle argued emphatically. "If you fought an honest duel, without magic and that cloak, you'd be dead in a heartbeat."

"Maybe. Maybe not." Robin pulled out his swords, both levin and steel, holding them flat for Kjelle to look upon. "I'm pretty good with a sword, too. Not like Chrom or Lon'qu or anything, but still… well, passable."

Kjelle stared at the weapons before pointing to the levin sword. "That one's still magic. Using it is cheating, too."

"You can't keep changing the rules like that…" Robin muttered as he placed the weapons away within his cloak. "Anyway, I've actually been thinking about the whole 'honourable duel' thing more, and I think that you're right. I should fight you based solely on my own physical strength from time to time, and not rely solely on magic to win. Or my cloak, I guess."

"Does that mean you're going to duel me without them?" Kjelle asked skeptically.

Robin shook his head. "Not quite yet. First, I want you to be able to hurt me with magic, even when I'm wearing my cloak."

"What!?" Kjelle balked at the notion of not only using magic, but being able to use it to hurt a practiced mage. "That's not even possible for me, a knight, to do!"

"Enemies aren't going to bother with an honourable fight." Robin chided her. "If you don't understand magic in the slightest, and don't know how to resist it, you'll be dead in even less than a heartbeat."

"I'm not even going to be able to hurt you with magic…" Kjelle groaned. "You're really just going to make me fight against you until I get strong enough to beat literally anything, huh? Even though that will never conceivably happen?"

"It can!" Robin forced out an attempt to encourage her. "You're already powerful, you'll just have to apply your normal strengths and training to magic and you'll be a pro in no time!"

"And that's the only way to get an honest duel out of you?" Kjelle was frowning intensely, and Robin almost wished to give her an honourable duel then and there just to appease her.

"It is." he said instead, steeling himself, knowing that he would need to hold true to his plans of strengthening her and growing stronger himself in turn.

"...Damn it all…" Kjelle cursed under her breath, her plans for a proper duel already falling apart before they could even begin.

"We can start whenever you like. Think of it as your next major lesson in bird killing." Robin had collected his second bag from its position on the floor and was now standing near the room's exit, both bags slung over one shoulder. "For now, why don't we get started on finding your friends and helping out around Ferox?"

His words were as much a statement as they had been a question, and Kjelle did not bother to give it a response as she rose from the edge of the bed, gripping her lances tightly in one hand and grabbing hold of her bags with the other. She felt tired now after speaking to Robin about their fighting, despite her well-rested condition, and partly wished to sleep on the path to her teacher's home.

"You have anything to eat yet?" Robin asked as he stepped out into the hallway. "I'm thinking we could stay here for a quick bite to eat, say our goodbyes, we can go pick you up some of the stuff you needed from my bag, and then… I think we can leave without issue or concern."

"Sure." Kjelle mumbled from behind him, her entire expression downcast. She had been looking forward to winning the duel against him, to besting the fell dragon and then killing him without having to rely on underhanded tactics. Now that he had simply refused the duel unless she met nearly impossible circumstances, her options became all the more limited, and she was almost tempted to learn magic in order to get the fight she so desperately wanted. Almost.

Robin noticed her tone, but continued on undisturbed toward the inn's lower floor. She may think it was impossible to be able to hurt him - being a protected and well-versed grandmaster - with magic, but Robin was intent on proving her wrong for reasons he didn't want to readily admit.

Downstairs, Virion, Tharja, Olivia, and Lon'qu were seated at a large rectangular table off to the side of the inn, eating and chatting intermittently with one another. Olivia noticed Robin and Kjelle descending the staircase and eagerly waved them toward a set of free seats, pushing herself up out of her seat and slinking gracefully behind the inn's counter. She reemerged shortly thereafter, now holding two more plates of food in her hands, and returned to the table, setting them down in the spots that had been saved for the two new arrivals.

Kjelle immediately tore into her food, having forgotten how hungry she was in her readings. Robin held himself with comparatively far more restraint, picking lightly as his food despite having eaten only a meager meal earlier. The others assembled at the table waited patiently for them to finish before opening a conversation. Eventually, Robin passed his plate on to Kjelle, who ate it with a fair amount less vigour than her first.

"You are to depart soon, yes?" Virion was the first to engage them, talking more to Robin than Kjelle. "I suppose it's a tad too late to convince you to reconsider?"

"Everything's already handled here, Virion." Robin replied, Kjelle's new plate now holding very few remnants of his meal and enrapturing him with the ferocity with which she ate. "You know as well as I do that I'll be of as much help here at the port as I would be anywhere in Ferox, if not less." He rose from his seat, taking the fully cleared plates with him as he walked back to the innkeeper in order to allow the man to tend to them.

Virion transferred his interest over to Kjelle once the grandmaster had walked away. "And you? Have you reconsidered your earlier intentions, or do you remain focused upon Robin's death?"

Kjelle looked at Robin over the edge of the napkin she was using to wipe her mouth, watching him speak in a genuinely friendly manner with the innkeeper. She shrugged casually and switched back to facing Virion. "We'll see."

"That is… a very poor answer." Virion frowned almost aggressively at her, though it no longer offset her.

"I-I hope you find your friends." Olivia spoke up in an attempt to inject some cheer into the conversation, drawing the focus away from Virion's distrust.

"I know I will." Kjelle followed up on the statement wholeheartedly, with as much conviction as she could manage. "If I can trust anyone outside of the Shepherds, it's probably the Khans."

"Were they friendly in your time?" Olivia asked, earning quizzical looks from the other three Shepherds at the table. "What? Robin believes her, right? So… so we should too?" she quickly defended herself, falling back into her usual personality soon after.

"Khans Basilio and Flavia were the closest friends the Shepherds ever had… well, up until they died, during and after the Valmese war, respectively." Kjelle answered the dancer's first question, putting her mind at ease and distracting her from her own shyness. "I trust them as much as any of the Shepherds, as do all of my friends."

"That's good." Olivia smiled to her. Kjelle smiled lightly back, ignoring the less accepting glares from the other three Shepherds. Robin returned at this point, retaking his seat and folding his hands atop the table.

"When are you two leaving?" Tharja asked now that Robin had rejoined them.

"A few hours, at the most." Robin replied without missing a beat. "Most of that'll be some last minute shopping, so we probably won't see you guys until after everything's said and done."

"I see…" Tharja frowned toward the table, avoiding the gazes of those around her. "So this is goodbye, then?"

Robin smiled calmly to her even though she couldn't see him. "I suppose it is. I guess I should thank you guys for all the time we've had together, or something?"

Even Olivia rolled her eyes at him, her expression full of disdain. "Oh, come on, Robin, we'll all see each other once you get back. No need to try to be so… melodramatic."

Robin continued to smile, but with considerably more uneasiness than before. "I'll be getting back just in time for another war, though. That's nowhere near as pleasant as the present. ...Heh."

Kjelle sneered at him with a mix of scorn and mockery. "Did you just laugh at your own shitty rhyme?"

"Hey, that was an amazing rhyme!" he immediately leapt to his own defense before calming down and turning childishly away from her. "Don't pretend like you wouldn't do the same."

"I really don't think I would." Kjelle laughed before realising what she was doing, halting her laughter entirely with a faked cough.

Her moment of levity was lost on all but Tharja, who slowly opened her mouth as her eyebrows climbed steadily up her forehead. "...What…? Nevermind." the sorceress cut herself off with a shake of her head, rising from her seat and gesturing for Robin to follow her. "If I may have a word in private, Robin?"

"Sure." the grandmaster stood and followed her without hesitation, stopping only when she did in an unoccupied corner of the inn. "What's up?"

"You seem to be on better terms with Kjelle already." Tharja began, temporarily abandoning her original reason for separating herself and him from the others.

Robin glanced over to the knight in question. "Eh, I don't really think so. She's still pretty much the same as ever before, and I don't really think there's any kind of problem with that."

"Oh, of course it's not a problem." Tharja jeered in an attempt to hide her concern, failing to do so against Robin's attentiveness. "It's just a matter of life and death for you, so nothing major."

Robin smiled in order to put her worries to rest. "Trust me, I'm strong enough that she would never be able to kill me unless I actively wanted her to. There's nothing to be concerned about."

Tharja narrowed her eyes on him all the same, part of her remaining unconvinced by his answer. "...Right. Anyway." she drew the discussion back to her original topic, which she had been so ready to forget. "I feel as though I should apologise to you on behalf of the Grimleal." Robin knitted his eyebrows together in evident confusion, wordlessly urging the sorceress to continue.

"It's the fault of people like me, of other members of the Grimleal, that so much trouble is being caused, especially for you." she explained. "So please, accept my apology on behalf of the Grimleal - I swear to you, so many of them are kind and loving people, you wouldn't even be able to tell them apart from Ylisseans, or Feroxi, or anyone else. They deserve their lives and happiness as much as any other."

"It almost sounds like you're trying to talk me out of doing something horrible here, Tharja." Robin regarded her in a more scrutinising light. "I'm not about to start a crusade against Plegia or anything."

"Yes, but…" Tharja sighed emphatically, taking care to word her statements properly, without reference to the small fear that held in place against her better judgement. "With everything that's going to be happening in Plegia, if there is another war… please don't go too far. For the sake of everyone, Ylissean, Plegian, and whoever else, know that a total conquest isn't always the best option. Everyone who has to fight, and die, is still human."

"Please, you think I don't know that?" Robin laughed, waving her apology away. "I already know that even the Grimleal are normal people, just like those who worship Naga. It's just Grima and Validar who are making everything so horrible. Besides, I knew when to stop with the last war; just because this one might be a bit more personal doesn't mean I'll treat it any differently."

Now it was Tharja's turn to knit her brow together in confusion. "'Validar'? Who is that?"

"...The leader of the Grimleal and the new king of Plegia…" Robin replied slowly, uncertain of what was causing her incertitude.

"...He is?" Tharja asked, speaking as slowly as Robin had. "How do you know that?"

"Don't you remember like two or three days ago, when I asked you about the Grimleal?" Robin asked his own question, maintaining a perfectly straight face when he realised his unintended slip, settling for cursing against himself internally.

"I didn't know about anyone named Validar…" Tharja regarded him skeptically now, unable to penetrate the cheer of his mask.

"Oh, really?" Robin responded after only a short pause, hoping to make himself come off as casual in the face his new lie. "Maybe I heard it from Kjelle, then? The two of us talked for a little while about the whole time travel thing last night, and she must have mentioned him then. Sorry for attributing it to you."

"...Not a problem." Tharja replied after a short pause of her own. "Again, I should be the one apologising to you."

"How about we call it even, then?" Robin smiled. He had been half tempted to name Flavia as the one he had spoken to, but knew that doing so would only add another lie to his woefully large web.

"Are you certain? Your apology seems almost… petty, compared to the gravity of mine." Tharja said.

"Honestly, they're not that far apart." Robin watched her frown again, although that may have just been her face returning to its natural position for all he knew. "Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"No…" Tharja lowered her head, still reluctant to let Robin go despite her previous change of heart. "You're really leaving now, aren't you? ...We're guaranteed to see each other again sometime soon though, right? Even if it's only right before Valm?"

Robin closed his eyes in order to hide how hollow they had become, covering his actions with a smile. "Of course. Come on, let's go back to everyone else." He angled his head toward the table, Tharja slowly following his steps until they had reached their friends.

"You ready to go yet, Kjelle?" Robin stood behind his chair, looking to his side at the knight as she rose from her seat.

"Ready as I'll ever be." she nodded to him, somehow radiating conviction through only a single sentence.

"Then allow me to be the first to wish you safe travels." Virion rose to meet them, taking Robin's hand in his and shaking it firmly. "Remain safe along your journey, my friend."

The sniper turned to Kjelle, lowering his hand to his side and making no movement toward her. "As for you, lady Kjelle… eh."

Kjelle frowned, still unconditioned to the Shepherd's inconsiderate mannerisms despite having grown somewhat resilient to them. "What do you mean, 'eh'?"

Virion shrugged and repeated himself. "What I mean is… eh. Do as you like in terms of living."

Robin clapped the archer on his shoulder, lightly pushing the man back toward his seat. "I think we all know what you mean. You stay golden, Virion."

"Do you not think that my splendor entails the need for more than simple gold?" Virion recoiled in falsified shock.

"I'm sure your avarice will send you for all the precious gems and metals in the world alike, if not its women." Robin taunted before leaning in close to the sniper's ear, whispering. "Wouldn't want to upset Tharja, after all, hm?"

Virion relaxed into his seat, gently shoving the tactician off of himself. "Fair enough."

Tharja was the next to say her piece, wrapping her arms tightly around Robin's torso and pulling him close to her before he could even move away from Virion. "Goodbye, Robin." she said plainly, having already satiated herself with his earlier farewell.

"Bye, Tharja." Robin wrestled out of her grip. "Take care of Virion for me, okay?"

Tharja both winced and blushed, turning away from her friends until she had righted her expression. Kjelle raised one eyebrow at the sorceress' genuine embarrassment, fearing for Noire's future on the other woman's behalf before snapping her attention over to Olivia, the one next in line for a goodbye.

"I-I suppose this is goodbye for now, then, Robin." she began timidly. "Take care of yourself, okay? You too, lady Kjelle. Er… Kjelle."

"Thank you, lady Olivia." Kjelle beamed at finally having received a goodbye of her own. "Or, uh… just 'Olivia', I guess?"

Olivia smiled sweetly to her and Robin, both of them returning the gesture. Lon'qu said nothing, only nodding to Robin and Kjelle both once and never letting loose even a hint of a smile. Robin nodded in return and waved at his friends as he exited the inn, Kjelle rushing after him when she realised he was leaving and wasn't waiting for something more.

"Well, that was… probably what I should have expected from sir Lon'qu" she lamented over the goodbye, having joined Robin on the streets of Port Ferox.

"Yeah, he's always one for nodding and grunting over actually saying anything." Robin waved her down one of the streets, urging her toward a set of stores. "If you want to pick up everything you think you'll need, I can go get the horses ready to depart."

"I'm on it." Kjelle began walking down the street toward the stores, leaving Robin to tend to his own matters. "See you in a few."

* * *

Horseshoes plodded against dry packed earth as Robin and Kjelle's mounts made their way east through Ferox, their course set for a small settlement west of the capital where Kjelle claimed her teacher had resided in life. It would take the entire day and the majority of the next to reach the man's home, at which point the two would likely rest at an inn should the settlement have one, or strike up camping for what would then be the second time. They were moving at a far slower pace than what the Khans had set for their earlier travels, Robin professing the need for them both to remain in the greatest condition possible as the sole cause for the change.

Their horses were the same that had once led the Shepherds' carriage, Robin having repurposed them and taken the beige one for himself - but only after having it guzzle down an entire vulnerary. Minerva had been present in the stables alongside the horses, but remained soundly asleep as Robin had gone about his business. Now, the wyvern was effectively the only guard for the empty carriage, Robin having left it behind in the stable's enclosed storage area as he saw no need for it on his and Kjelle's journey.

Kjelle had found Robin promptly after he had finished preparing the horses, one of her bags moderately heavier due to her rudimentary supply shopping. Now, having been on the road for much of her morning and being faced with the prospect of even more mundane travel, Kjelle was absurdly bored and decided to strike up some form of conversation with her travel partner, simultaneously hoping to glean more information from him at the same time.

"So, everyone at the inn seemed fond of you." she began.

"I guess they don't know about Grima, then?" Robin followed up without missing a beat.

"Now you're catching on." Kjelle smiled.

"...They do know, by the way." Robin said. "You know, about the whole Grima thing? I've told practically each of them by now, and Lon'qu told Olivia."

Kjelle nodded knowingly from her position beside him, her horse trotting abreast to his. "Sir Lon'qu said that you would tell each of the Shepherds in time. I didn't necessarily believe him, but at least you've held up to it so far."

"They'll all know eventually." Robin focused on the road ahead of them, decidedly not facing Kjelle.

"Out of curiosity, why do they not hate you?" Kjelle asked, her usual scorn toward the subject of Grima completely absent.

Robin thought for a moment, then gave as honest of answer as he could. "I fought alongside them for several months, being directly responsible for helping them through the campaign in Plegia, and then looked after them a fair amount in the year and so since. Knowing them, they've probably attributed their success to me instead of themselves."

"What happened in the Plegian war?" Kjelle asked another question, her interest genuine. "I think my time has differed so much that I'm in need of a bit of a history lesson."

Robin was silent for some time, allowing the sounds of their horses' movements to drown out all else. Kjelle began to watch him after he had not spoken for several seconds, thinking at first that he hadn't heard her and then considering that he may be ignoring her. Soon, her idle thoughts were put to rest as he initiated his tale.

"Before the war, the Shepherds consisted only of a few members, and handled only simple bandit raids and the like. When they - Chrom, Lissa, and Frederick - found me, I was lying unconscious in a field, and after some overbearing trust from Chrom and understandable distrust from Frederick, Lissa healed me a bit to make sure I wouldn't end up dying from the wounds that had made me fall unconscious. From there, the four of us repelled a bandit attack on a nearby town, and then took a day to rest in order to get Lissa another staff, since it had apparently broken when she was healing me."

"After that first day, we moved up toward Ylisstol to inform Emmeryn of the bandits, who Frederick had uncovered as being Plegian. We encountered a cataclysm while traversing the woods south of Ylisstol, had a portal like what you described a few days ago pop up in the sky out of nowhere, and encountered both the risen and 'Marth' for the first time. Once we reached Ylisstol, Chrom informed Emmeryn about what was happening and instituted me as tactician of the Shepherds."

"Then, we met with more of the Shepherds - Sully, Virion, Sumia, Vaike, Maribelle, Miriel, Stahl, and… Kellam, and made our way up to Ferox in order to forge an alliance with the Khans. We won a tournament duel against 'Marth', got an alliance with Flavia's Ferox, and rushed back to Ylisse in order to handle a hostage situation involving Maribelle, dealing with risen all along the way. That was where I first met Aversa and Gangrel, at the hostage dilemma."

"We managed to rescue Maribelle without major issue, and headed to Ylisstol with her in tow. The castle was attacked that night, with a group of assassins - including Gaius, who Chrom convinced to join the Shepherds - setting out to kill Emmeryn. 'Marth' saved Chrom from a direct strike by one of the assassins, losing her mask in the process and exposing her femininity to the Shepherds. Panne showed up at some point along the way, and together the lot of us expelled the assassins, killing their leader."

"A hierophant, Phila, Chrom, and a few others convinced Emmeryn to relocate to another fortress east of Ylisstol, with that selfsame hierophant later betraying us in favour of the Plegians. We found out after dealing with him that Ylisse had fallen to a Plegian invasion in our absence, with Emmeryn deciding to return to her people in their time of need while the Shepherds were temporarily relocated to Ferox to gain aid for the coming war."

"Emmeryn was kidnapped by Plegian forces during that time, and we all immediately trudged down into Plegia in order to rescue her. We met Gregor and Nowi on the way, during our first day in the desert. Once we reached the Plegian capital, I had devised a plan to save Emmeryn from her planned execution, but it failed entirely and resulted in Phila's death. Emmeryn then sacrificed herself, leaping off of the ledge she was being held captive on in an attempt to gain sympathy with the Plegian forces and end the war."

Kjelle cut into his speech for the first time, Emmeryn's death being wholly undesired yet entirely characteristic of the woman. "So she martyred herself in order to cover for your mistakes?" Her question came off as far more disrespectful than she had intended, though she saw no reason to alter it in post or otherwise bother correcting herself.

"...Yeah, she did." Robin accepted Kjelle's judgement dejectedly before resuming his recounting. "Anyway, from there we had to retreat through a place called the midmire, and thankfully weren't met with too much resistance, but still had to expend some time to care to our own and escape the pursuing Plegian army. We managed to retreat all the way to Ferox, where we were able to plan our next move. Chrom and everyone else never gave up on me, even then… even after everything."

"Chrom decided we should charge right back into the conflict, pressing the advantage Emmeryn had granted us and using it to force the Plegian army into a total surrender. Gangrel was killed by Chrom during the final battle against his forces, where only his loyalists remained to fight alongside him. Sumia and Chrom got engaged right after that fight, becoming Ylisse's rightful rulers in tandem. Then we had a full year of peace, with each of the Shepherds at some point receiving promotions for their service, which has now led up to this point, where we're all acting as peacekeepers."

Kjelle frowned now that Robin had finished his recounting. "And you never lost a single Shepherd?" Something else was off about his story, the pieces of the puzzle he hadn't filled out in full and had instead glossed over being just as significant to Kjelle as the overall developments. There were several minor inconsistencies with his tale in comparison to what she had learned of her time, though whether it was solely due to his lack of depth in his recounting or the effects of her and her friends remained unclear. Nevertheless, she decided to focus upon the less miniscule sections of his story, rationalising her decision by thinking of the differences as nothing but trivial.

"Aside from Phila, Emmeryn, and apparently a once-upon-a-future-past Gangrel, yeah." Robin confirmed.

"Aversa fought alongside the Shepherds of my time as well." Kjelle added.

"Seriously?" Robin was unbelieving of this, despite having so easily accepted all else Kjelle had claimed. "She's always come across as antithetical to the Shepherds; why on earth would she help them?"

"You were a common enemy for everyone." Kjelle said. "Before you were exposed, I think she worked only intermittently with the Shepherds, but never in direct support of them. At the end of the second Plegian war, which was when everything about you came to light, she became a great ally to Ylisse and was focused in your elimination, becoming the most powerful spellcaster in the ranks of Ylisse after the massacres in Valm and subsequent losses."

"...What happened in your time?" Robin asked tentatively, as though he feared the answer he may receive. "Unless you're romanticising everything, the Shepherds of your time were far stronger than those of this one, so how did everything go so wrong?"

"You were what happened." Kjelle informed as though it was the simplest answer to the easiest question ever asked.

"And, what, I was personally responsible for the deaths of every single Shepherd?" Robin was once again skeptical.

"Pretty much, as far as any of my friends and I could ever tell." Kjelle defied his uncertainty with her answer, causing the grandmaster to wince in his saddle. "I think the only Shepherd to die of natural causes was Sumia, who fell horribly ill after the birth of her second child. Miriel had something similar happen, but other than that, everyone died under your command, as a result of you yourself, or to risen. Honestly, considering that you're you, even those first two may be attributable to you and not nature."

"I would never do anything like that…" Robin muttered, Kjelle barely catching what he said.

"You did, and you'll undoubtedly do it again as you please." she said, and slowed her horse slightly to match his pace, the tactician having lowered his speed at her revelation.

"How can you be so sure?" Robin turned to face her for the first time since they had mounted their horses. "What if I'm capable of overcoming Grima and saving everyone?"

"That's a possibility, but in no way a guarantee." Kjelle refocused on the path of her horse, unwilling to face him directly. "The only assured way of slaying Grima is to kill you."

Robin, too, focused on his horse rather than her. "I see."

The two pressed along on their path for over a minute before Kjelle spoke again. "Are you really willing to die to prevent Grima's return?"

"Yes, if it comes down to it." Robin responded instantly, without any hesitation, despite the more grim tone of his topic and voice alike.

"And do you yet accept that Grima will return if you live for too long?" she continued.

"No." Robin saw where she was directing the conversation; she would try to have him admit to the necessity of his death, and then lure him into another duel, or 'expose' him to the Shepherds, or perform some other form of disservice to him. So, he shot her line of reasoning down before it could come to fruition.

Kjelle hmphed, displeased at his awareness, but allowed her topic to fall into obscurity as they marched further into the heart of Ferox. The next time one of them spoke was after over an hour of travel, with Robin deciding to break their silence.

"How did your future come to be? Before everything was brought to ruin, I mean. How did the Shepherds pull off things like saving Emmeryn and Gangrel, or repelling the Plegian invasion?"

"I can only assume that they were simply better than the you of this time." Kjelle shrugged.

"Ha. Funny." Robin said, his voice deadpan and giving no light to humour whatsoever. "Seriously, though, so much of what you've said happened in your time seems so impossible. Do you know any of the specifics relating to how they happened?"

Kjelle lost herself in thought for a moment before replying, reminiscing about the world she had once considered home. "I've never known too much about the early days of the Shepherds, but I do know what happened to them later on. The first major difference is obviously Emmeryn, who didn't die during the first Plegian war."

"The 'first' Plegian war?" Robin interjected, earning a frown from Kjelle.

"Please, hold all questions until the end of the lecture." she mimicked an almost mechanical voice Robin could instantly place as familiar, the knight breaking out into a small smile at her own actions. "Heh… lady Miriel used to say that to me whenever I made a disturbance in her class. She'd say that she needed to be 'the cynosure of our scheduled time in order to properly impart the necessary knowledge required to project magic'... I can't believe that I actually remember all of that, and none of her actual lessons…"

Robin tilted his head at her melancholic tone, the traces of her memories obviously recalling as many moments of sorrow as happiness. He decided to continue asking questions despite her growingly despondent state. "You learned magic under Miriel?"

"Everyone did." Kjelle confirmed wistfully. "I would always fall asleep during her lessons, as would so many others. It's no wonder almost all of us have no idea how to cast magic…"

"Who is 'everyone', Kjelle?" Robin asked, his voice measured and low. "Are they the people who traveled through time with you?"

Kjelle nodded, giving no verbal response. The two sat in the solemn near silence of their movements, their horses trotting along throughout their conversations. Robin was watching Kjelle all the while, seeing her grow progressively more distant with every passing second.

"Why were you taught by the Shepherds, Kjelle?" he asked, hoping she wasn't too far gone down her rabbit hole as to not respond. "Why were you and your friends so close to someone like Miriel?"

Kjelle no longer heard him, her eyes glossing over as she fell through the avalanche of memories from her time in Ylisstol. "Every year we would go to the capital, and father would always tell me to 'just come home safe'. I never thought anything special of it, but when Miriel died after only our first few weeks of lessons, and with so many Shepherds dead already, and then those that remained dying afterward…"

"He was the one who taught me to use a lance. Once mother had left for Valm, I begged for him to teach me until he finally caved in and gave me lessons." she sighed, closing her eyes as she remembered. "I always hated having to go to the castle every year to learn, since their combat education was minimal in comparison to what he could teach me. Risen attacked so much, I came to see them as training more than a threat, and I never really knew how anyone could ever die to something that a little kid could handle without much problem. At least, not until they started to kill so many more people and Shepherds alike. When the hordes started appearing, more and more…"

Robin caught the reins of her horse where they had loosened in her hands, guiding her mount away from its wavering side route and back onto the path as he listened. She sighed again, her focus remaining lost.

"Lady Cordelia would compliment me on my form and strength using the lance, and I was so happy to tell her that my father had taught me everything. Gods, I have no idea how she could have died… she was always so strong. They were all so strong. Severa cried so much after her death, I had never seen anything like it before, though I guess I was probably in a pretty similar state after my mother died. Lucina never cried, but Cynthia… and Brady, and Inigo, and Owain, and… and everyone..."

Half of Robin wanted to stop her and pull her out of her sorrow, but the other half demanded that he allow her to continue and unintentionally give up as much information as possible. Giving a sigh of his own, he resolved himself to a course of action. "Hey, Kjelle? Are you sure you want say all of this in front of me?"

"Life was like that for almost sixteen years…" she said, having failed to notice Robin's attempt at stopping her. Even when he called her name again and louder, and when he snapped his fingers in front of her face, she didn't respond. "But once Chrom died and you were exposed, we all thought that we would have next to no chance of stopping our world from falling into ruin. We summoned Naga with the Fire Emblem, and she showed Lucina a path to the past for all of us to take, so we just... left. We… w-we… left..."

Robin lightly struck the side of her head, forcefully snapping her attention back into the present. She spun her head to face him, blinking away tears from both her memories and the unexpectedly great sting of his strike.

"I'm sorry, Kjelle…" Robin apologised genuinely, wincing at her expression. "Everything you were saying just… didn't seem like something you would want to share with me."

"Oh… thank you, then?" She pulled the reins from his hands and bent her head down onto the pommel of her saddle, hiding her face from him. "I mean, you can also go screw yourself, since that actually stings, but… yeah. Gods… that was way too much. My friends are going to be pissed…"

"It's okay." he tried to console her, though he was uncertain of what to do exactly as he still wished to gain more information from her. "Do you mind if I ask a few more questions?"

Kjelle kept her head lowered to her horse, her voice making her newfound dejection easily known. "...Sure."

Robin frowned at her tone, but pressed on regardless, resolving to feed her simple questions that would theoretically be incapable of launching another session of reminiscence. "Was Emmeryn in an execution scenario during the first Plegian war?"

Kjelle turned her head slightly in order to not muffle her answer, her budding tears already fully removed from her face. "No."

"Was there ever a time when she was in danger, where her life may have been at risk?" he followed up.

"...No." her eyes grew hazy once more as she was dragged back into her future past. "She used to greet us at the castle. She was always so happy to see us, and would always pretend to care so much about whatever childish nonsense I had involved myself in… she was one of the last to die, shortly before we left."

"Knowing Emmeryn, her happiness was undoubtedly authentic." Robin futilely attempted to pull her out of her memories again, having to lean over and snap his fingers near her face when she lost herself again.

"Look to me, Kjelle." he pointed to himself as she slowly returned to attention. "Focus on me for now - or the path, or the horses, or anything tangible. Can you do that?"

She nodded from her awkward position crumpled on the back of her horse, gazing directly at Robin's face and allowing him to continue. "Good. Just say something if you want to stop, okay?" She nodded again.

"Was there an attempted invasion of Ylisse on behalf of Plegia?" Robin persisted in his use of a calming tone as he spoke, being uncertain of her state during his questioning.

"Yeah, it failed when the Shepherds were able to predict their sequence of raids and kept the border under control." Kjelle remembered her minor lessons on recent history, this time managing to focus on Robin instead of her world. She sat up mostly straight in order to face him properly, never breaking line of sight with his face in fear of losing herself to her world again.

"They were able to predict that…?" Robin muttered to himself before addressing Kjelle anew. "Was there an attempt on Emmeryn's life after the tournament in Ferox? ...There was a tournament in Ferox, right?"

"There was a tournament in Ferox that the Shepherds used to gain the favour of Khan Flavia." Kjelle confirmed. "They defeated Basilio's champion, sir Lon'qu, who joined them as a result. After that, there was an assassination attempt, but as far as I know the culprits never even made it into the castle."

Robin nodded several times without rotating away from her. "Do you know how Gangrel was pacified, and how the first Plegian war concluded?"

"Emmeryn and the Shepherds were able to convince Gangrel of the benefits of a peaceful world." Kjelle said. "Gangrel himself was the one to call the war off."

"That… doesn't sound like something Gangrel would do in the slightest…" Robin lowered his head in abstract confusion before moving onward. "What happened after the war ended?"

"There was a period of peace that lasted about two or three years, after which was the Valmese invasion…" she trailed off, her head lowering before her focus snapped back onto Robin.

"Did anything worth mentioning happen during the peacetime?" Robin asked.

Kjelle considered how much she should say before answering. "Sumia died, for one. Other than that… the Shepherds began to form, or rather advance the relationships they had formed during the war."

Robin narrowed his eyes on her in a scrutinising but not demeaning manner. "And that part's worth mentioning because…?"

Kjelle bit the side of her cheek, resisting the urge to tell him of her parents and those of her friends, to ask him for help in making sure things turned out alright. To trust him. "I'd rather not say."

"Alright." Robin instantly accepted her refusal, causing her to bite down even harder in a sense of remorse whose existence she didn't fully understand. His eyes relaxed, adopting a far less critical expression that almost caused her to avert her gaze as her feeling of remorse only intensified.

"...I can tell you a bit about Valm, if you'd like." she initiated the next round of questions, hoping that she would be able to work through the second war's recollection without a repeat of the incidents of her first recounting.

"I would appreciate it." Robin smiled at her.

Kjelle found herself wanting to smile in return, though she refrained from doing so. "The war began when lady Cherche and sir Virion informed the Shepherds of the Valmese empire, the first stages of the invasion happening only a few days later. Cherche was already present, by the way; she had come to Ylisse shortly after Virion and had even served in the first war. The Shepherds had next to no time to prepare for the fight of the invasion, which was a naval assault on Port Ferox, but managed to get through it without any casualties to their ranks. The next battle was at sea, with the brunt of the Valmese navy battling the ships of Ylisse, Plegia, and Ferox. Miriel and Ricken both sustained grave wounds in this fight when they were ordered to ignite their own ships and launch them at the Valmese, and returned to Ylisstol prematurely as a result."

"The next battle was at a Valmese port, against a subset of Walhart's troops, with the Shepherds meeting the resistance there. Next was a battle to liberate an area called the Mila Tree, and then an assault on Fort Steiger, the location of Walhart's central forces. After that was the elimination of the empire's southern division at an area referred to as the Demon's Ingle."

Kjelle winced as she remembered a less than savoury subset of information, the image of Robin keeping her in the present for the time being. "...Sirs Vaike, Basilio, and Gregor, as well as lady Olivia died during those battles."

Robin grimaced at the news of his friends' deaths, turning away from her to momentarily hide his face. She became distressed for a second when he did so, but her mind was put at ease when he rotated back to face her, an odd intensity now lining his eyes. "Do you know how they died?"

Kjelle shook her head, not daring to talk further about their various means of demise, though she truly didn't know how their fates had been brought about. Robin opened his mouth to say something more, but hesitated and remained silent, the intensity fading from his expression.

"The last two battles on the continent were at the conqueror's stronghold in northern Valm." Kjelle continued when it was made clear that he would say nothing more. "Ladies Panne, Nowi, Cherche, and Tharja, and sirs Kellam, Stahl, Libra, Gaius, Lon'qu, and Virion died there… not to mention mother..."

"Naga… all those people died over only two battles?" Robin whispered in horror before honing in on her mention of family. "Wait, what do you mean 'mother'? Your mother was a Shepherd?"

Kjelle winced as she too realised her mistake. "I didn't… I-I wasn't supposed to…"

Robin disregarded her when she began to fumble, working through his reasoning on his own. "That explains why you were taught by the Shepherds, and why you brought up the relationship thing earlier - and how you know so much about the Shepherds, and are so intent on saving them." Kjelle winced again as his thoughts raced onward, Robin failing to notice her change in expression in his new state. "Everyone you listed now - Olivia, Panne, Tharja, Miriel, Nowi, and Cherche - you mentioned their deaths - and injury - separately, meaning they aren't your mother."

"Robin…" Kjelle called out to him in an attempt to get him to stop before he was able to reach a revelation that would expose her, her friends, or jeopardise any other advantage she still held.

Robin heard, but ignored her. "You said that Sumia died before the war, and also said that Cordelia had been present afterward. Now, considering that you said at the Dueling Grounds you had trained for all but two years of your life, and you would have had to have been born during the peacetime, and if Cordelia was alive after when you had lost your mother, she's out, as well as Say'ri since she would have been met when the Shepherds came across the resistance. Aversa, Emmeryn, and Phila were likely alive after the war based on you mentioning them in the Dueling Grounds, unless that was a really clever lie, so that leaves… Lissa, Sully, and Maribelle, right?"

He looked to Kjelle, appraising her. "I don't think you have the mark of Naga, considering how prominent it was on both Chrom and Emmeryn. Then again, Lissa didn't have the brand either, so I can't quite rule that option out."

"Robin…!" Kjelle tried to break through to him again, the grandmaster this time blinking as if he had only now actually seen her. "Please, stop."

Robin lurched into his seat, facing straight ahead so as to avoid her pained expression. He sat in silence for a moment before saying anything. "...I'm sorry. I went too far with all of that."

"I'll tell you everything eventually, okay?" Kjelle found herself consoling him. "It has to be when he time is right, though. When I know that nothing bad will come from telling you."

"...When you know that I'm going to die before I can do anything with whatever you say." Robin extended her statement to the only end he could envision, Kjelle neither nodding nor shaking her head in response and instead trudging steadily on over the path.

Several hours passed with only the sounds of their horses between them, the two not saying a word to one another even on their short rest breaks. A dark cloud had been placed over them both, discouraging them from speaking and willing them into utter silence. Kjelle despised this silence, the knowledge that she could have easily avoided it and they would have been able to retain their more cheery moods from when they had left Port Ferox only accelerating her attempts to find a resolution. The silence was always far too haunting.

As daylight rusted into dusk, Kjelle finally managed to pinpoint a topic she could only hope would place the two of them on better terms, only minutes before they would stop to rest for the night. She never even considered why she would want to be on better terms with Grima's avatar, she simply wanted to stop the uncomfortable silence, and saw it as a means to her end.

"I never got the chance to thank you for everything that's happened since the Dueling Grounds." she began, Robin finally turning to face her in perplexity. "You know, for the stuff after my teacher died, and then at the ruins and the port, and what's happening now… so, uh… thanks."

"You… vowed to kill me, and then I nearly killed you twice?" Robin struggled to remember anything positive from their encounters so far. "...I don't understand."

Kjelle shook her head and gave a slight smile. "At the Dueling Grounds, you were the one who decided to help me, even after the whole 'vow to kill you' thing. Then, at the ruins, you got me out of the sinking collapse site and resuscitated me."

"With magic." Robin cut in cheekily, her ego boost already working wonders on the miasma that had encompassed them.

"What? Why does that even matter?" Kjelle followed up with levity of her own, though it was still partially forced.

"I just thought it was pertinent." Robin shrugged. "It was also how I got us out of the ruins once they had fallen, by the way. You should really try learning some sometime."

"I think I'll pass." Kjelle said before resuming her own line of thought. "After the ruins, when we reached the port, you saved me from drowning, again, by pulling me out of the sea, again."

"With magic." Robin repeated himself cheekily. "Also, I was the one who put you in the ocean. Again. You really don't have anything to be thanking me for, everything even remotely bad that's happened has been caused by me and practically me alone."

Kjelle ignored him. "Lady Olivia is starting to believe me now, and she says it's because of you. Virion attempted to make amends, however small, for the conflict that existed because of how he and I- no, how I acted this entire time, and it's also because of you."

Robin was frowning now, familiar with but still unacclimated to and uncomfortable with praise. "I think you're being a bit too hard on yourself and too favourable toward me here."

Kjelle persisted in ignoring his commentary. "Now, we're going across all of Ferox and then some to find my friends, even though a war is looming on the horizon. So… I'm grateful for everything you've done so far, and… thought you should know."

"You're still gonna kill me though, right?" Robin half joked.

"It… it's necessary…" Kjelle looked away from him, an unfamiliar apprehension lining her thoughts and words alike.

Sensing her newfound uncertainty immediately, Robin raced to find a different topic for her to focus on. He backtracked through their encounters, searching for something at least vaguely related to what she had been talking about in order to make his transition seem at least marginally natural. An unanswered question from the Ruins of Time came to him, and he latched onto it before he was able to remember what he himself had said in his delirium.

"Hey, Kjelle? Back that the ruins, you apologised for being rescued by me. Is there a story behind that, or…?" Robin trailed off, only now realising that his question may unintentionally bring her back into her struggle to stay out of her own time. Then again, maybe her sadness was better than the route she had begun to take.

"...People from my time had a tendency of dying when they tried to save me." Kjelle replied, her voice cold in comparison to her earlier emotional state but growing progressively more melancholic.

"Oh. Sorry, I didn't mean to bring up anything like that." Robin told the truth, or at least what had once been the truth. "Do you… want to talk about it?" he continued awkwardly, treading largely unfamiliar ground.

"I would rather not." Kjelle shook her head and attempted to dismiss his question. She looked back to Robin only when a query of her own had been brought back to the forefront of her mind. "When that happened, you said that I shouldn't be sorry. You thought that I was apologising for you being tired, and you said that it wasn't my fault but the fault of someone - or, I guess, something - called 'grey'. What is that?"

Robin froze in place on his mount, even now barely remembering mentioning the grey in his exhaustion, and he found himself thankful for his horse's continuous movements in the growing darkness that hid his stiffness. He gradually slowed down and veered into a small roadside clearing.

"Robin? ...You still there?" Kjelle asked when he failed to respond, slowing and then turning her horse to match his movements.

"We can make camp here for tonight." Robin disregarded her question and slid off the side of his horse. "If we start moving again after first light, we should make it to your teacher's town with enough time to get your equipment and find an inn, maybe even with a few hours to spare. Make sure to get your rest now; we'll be going kind of slow, but we also won't be stopping much."

Kjelle followed his lead and dismounted her horse, keeping her eyes trained on him cautiously all the while. "You didn't answer my question, Robin. What is this 'grey' you mentioned?" she restated her question, part of her mind thinking that he simply hadn't heard her.

Robin gave an eerily pleasant smile, shooting down any hope that he had possibly missed the question. "I would rather not say."

Kjelle blinked, his ability to turn her own words against her proving to be incredibly discomforting. "Will you tell me eventually, like with what I promised you?"

The grandmaster across from her stared directly into her eyes, his own having grown extraordinarily bleak and desolate. Their new form startled Kjelle, but as she looked upon them more, they became stale, as though they had always looked like that and she had never bothered to check. When he spoke, his voice was authoritatively commanding yet barren, leaving next to no room for her to contradict him and mirroring his eyes almost flawlessly.

"No."

Kjelle blinked again, trying futilely to scatter the image of his eyes from her mind. "What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I mean no." Robin closed his eyes and turned away from her, toward the packs on his horse. Kjelle found herself both relieved and nervous, wishing to both keep his face in her frame of vision and hide it away at the same time.

Sounds of Robin rustling through one of his bags for his tent emanated from near his horse, Kjelle having no scene to place the noise to as she too preoccupied herself with unpacking for the night. Darkness had fallen a short time ago, a calm night seeping into the landscape around them as the last of the day's light faded, and although Kjelle knew she required rest in order to continue tomorrow and to avoid the overexertion that had wreaked havoc on Olivia, she still found the desire within herself to press on ever further until she had found every last one of her friends.

The noises radiating away from Robin stopped even though he had not yet located his tent. He spoke over his horse to Kjelle, her figure hidden entirely by the beast with Robin giving no effort to search for her over its body.

"Whenever you think about your time, or sometimes when you're just doing whatever, do things around you seem like they're not really there?"

Kjelle furrowed her brow as she stared into one of her bags. "...I don't understand what you mean."

"It's like… everything is the same as always, but not really. Everyone is still the same as before, but different, and you don't know why. Food tastes as good as usual, but is stale, and you can't even taste anything. Colours are as vibrant as ever, but muted, and everything seems more like shapes than… well, anything real, despite being definitively real. Does any of that make sense to you?"

She shook her head despite knowing that he couldn't see her. "No, it doesn't." Attempting to wrap her mind around what he was saying, she only became more confused; all he was doing was contradicting himself, sentence after sentence. "Is that supposed to be what the grey is?"

"I… I don't know…" Robin found that he had at some point begun to rest his head against one of his bags, and corrected his posture, resuming his search for his tent.

"How could you not know?" Kjelle laughed, attempting to joke with him in the secretive hope of brightening his mood.

Never answering her, Robin paused as if to say something, then continued to empty the contents of his bag. Kjelle frowned when he refused to speak, knowing she had made a misstep at some point but not being certain as to where precisely or how she could go about rectifying her actions. She and Robin assembled their tents in silence, tethered their horses, and split a meal without saying any more than simple courteous words to one another.

Retiring to her tent as Robin put out the embers of the fire he had made - with magic, as he had decided to remind her of incessantly - Kjelle stopped in place. Only needing to look upon her tent to know that sleep would not be coming easily to her, and that any which did would be riddled with frights from her past, she turned around to find Robin again. There was at least one tried and true way to put her mind at ease, following in the footsteps of what she had done so consistently in the future, even when it drew the ire of her friends.

"Can we duel, Robin?" she asked, and drew her lance and pointed it at him. The grandmaster eyed her carefully but made no attempt to reach for his swords or tomes.

"Are you going to be doing this a lot?" he placed his arms over his hips, his weapons remaining sheathed.

"Probably." Kjelle admitted without any trace of remorse. "For tonight, I'd just like to put my mind at ease. Humour me?"

Robin eyed her as cautiously as before, but slowly began to draw one of his tomes. "Okay, sure. On you."

Kjelle nodded, then lunged. Her lance, steel shining in the minute moonlight available to her, failed to connect when Robin deftly sidestepped her attack, a stream of fire connecting with her dominant hand less than a second later. The lance flew out of her grip as she clutched the appendage, the magical flames simmering down once Robin redirected his attention into collecting her weapon and tossing it back to her.

"Still using your magic, I see." Kjelle bit back her distaste as she readied her stance once more, paralleling the grandmaster's own movements.

"Of course." Robin met another lunge with another stream of fire, this time sending Kjelle herself reeling from a direct hit to her torso, though he held back enough to ensure that no serious damage was done.

"I'll never kill you at this rate." Kjelle half-joked, hoping that the humour wasn't too morbid for him to appreciate.

Robin nodded, his smile refusing to make an appearance for the umpteenth time that night. "...I want you to know that your feelings are reciprocated."

Tilting her head in confusion, Kjelle gave him ample time to explain. "I'm here to get stronger, Kjelle. I don't need to pretend to be some altruist helping you from the bottom of my heart anymore; know that once you get strong enough, I'll kill you, as the proof that I too am stronger than ever before."

Kjelle flinched, taking a half step backwards at the harsh coldness of his words. For the first time since before the ruins, she felt a creeping dread crawl up her spine, the crippling fear of death from her time returning in full to debilitate her, and she only now realised that she had almost forgotten what such a feeling was like. Ultimately, this was what she had anticipated from before she had even met him, when she had accepted that she was to take on the fell dragon itself and not an actual person. _So why does what he's saying seem so wrong…?_

She broke into a tentative grin, still hoping to somehow spin her situation for the best. "I suppose that was to be expected. Don't expect it to come easily, though."

Robin lowered his mouth into a frown before breaking into an uneasy smile of his own, priming another spell. "Let's see who gets stronger, then."

Kjelle nodded, now smiling genuinely. Her fear was greater than ever before, but at the same time her hope was blossoming; she may actually stand a chance against the fell dragon's avatar, and the man himself would be training her into someone he deemed worthy of killing - meaning someone who would be entirely capable of killing him in turn. A hint of distress ebbed in and out of her mind during the rounds of their duel, as much building concern for her own safety as it did his.

As their fighting progressed into the night, Kjelle found herself losing every single round, but dismissed each loss entirely. Robin made no moves that would actually harm her, or cause her any undue stress, and as she wondered more on what he had done so far and what he had just said, she came to the realisation that he had lied about intending to kill her.

This was Robin after all. He had helped her when she was no more than a violent stranger, vowed to treat the Shepherds as the human beings they were instead of as pawns to be manipulated, was going to strengthen her, would help her to find her friends, and now he spoke only to the contrary out of the hollow bitterness that was so unfitting yet fitting of him. The actual Robin, the one that wasn't lying, had no intentions of hurting her, or violating any of the promises he had made. He wanted her to hate him in order to strengthen her. She resolved that that must be why he was acting this way, in order to justifiably help her yet again.

Subconsciously, she had already begun to regard him as Robin and Robin alone. He was the selfless person who would do practically anything to help another, even if they weren't necessarily a Shepherd, and even if they had sworn to be his demise like her. She had to go out of her way to remind herself that he was, in fact, Grima - or at least, he would be one day. It seemed almost wrong to make such a comparison between Robin and Grima, knowing both now as she did, as two opposite entities.

A warmth spread through her body at the knowledge that he was willing to be so great of a help to her, becoming a chill when she remembered that it would eventually have to culminate in something arguably unsavoury. Reflection on the topic would do her no good, as she was by all means a person of action, and she willed the thoughts of the culmination down in order to focus on her combat.

"That's enough for tonight. We'll need rest before tomorrow." Robin called off their duel after shortly under an hour of fighting, fishing a vulnerary out of Flavia's bag and passing it to Kjelle. The knight had been the only one to sustain any form of damage during the duel, Robin himself only breaking a sweat rather than any skin or bone.

She drank the healing liquid, the small burns and bruises that dotted her skin fading as the magical potion healed her wounds. She smiled to him when she had finished, her mind cleared and expression nothing but authentic. "Thank you, Robin. For everything."

The grandmaster failed to conceal a smile of his own, his mood having improved drastically over the course of the duel as well. "The pleasure's all mine."

Kjelle beamed even brighter to him before finally retiring for the night, as pleased about her own revelation and resolution as well as the apparent fading of his supposed grey, at least for the time being. She slept without fear or terrors throughout the night, her plans to kill Robin in his sleep temporarily forgotten.

Robin lay awake for a while longer than her, staring aimlessly at the roof of his tent from the decidedly uncomfortable cot on which he rested. His plans would take quite some time to come into effect, and Kjelle would certainly need to be far stronger than she was now in order to make them convincing. Still, he was pleased to know that things were advancing well, and if he were to be perfectly honest with himself he would have to admit that he was gradually beginning to enjoy spending time with Kjelle.

A small pinprick of pain caused Robin to wince moments before he would have fallen asleep, and he raised his right hand to his face in order to inspect the finger it had originated from. Running down the length of his forefinger was a tiny cut, one that had been made unnaturally and only recently - a cut made by Kjelle, no doubt. He conjured a flame in his left hand for light as he set to cleaning, disinfecting, sealing, and dressing the wound, applying a small amount of makeup in the process should his glove ever come off. Only now did he realise that the thought of concealing the Mark of Grima had never even crossed his mind.

His journal-manual found its way out of his bag at some point, and was used to help him in suturing and then enchanting his gloves in order to prevent any further damage. The Mark of Grima writhed in its familiar home on the back of his right hand, drawing his attention to its undeniably unique form every once in a while before he was able to ignore it outright. Another smile broke out across his face as he finished and found himself already pleased by Kjelle's meager progress. He resolved to work on what he said and did more, as each had grown to the point where even he was unsure as to his exact motives or which set of information could be applied to a certain situation.

Even so, he was always able to find a sort of sickening happiness in knowing that he would never again see the beautiful splendor of Ylisstol. He allowed his thoughts to fall into silence on that note as he was lulled into a peaceful slumber.

* * *

 **I have and undoubtedly will continue to hate on edginess, even if I do use a fair bit of it in this story, and even though I end up complaining about it constantly I'm still going to use it. That being said, I want to make clear that the grey is intended to be separate from the actual edginess/assholeness, despite how closely related they are. Hopefully that'll become a bit more clear later on, when I start developing it into something more sinister than edgy, but it's still what it is for now. I like to think it's already gotten better than some of the original stuff, but it's still going to be a thing for the entire story.**

 **There are a lot of small things that have happened in practically every chapter to help set other things up, but this time around they seem way more out of place than usual, and things like the layout of/sound conduction in the rooms are obscure enough and don't come into play for so long that I doubt most people would remember them - until, of course, I mention them like this or actually have them come back into play.**

 **It's all still there, though, since I love to set things up without having much to blindside readers, which I really consider to be more of a cheap move than anything else. At the very least, I like to have things be lightly foreshadowed and then fully explained later, which is how much of this story operates.**

 **The discrepancies from normal Awakening that are described in this chapter, and have been happening since the start of the fic, are going to keep coming and get more intense over time. For the time being, though, this will be the most direct form of them, and the most direct setup for anything since the flashback sets.**

 **Status: As of 17-03-18, I'm finishing chapter 21. It and chapter 20 were supposed to be the same chapter, but due to length, I've split them up. They're pretty connected, though, so they'll probably be uploaded within a short window of one another when it comes time for chapter 20 to go up, but that's still many months away.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

Dawn broke anew over Ferox, its first rays of sunlight falling onto pale purple as Kjelle brushed a lone strand of hair back into place. She had awoken only a few minutes earlier, already conditioned from her ceaseless training to be active before first light, and was now using her time to prepare a small breakfast before she and Robin were set to depart. The grandmaster had yet to emerge from his tent, though Kjelle thought nothing of it given how the day had hardly even begun.

Snow, being ever present in Ferox in some form even now in the early stages of autumn, crunched lightly underfoot as she went about her business. She struggled somewhat with igniting a fire without the use of magic, and she found herself secretly cursing Robin's ability to do so without strain. Flames began to lash against the cold air shortly after she had set her mind to the task of fire starting, and she set down her prepackaged set of food near it as she walked to Robin's tent.

One of the horses, the beige one Robin had ridden the day prior, was scratching into the snow with its hoof, clawing for the thin lines of grass that lay hidden from its view from its position tethered next to the tactician's tent. Kjelle shivered when a dusting of powdered snow from its efforts wafted onto her, reminding her that she was in a frigid climate without armour or any sort of properly heavy clothing. She shot a glare at the horse as she continued on her way to the tent. It paid her no mind, persisting in its foraging efforts.

"Hey, Robin, you up yet?" she stopped outside his tent flap, shouting so that he may hear her through the fabric. No response. "Robin?" she shouted again.

A chorus of muffled groans met her second call, Robin's reply lacking utterly in coherence. Kjelle huffed in frustration and pushed open his tent flap, stepping into the darkness of the grandmaster's abode. It was incredibly simple, much of his floor being coated in grass after he had somehow managed to melt the thin amount of snow overtop it, and with his only furnishings aside from his cot being his two moderately large bags resting in one corner.

"Good gods, do you not know what personal space is? I said I'll be out soon." Robin lay on his cot, bundling his cloak and blanket closer to his body as Kjelle allowed a chill to enter his tent by way of the open flap. He turned on his side away from both her and the cold, hiding even further beneath his shroud of fabrics.

"I'm pretty sure you mumbled a bit and hoped I would leave." Kjelle rolled her eyes. "Come on, we have places to go today. It's time for some breakfast, then to go."

Robin grumbled some more as he rose from his bed, his covers clinging to their placements around his shoulders. "Fine… give me a second, okay?"

Kjelle crossed her arms, standing resolutely in place in the entrance to his tent, cold air slinking in behind her. "You aren't gonna fall asleep once I take two steps outside, are you?"

"No, no… I'm fine once I get up." Robin yawned as if to contradict himself. "I have a bad habit of sleeping in is all."

Kjelle tilted her head, her arms remaining crossed. "Didn't you have to fight in a war, meaning you would have to be conditioned to wake up at any time? Not to mention that Frederick probably had you running around for his training every day then and since?"

"I never slept too late over the course of the entire war." Robin yawned again, ridding himself of his grogginess. "Also, Frederick never really bothered me with his training regimens after I was promoted to grandmaster, and started handling day-to-day operations in Ylisse. Must've thought I had grown too important, or something."

"That doesn't sound like the Frederick I knew." Kjelle frowned. "He would have us up and exercising by now, even when we were younger."

"By 'we', you mean you and your friends?" Robin asked tentatively, Kjelle nodding in response. "If you're up for answering another question about your time, can I ask how long your Valmese war lasted, and when you had to start training under Frederick?"

Kjelle closed her eyes, screwing them shut further as she remembered her past. She answered him calmly, concealing the tension in her voice. "The Valmese war lasted for less than a year. I started my training unofficially, under my father, once my mother had left for the war when I was only two. Frederick taught my friends and I when the war had ended, beginning around the age of four, I believe."

Robin nodded slowly, treading carefully so as to avoid activating any unwanted memories. "Thanks, Kjelle. I'll be out in a moment for breakfast."

Kjelle opened her eyes before exiting the tent, her gaze anchoring on Robin for a split second as she turned to leave. He wasn't looking at her, and part of her wished that he was, as then he would have been mirroring his pose from the previous day when she had used him as stabilisation. Nevertheless, she exited the tent, heading directly for the slowly dying fire she had constructed.

Frosted snow crunched behind her as Robin made his approach to the fire, the mage bolstering the flames with his magic as he sat next to her. He revealed his own package of food from within his cloak and tore into it, pausing partway through in order to turn to Kjelle and address her.

"Uh, Kjelle… I'm sorry for acting like I did yesterday, and for pressing so hard about the future stuff. I-"

Kjelle brought up a hand to silence him before he could finish, swallowing a mouthful of her food before making an attempt to speak. "No need to apologise; everything's already either addressed or forgotten."

"That doesn't sound like a good way to handle things…" Robin set down his food and stared at it, dedicating himself to speaking over all else. "I mean, this whole ruined future thing seems like something you should talk through, in order to work through it all. Things like that don't go away, so you have to confront them, not simply forget about them."

"Ha! You almost sound like you're trying to get me to spill everything about my future to you again." Kjelle partially joked, her laughter forcing out an equal trace of anxiety from her voice.

"No, no, not at all!" Robin hastily corrected himself. "I was talking about going to your family, or one of your friends, not me."

"That was supposed to be a joke. Mostly." Kjelle laughed solely out of frivolity, her anxiety mostly forgotten.

"...Ah. Right. Of course." Robin took hold of his food again, eating from it in order to hide his embarrassment at his failing of humour from her. She laughed a little longer until returning to what remained of her meal, both of them finishing their food within a short window of one another and making for their separate tents in order to prepare for the day's journey, packing away their belongings that had at one point been withdrawn into their bags once more and securing them onto their horses. Robin extinguished the fire with a burst of wind magic, and the two departed along the same road they had begun to take the day prior.

* * *

Structures of stone and wood peeked into existence as Robin and Kjelle neared the small town northeast of the Feroxi arena capital city, their travel for the day nearing its end. Each building was simple and small, holding true to the more rugged status quo of Ferox when compared to their artisan counterparts in Ylisse. Each building was at the very least charming, with stone masonry accounting for much of each structure aside from beams of aged wood and similarly composed roofs covered in thatch.

Their travel for the day had been amicable, each half of the duo only ever bringing up topics that came easily to them and required no serious concentration or hardship to enunciate. Each topic, even if it were as mundane a thing as an observation on the environments of Ferox, would eventually circle around into an unending discussion on the duels they had waged. They stopped on occasion for as much their own sake as their horses', allowing the beasts to rest and eat as they did the same.

Now, they had reached the home settlement of Kjelle's teacher, the knight easily pinpointing the man's house to Robin. He would have located it quickly even without her aid; it was the only two storey building, after all, in addition to being the only one made entirely of wood. A small, waist-high cobblestone fence lined the edges of the property, and was the only part of the snow-coated yard and building that appeared to be made of the material. Kjelle's gear was to be inside of that building, and once they had attained it, they would find an inn to rest at before moving on to the first of their destinations, a snowfield to the east of the capital which would take approximately three days to reach.

Travelling to the settlement they were currently at had been a slight detour, requiring them to arc their path northward instead of staying on the highroad to the capital, though it wasn't necessarily a major time drain. Either way, Robin's travel plan had them riding east for five days in total, at which point they would hit the snowfield - which Flavia, or rather Gaius, had left unexplained their label of 'the Twins' Turf' - at which point they would only be expending an average of one day to reach each destination and another for any fighting and recuperation that was deemed imperative. The only trip that would take any longer would be their later stops, including a desert in eastern Ylisse that would take several days to reach from any other destination.

Kjelle arced her head in the direction of an inn as she and Robin passed it by, the building closely resembling all of those around it in its craftsmanship. The only distinction that Robin could see between it and any other of the structures was a small sign hanging from a set of frozen chains that would have likely borne the inn's name were he able to read it in the fading light of the sun. With any luck, it would be more hospitable than its outward appearance suggested.

Residents of the town watched as the two rode near their properties, some recognising Kjelle and fewer recognising Robin from the descriptions of the Shepherds that had made their rounds over the course of the war, though none approached either rider. The town was far sleepier than the port city, with only a few people dressed in unassuming garb making their way from homes to shops periodically.

Something about the residents' behaviour was off-putting to Robin, and when he caught sight of another person studying then before averting their gaze, he turned to Kjelle. "Why is everyone here acting so… creepy?"

Kjelle glanced around, catching the same sight of people watching them before averting their gazes. She shrugged. "I don't know. They were never too social of people when I was here training, and maybe now that my teacher and his wife are gone, they're even more wary?"

Robin tensed in his saddle, lowering his tone to a hushed whisper so that no passerby would be able to hear him. "Do they know what happened to them? It was like… less than a week ago that everything at the Dueling Grounds happened, and we didn't send anyone to handle things domestically…"

Kjelle lowered her head and cursed under her breath. "You're right. They don't know, and now that I'm here with you of all people…"

"...Those that don't recognise me will be curious about what happened, and those that do will know that something major went down, considering that a grandmaster from a foreign country is present." Robin finished for her.

"Let's be quick about this, then. They probably suspect the worst, and in all honesty, they wouldn't be too far off the mark. ...I don't think I'm ready to explain everything yet, so let's get my gear and leave." Kjelle kicked her horse forward, Robin following suit a moment later and drawing even more attention to himself.

Robin grimaced when another villager shot them a sideways glance. He felt awful about possibly leaving these people without any form of resolution, as he knew that the knowledge about what happened at the Dueling Grounds would reach them eventually, and decided to give them some semblance of closure while he still could.

Once he and Kjelle had arrived at the entrance to her teacher's now-abandoned home, she dismounted and entered, Robin remaining outside on his horse. The grandmaster pulled an ink vial, quill, and a blank page from his cloak, intent on writing a note to leave the deceased family's closest… something?

Frowning once he realised that he had no information on the hero and his wife, not even whether or not they had any family or relatives, his hand did nothing but hover in place over the page. Maybe he could address it to the village head, or the entire village itself? Then again, he didn't know anything about the settlement, let alone its name or that of its leader.

"Who are you?" a young voice snapped him out of his thoughts. It came from behind Robin, and he spun his upper body while remaining seated to see its source.

A child stood near the rear of his horse, staring up at him with wide and curious eyes. He wore simple clothing over his characteristically tanned Feroxi skin, likely hailing from this very village based on his familiarity with his surroundings and unassuming nature toward a stranger.

"I'm… uh…" Robin stalled, hesitant to reveal anything. _Kjelle said she's not ready to explain yet, and if this kid learns who I really am, even he would be able to work out that something bad happened. I have to think of a convincing lie so he won't realise I'm an Ylissean grandmaster..._ "I'm… a bandit?" _Oh godsdamnit why._

"You're a bandit?" the child asked him, as unassuming as before. "You don't seem like a bandit…"

Robin put away his writing equipment and dismounted his horse, placing himself on more even ground with the villager in the hopes of better disarming the situation. "I'm a… um… nice bandit?"

The child stared at him with even greater curiosity. "A 'nice' bandit? ...What are you doing here?"

"I'm… pillaging… kindly?" Robin shakily continued with his lie, completely lost as to how he was still maintaining it.

The child tilted his head, staring at Robin quizzically before looking beyond him, his face lighting up as he only now realised where he was standing. "Oh, I know what you're doing! You're here to challenge the champion, aren't you?"

"The champion?" Robin asked, fully accepting that it was now his turn to be confused.

"Yeah! The really strong guy who used to fight for Khan Basilio before I was even born!" the child continued excitedly. "My mom says that challengers used to come from all across Ferox to fight him - he moved here when she was young, see? He would fight every one of them, and win every time!"

Robin gauged the kid, looking up and down in attempt to appraise him; he didn't look any older than about ten years of age. Considering that Flavia had not recognised the man when they had encountered one another in the Dueling Grounds, and that if Robin remembered correctly she had come into power approximately twenty years ago, that would mean that the hero had lived in this village for at least longer than she had been involved in Feroxi arena duels. If Basilio had been awake before the hero and Robin had fought, maybe there would have been an incredibly different resolution…

Shaking his head to dispel any thoughts of a past that would never change, Robin sank to one knee in order to better communicate with the child. "Do you know if he had any fa-" he coughed into one fist, stopping himself when he accidentally let slip a hint about the man's bygone state, correcting himself immediately and hoping that the child was not clever enough to spot his mistake. "Sorry about that; do you know if he has any family around here? ...I'm looking for one of his relatives, and I'd rather not disturb him."

The child tapped his chin thoughtfully, staring at the sky as if it held the answer he was searching for. "Hmm… I don't think so. There was a woman who started living with them a long time ago, and his wife used to tell me that she was like a daughter to them whenever she would bring me the stuff she had baked."

"Oh?" Robin glanced back to the house behind him, Kjelle being somewhere within its walls, undoubtedly having a terrible experience surrounded by her host family's memorabilia. Part of him wished to be in there with her, to console and help her through whatever she was handling.

He turned back to the child. "Do you know if his wife had any family nearby? They may be the ones I'm looking for."

"She didn't have any family at all." the child replied instantly, Robin's furrowed brow urging them to explain. "I tried to learn how to fight from him, and he would tell me stories instead." he expanded upon his statement as quickly as he had made it, the evident confusion Robin still held pressing him even further.

"I always wanted to learn how to fight with a sword, and my parents got me to ask him for lessons, seeing as he was once a champion and all. He accepted, and taught me some really basic stuff, but whenever I would ask for something greater, he would talk about the things he had seen around Ferox. I would say I wanted to learn how to be a champion, like him, and he would tell me stories about artists and merchants from weird cities, and tell me I should be like them instead."

"One day, I asked if he would take me to the arena when I got older so I could fight against real people, and told me no. He said that he had hated fighting in the arena, and moved out here once he met his wife. She was an orphan in the city, and he said that he was the reason why, but he wouldn't explain what he meant. I didn't learn anything about fighting that day, but I didn't mind. His stories are always fun to listen to."

Robin lowered his head and closed his eyes, the child's overeagerness in his exposition being exactly the twist of the knife he had never wanted. Maybe, If he hadn't enjoyed killing the man so much, he wouldn't feel as horrible now, but he had enjoyed it as always, and he felt the full repercussions later - or rather, now, as always. It was a cycle he constantly dreaded the return of, although he never made too great of an effort toward its end.

He opened his eyes and faced the child again, determined to fulfill his original purpose of gleaning information. "Do you know who among the people of this village are closest to them?"

The child thought further before replying. "It would have to be the lady that was living with them. She replaced me as a student under the champion over a year ago, and he was actually willing to train her, unlike me. They left on a training trip about a week ago, and haven't returned yet, so they should be back soon, if you want to wait."

Robin grimaced again, hoping that he was able to hide it from the child by lowering his head once more. "Can you think of anyone else?"

The child shook their head. "They'll be back soon, though. Trust me, you'll want to wait - whenever a challenger shows up and loses as usual, his wife bakes these awesome meals, and invites everyone to dinner, even the challenger! Her cooking is so amazing, even the challenger leaves happy!"

"I can't wait here for very long." Robin dashed the child's hope for another amazing meal, the boy's expression falling before his eyes. "I have a lot of… uh, banditry, to get back to."

The boy nodded solemnly before looking appraisingly upon Robin. "What kind of bandit are you, anyway? You don't look half as mean or angry as the people who usually come through here for a fight."

"That's because I'm… a magical bandit?" Robin ad libbed. "I'm here to… use magic, and… stuff." _Good gods how has this kid_ _not seen through me yet?_

"What does a 'magical bandit' do?" the child asked, his curiosity having returned in full.

"Uh… they do... this!" Robin hastily conjured a small flame into his right hand, holding it out for the child to see. "Here, why don't you try holding it?"

The child tentatively held out his hands, cupping them as Robin spilled the flame from his palm to theirs. It levitated in place over the child's hands, illuminating his amazed face in an unnatural light.

"I'm looking for someone close to the family that lived here, aside from the woman who was training with them." Robin cut to the chase of his side of their conversation, the child barely noticing as he resisted total enrapturement from the magical flame. "Can you go find someone who matches that description, and tell them that I have a letter to give them?" The child nodded. "I'll be here for a little while, but I'll have to leave really soon, so be fast, okay?"

Nodding once more as he stared into the floating flame, the child turned from Robin and ran to a house down the street from their position. He shouted something Robin couldn't fully interpret at the door, and a moment later a woman stepped out into the cold of the falling night. Her face was illuminated by the fire in the boy's hands, and Robin saw her brow furrow in both concern and confusion. The grandmaster reasoned that she was likely the boy's mother, and he felt his heart warm for a moment as the child excitedly explained his situation to the woman.

Robin pulled his writing equipment back out of his cloak and set out on writing an ambiguously worded letter, glancing up as he wrote to the boy and his mother. His face lowered into a frown when she slapped the fire out of her son's hands, turning to look directly at the grandmaster with wide eyes and a pale face. She grabbed the boy's wrist and ran with him further into the village, the child stumbling for a moment before he managed to match her unexpected sprint.

"Uh oh." Robin's frown worsened as he only now remembered that his rushed explanation of being a bandit wouldn't hold up well when faced with the scrutiny of an adult. The woman disappeared into the depths of the village, still pulling the uncomprehending child along with her. Robin shrugged and returned to writing his letter.

* * *

Kjelle glanced behind her as she stepped into her teacher's now-abandoned home, and seeing that Robin had yet to dismount his horse and was making no moves as if he were to do so, she closed the door to the house behind her. She almost wished that Robin had accompanied her, seeing as she may at some point desire to use him as anchor to this world in similar fashion to yesterday. At the same time, she was thankful for the privacy she now possessed, her inability to hide her emotional weakness being something she resented more than almost anything.

The house interior would have been warm and welcoming at any other point in time, under any other circumstances. The few torches that had once given light to the building's foyer and main floor were dark, having been extinguished almost a week ago when the wife of Kjelle's teacher had left for the Dueling Grounds. Kjelle grabbed one of the dampened pieces of wood off of the wall next to her, making her way through the familiar layout of the building via the dying light that shone through a subset of windows to a supply cabinet and using the supplies from within to ignite her torch.

With her light source now in hand and the destination of her room on the second floor in mind, Kjelle made her way past ages of artefacts and memorabilia that had been gathered over the many years her teacher and his wife had spent living in this home. She passed several unique pieces of art that had been hung on the walls on her way, a combination of professional and amateur works lining practically every flat surface, the couple having collected dozens of rare pieces before they had taken up painting on their own.

A sloppily made landscape painting depicting a slow snowfall in northern Ferox caught Kjelle's eye as she approached the staircase to the next floor. At least, that's what her hosts had told her it was; she had always seen nothing more than smears of white on a brownish-black canvas. They had always held the painting in such high esteem, claiming it was the start of their journey that would one day result in a flawless masterpiece.

The painting was no larger than her extended hand when she reached for it, and she held it easily as she progressed up the staircase. She held it with a carefulness she had never thought she would possess for such a poorly made work, and took care to lower it tenderly onto the floor as she freed her hand in order to open the door to what had once been her room. It was darker than the rest of the house she had walked through as of yet, the setting sun shining on the opposite side of the house being incapable of gracing her windows.

Her room was smaller than most in the house, though she always regarded it as being cozy over anything else. Everything she had left behind before leaving for the dueling grounds was in the exact same place as she had left it, a spare iron lance leaning against the wall next to her backup set of armour. She staggered when she attempted to walk over to the armour, almost tripping over a discarded shirt she had left on the floor long ago.

Bending down in order to pick up the shirt, as well as several other articles of clothing she had abandoned to the cold wood of the floor, she hesitated when the desire to leave the house as it was came across her. Granted, she had already moved the torch and had intended to take the painting with her, but for some reason moving something as idiotic as an old shirt gave her reason to pause. It felt almost disrespectful to move something so trivial, and while she now found herself resenting the mess she had made, she left the clothing as it was.

She paused again when she had approached her armour, placing her left hand on it lovingly. The torch in her right illuminated the red markings that lined every piece of it, the colour denoting it as the set her mother had worn as a cavalier during the first Plegian war of a time Kjelle deemed better left forgotten, if not entirely avoided. Sully had received a superior set after her promotion to a paladin before the Valmese war, leaving her original set behind with her husband as a gift for Kjelle once she had aged to be capable of its use.

Of course, Kjelle had been incredibly eager to use it, but once her mother had died when she was at the barely-comprehending age of four, she had decided to only wear it in absolute emergencies. Her training for the years before that had been without armour, as being only two years old - which she now felt safe admitting to herself had been quite the exaggeration as far as proper training was concerned - she had barely understood what fighting was, let alone its implications. She was all the same thankful that her father had begun her impromptu training when she had first been able to form the words asking for it, as it had been what led to her absolute dedication later in life - in addition to the demise of her mother, of course.

Considering that the armour was designed for horseback combat, it would be ergonomic if nothing else during her travels. With any luck, it would make for easier wear than her typical knight's armour, considering that she would be wearing it mostly without reprieve for the foreseeable future.

The cavalier's armour was far lighter than what she had grown accustomed to wearing, and as she slipped each piece on she couldn't help but feel underdressed. She had chosen to be a heavily-armoured knight specifically to avoid having to wear such light equipment, her mother's set in particular, and due to the fact that she was horrid at mounted combat, though she had already broken those self-made vows to avoid such things years ago when her village had fallen.

As traumatic as that experience had been, it had thankfully removed her stigma against both light armour and riding, replacing it with the far simpler hatred and fear of cowardice she now felt bearing against her ceaselessly. Now, when she had donned the final piece of armour aside from the helm she had lost to her time, she felt only the slight insecurity born of light armour in place of any sadness over the fall of her family and the Shepherds.

Plumes of dust rose into the air around Kjelle as she sat on the edge of what had at some point been her bed. Flicking her gaze across the room in the satisfactory light the torch provided, she scanned for any other personal effects that she may have left behind.

Metal gleamed in the torchlight at the point where her iron lance was resting on the wall, though she was pragmatic enough to know that the weapon was outclassed by what she had received from Robin. In addition, it was something she herself had purchased in anticipation of her training, and therefore it held no sentimental value for her, and so she left it where it was.

A simple yet sturdy wardrobe stood against the wall opposite her bed, separated from her by the sea of discarded clothing. She rose from her bed to access it, placing several of the neatly folded clothes within into her bag before sealing it shut in the same position it had been in earlier.

Almost all of the articles of clothing she possessed had been gifted to her by the family that had accommodated her, considering that when the portal Naga had constructed for her use had spat her out near this very town, she had not much more than her mother's armour and the clothing underneath to survive off of. Kjelle found herself yet again wondering why they had always been so generous to her; as far as she was concerned it had been not much more than foolishness that caused them to shelter her, a rogue almost-miscreant, from the harshness of the past.

Ultimately, she hadn't been in dire need of their aid - and if she was, she would likely never bother admitting it - although the heartfeltness of the gesture was welcome all the same. Her life was, for the past year and a half, practically free of the tumultuous horror of her time, and as she stepped out of the room that had become her own in that span of her life, she felt confident in admitting that it had been time well spent.

Sadly, she had learned little she did not already know from the time she had spent in her world, though she had never complained about how slow her teacher's progress had been. He had taught her few things that she considered relevant, and even less that pertained to being a knight or even a lance user, but as long as she was learning something about fighting, Kjelle was content.

The landscape portrait from earlier was held as tenderly as it had been before Kjelle had entered the room as she descended the staircase to the main floor. She looked closely at it as she walked toward the front door, glancing away from it only to extinguish her torch in a washbucket in the foyer. Robin caught her eye as she did so, the tactician standing in the doorway with his face somehow illuminated by an unseen light in the darkness outside.

"Oh, hey, Kjelle!" he greeted her in too friendly a manner when she entered his peripheral vision. "I just want to let you know that I'm normally exceptional at improv work."

Kjelle narrowed her eyes at him for his odd behaviour, glancing past him toward the source of light coming from outside. A throng of villagers stood in the snow just beyond the house, many wielding torches and many more wielding some form of makeshift weapon.

"How the hell did you manage to do this!?" Kjelle spoke to him through grit teeth, her amazement at his ability to have screwed up so badly outweighed only by her anger.

"Long story short, I told a kid I was a magical bandit who had come to pillage this place, gave him some fire, and asked him to find someone I could leave a letter of condolences with. He talked to his mom for a bit, probably telling her everything, and now this has happened." Robin hastily explained, raising one hand to gesture to the mob of agitated people in the snow.

"Why in the name of Naga would you say that you're a bandit?" Kjelle seethed.

Robin gave an exaggerated shrug, whipping out a sealed envelope as his shoulders fell back to rest. "Look, though; I finished the letter!"

"Why does that matter?" Kjelle said in the same measured yet infuriated tone.

"Little victories." Robin answered plainly, shrugging once more. "Hey, uh… I hate to have to ask this, but do you think you can smooth things over with them? You're probably on much better standing with everybody here than I am…"

Kjelle glared at him, causing him to wince and shy his gaze away from her in embarrassment. She gave a revolted sigh and set the portrait down in the doorway, taking care to ensure that it would not be damaged. Pushing past Robin forcefully, her shoulder shoving him a few centimetres to the side where their horses were tethered, she stepped into the cold snow toward the villagers.

Robin quickly glanced back to the small painting she had set down, finding it odd that she had held onto such a thing so closely. Its canvas held nothing but a mess of grey, and Robin found that looking at it caused his heart to race for reasons he couldn't determine. He blinked and looked away from the painting to focus again on the mob of people.

"Kjelle?" one of the townspeople said, an elderly man who Kjelle was able to recognise as the innkeeper from the time she had spent nearby. He was the first of any of them to address her. "What on earth are you doing here, with this… scoundrel?"

Glancing back to Robin to see that he had lowered his face into a partial scowl, Kjelle halted her footsteps to mutter to herself before speaking with the innkeeper. "Honestly, I've been asking myself that a lot these past two days… but, he's been helping me so far. There's potential in him to be incredibly evil, but he hasn't done anything yet, and I'm not quite willing to act against h-"

"'Hasn't done anything'!?" a woman clutching a child by the wrist shouted from the forefront of the crowd, cutting Kjelle off. "He's the sorcerer, Cassius! He's wanted to raze our village for half his life, and kill your teacher on top of it! Does that mean nothing to you!?"

The crowd murmured at her outburst, many of the villagers stating their agreement while a few of their rank gave voice to confusion, wondering why the vile sorcerer Cassius so greatly resembled the Ylissean tactician they had heard of in tales from the Plegian war.

"Cassius is dead." Kjelle stated flatly. "My teacher, Khan Flavia, and some of Ylisse's own Shepherds managed to kill him when he attacked us at the Dueling Grounds to the northwest. This-" she gestured to Robin, who waved sheepishly at the crowd. "-is the Ylissean grandmaster, Robin. He's an idiot at times, like saying that he was a bandit, but he means the best. ...Usually. Sometimes. I think."

Robin opened his mouth to speak in his defense, but held silent when a different man, one whose ruggedness suggested a life of travel and combat, raised their voice above the growing clamour of the others. "Aye, he's the tactician of Ylisse. I've seen him myself during the war; he fought with the Khans themselves."

"But if that's the Ylissean tactician, and Cassius is dead, where are your teacher and his wife?" the innkeeper asked. "They haven't left us, have they? All of their lives' works are still holed up inside that house…"

Kjelle's face fell further than it had when she had been wandering the interior of the home, her anger dissipating entirely as she closed her eyes and angled her head downward respectfully. "My teacher's wife was killed by Cassius at the Dueling Grounds, when the man and his forces sprang a cowardly trap on us. The Shepherds and Khans showed up in time to help us kill the dastard, and then my teacher was killed by-"

Her words died in her throat as she considered how much of Robin's handiwork she should expose, not knowing whether or not informing the townspeople of the grim opportunities the grandmaster possessed would be in their best interests. She opened her eyes and glanced to Robin, his features tempered and joyless yet encouraging.

"...He was killed in the aftermath." Kjelle concluded, earning an inquisitive look from Robin and several gasps from the crowd.

"They're… they're both dead? Even the champion?" a new voice entered the mass conversation.

Kjelle returned her gaze to them, nodding solemnly. Behind her, Robin discreetly burned his letter in a magical flame, no longer having any need for it whatsoever, the smoke from its annihilation dissipating with a burst of weak wind magic.

"H-how could that be…?" the child being held by the woman talked, Kjelle recognising him as the overly eager kid who fancied themself as her teacher's former student, regardless of how far that was from the truth. "He was so strong…"

"I miscalculated." Robin stepped up to Kjelle's side, his voice as resolute as it had been during his work as a wartime tactician. He nodded and smiled in thanks to her, and she shot him a look that easily conveyed her lack of understanding as to his actions. "I thought he was in a better state than he was during the fight, and I ended up pushing him too far. He perished shortly after Cassius."

Kjelle stared at him, his statements having been true but knowable in full only to her. Having expressed cowardice at first, he had instantly earned her contempt, and yet now he was accepting responsibility for her teacher's death as if to rekindle her begrudgingly formed respect.

"Even with the might of the Shepherds, and that of the Khans…" another new voice began shakily. "Cassius was still able to kill two people? H-How is that even possible? Cassius was strong, sure, but against those odds…"

Many of the villagers had advanced away from their agitation, their weapons lowered toward the snow. Kjelle still regarded them carefully when she attempted to elaborate, seeing that some still held their makeshift weapons as tightly as when they had arrived. "Not all of the She-" she was cut off by Robin, who held one hand up to her and took a step forward in order to draw the crowd's focus solely onto him.

"Cassius was far stronger than our intelligence had suggested. Your friend, or neighbour, or whatever his name truly was, he was instrumental in defeating him and may very well have saved some of our lives in the process." Robin shushed Kjelle again when she instinctually moved to call him out on his lies, thankful that none of the townspeople gave any signs of noticing. "I'm eternally grateful to him, and I came here today with Kjelle in order to pay my respects for everything he, and his wife, have done for us."

"Then why on earth did you tell my son that you were a bandit!?" rhe woman holding the boy raised her voice, Robin suppressing a smile at the knowledge his earlier presumption had been accurate when he replied.

"That was just… a careless joke." he answered with as calm and collected of a voice as his last statement. "I wanted to stall for a bit while Kjelle was paying her respects and gathering her belongings inside, and got carried away. I'm sorry for all the trouble it caused."

"...S'Okay…" the child in her grasp muttered, wiping their face with the back of one hand. They were clearly rattled by the sudden news of their neighbour's death, and Robin found himself wondering why a child had been brought along to a witch-hunt in the first place.

Some of the villagers, discerning that they would have no purpose being present if there would be no physical conflict, broke off from the main crowd and dispersed down the street away from the others. Several more lowered their weapons to total rest, to the point where none were pointed at Robin and Kjelle.

"So… that's it then?" the woman spoke again, calmer this time. "They're dead, and… that's that?"

Robin narrowed his gaze on her in scrutiny, though he took care to never come across as harsh. "What more could you want?"

"Something… tangible." the woman followed up. "We have the peace of mind that Cassius won't be coming back, I suppose… but we don't have our own friend's bodies, or their last wishes, or anything like that…"

"You want to be able to hold a burial for your people." Robin surmised. "Kjelle and I can't make any detours as of yet, but if you'd like to go back to the Dueling Grounds, everything you want and need will still be there. I'll have knight captain Raimi send out a squadron of Flavia's guards once we reach the capital tomorrow to help with transferral, and burial rights, and whatever else you'd like."

"I… would like that." the woman bowed her head in penitence, rueing the fall of people she had considered friends. She turned, her child still in hand, and left for her home down the street.

A smile crept onto Robin's face a moment before Kjelle pulled him aside, spinning him around to face her and almost shouting at him despite her hushed tone. "What the hell are you saying!? They can't go to the Dueling Grounds!"

"Why not?" Robin tilted his head slightly, frowning. He accepted instantly that there was a valid reason for the villagers to not travel to the grounds, though he had no idea why.

"Didn't you see how powerful my teacher and Cassius were, not to mention the dozens of other soldiers there?" Kjelle whispered hurriedly, watching the disassembling villagers warily. "Nobody burned their bodies. If they've reanimated by the time they get there, even Flavia's guards won't be able to save them all."

"'Reanimated'?" Robin recoiled slightly at the unexpectedly grim concept. "Why wou-" his face remained in its misunderstanding state for a short time longer before brightening with realisation. "Oh my gods the risen are people."

"Did you never realise that?" Kjelle asked incredulously.

"I mean… their only real connection to living people would be that they're humanoid." Robin feebly attempted to defend himself, Kjelle's jaw falling by a few centimetres at his inability to connect the easiest of dots. "Oh, come on - they have purple-grey skin, evaporate, breathe smoke, and the first time I ever encountered them they jumped out of a floating time portal! Why would I ever think 'wow, those monster-things are probably undead humans'?"

"You should have been able to piece it together over the war." Kjelle reasoned. "Wouldn't they appear in locations you'd already visited, after you had killed living people, and they would resemble those same people?"

"I… guess that fits their patterns…" Robin followed her logic closely, only now realising how much sense the concept made. "Good gods, I can be an idiot at times, can't I?"

"Yes." Kjelle nodded firmly.

Robin's face tightened back into a deadpan frown. "Thanks. I'll get a large amount of troops from the capital to clear the Dueling Grounds once we get there, and have them give the townspeople here the ashes of their friends."

Kjelle folded her arms, raising one hand to her chin in thought. "We'll need to keep everyone here in the meantime. If even one person makes their way to the Dueling Grounds, and the bodies there have reanimated, they could act as a paper trail for everybody else. Risen can take anywhere from a few hours to weeks to… well, rise, and those with grievous enough injuries may never return. The guards from the capital will need to be fast, and strong enough to handle a worst-case scenario."

"Already done with that part." Robin broke her from her dialogue, scrawling another word on the end of a piece of parchment he had pulled out from his cloak as Kjelle had spoken. "Mages carried to the Dueling Grounds by cavaliers and fliers, supported by a force of knights measuring fifty strong - that should be about one knight per probable risen, in addition to the vanguard. Sound good?"

Kjelle blinked, watching him fold and place away the parchment with uncertainty. "Can you just… do that? Will it even work?"

"I'm the de facto Khan of Ferox right now, remember?" Robin smiled to her easily. "There aren't any wars right now and borders should be calm, so there's no real reason the capital shouldn't be able to send its greatest soldiers. Things'll be fine."

Kjelle stared at him skeptically for a moment longer until his amicable gaze caused her to avert her eyes toward the snow at her feet. She jolted to attention again when she noticed another pair of feet near hers and Robin's, the innkeeper she had recognised earlier having approached them silently. Glancing over the man's shoulder, she saw that the entirety of the mob had dispersed, the sole source of light now being the torch the innkeeper bore in his right hand.

"So, those things… they're called 'risen', then?" he said when he noticed Kjelle's awareness of his presence.

Robin jumped back toward the house in shock, holding one hand over his chest in a partially exaggerated show of stupefaction as he saw the innkeeper for the first time. "How the hell did you do that? You made literally no noise…"

The innkeeper raised one eyebrow, arcing his head toward a series of smears in the snow behind him. "I slipped and fell back there, and was struggling quite loudly to right myself. I had thought it impossible to not know of my presence, but the two of you were so enraptured by your conversation…" he trailed off, leaving them to come to their own conclusions.

"May I ask why you hold the rank of a Khan, being an Ylissean grandmaster?" he continued when neither person made an effort to say anything.

"Consider me… an ambassador." Robin explained for him a partial truth. "An ambassador with a lot of influence, and the trust of the Khans."

"I see…" the innkeeper nodded slowly, taking in Robin's information at a similar pace. "Well, then, ambassador-grandmaster Robin, will you and Kjelle be staying at this home tonight?" he nodded again, now toward the house of Kjelle's teacher.

Kjelle looked back to the house and winced, not wanting to step inside its reach when she had done so well to avoid unwanted memories the first time around - she held no desires to ruin such an amazing record, after all. Robin watched her face contort in discomfort at the very thought of staying in the house for the night, and he turned back to the innkeeper, shaking his head silently.

"I understand." the innkeeper bowed his head solemnly in respect for the fallen family before looking to Robin. "Therefore, I would like to humbly welcome you both to my inn for the night. I have spare rooms, and spots available in my stables for your horses - free of charge, for your efforts in aiding myself, my family, and my friends. And for everything Kjelle has done, and is going through, especially."

"That would be wonderful. Thank you." Robin smiled warmly to him, not noticing that Kjelle had yet to avert her gaze from the house. "If it's not too much trouble, can I also bother you to keep everyone here away from the Dueling Grounds for a while longer? ...You overheard that stuff about the potential danger, right?"

The innkeeper nodded in both acknowledgement and acceptance. "I will see to it that none visit the grounds until troops have cleared the area. Now, if you'll please follow me…" he stepped forward and took hold of their horses' reins, pulling them along in the snow toward the inn Kjelle had denoted upon entering the town. Robin followed closely behind, catching him when the the same patch of ice that had caused his pratfall earlier caused another slip, continuing onward until he and the innkeeper had reached the outer boundary of the ex-champion's property.

At that point Robin noticed that Kjelle had not followed them, and had been lacking in presence for the last sequence of his interactions with the innkeeper. He turned to see that she had walked into the open doorway of the building once more, and was staring at a small object held in one of her hands, giving no indication of following them to the inn or even having registered the offer.

"I know where your place is." Robin dismissed the innkeeper with a wave of his hand, gesturing for him to take the horses to the stable alone. "We'll catch up in a minute."

The innkeeper disappeared into the night, his torchlight fading out of existence the further into the town he travelled. Robin conjured a small flame in his right hand, similar to the one he had crafted for the child when he had claimed to be a magical bandit, using it as a replacement light source. Kjelle paid him no mind when he approached and stopped several metres away, her focus still locked onto the painting in her hand.

"...How are you holding up?" Robin asked, uncertain of how to begin, and uncertain even of what venture he was undertaking and why.

"They made this painting." Kjelle acknowledged his presence, but ignored his question. "It's a painting of… something. I can't even recall anymore. I suppose I have no need for it. I don't know why I took it." she said, lowering it back onto the ground, sliding it further into the house once it was levelled with the floor beyond the entryway.

"Are you sure you don't want to take it?" Robin asked, uncertain as to whether he should encourage the emotion-born theft or congratulate her on moving on - and not breaking the law.

"It would only weigh me down." Kjelle stepped away from the house, spinning to face Robin where he stood, several metres still separating them.

"In what way?"

Kjelle's face fell, and she lowered it out of the light from Robin's flame. Her fists clenched until she exhaled, her face returning to meeting Robin's gaze. "Multiple, I suppose. The innkeeper mentioned rooms, yes?"

Robin frowned, her attempt to walk away from her internal struggle striking a deep chord within him and igniting a desire to help her move on. "I told you before, Kjelle: this is the kind of stuff that can't be ignored. It needs to be worked through, or else it never goes away."

"...You lied about how my teacher was killed." Kjelle said, setting up a scenario where she would be able to both address and avoid her emotional compromisation. "Why not tell everyone here the truth, that my teacher made matters worse by failing to acquiesce to Flavia, that you killed him, and that he had wanted to die?"

"That wouldn't have worked toward my self-preservation in the slightest." Robin joked, giving a hollow laugh that he halted when Kjelle gave no indication of following suit. "Seriously, though, that would have only caused them undue grief. The white lie saves them from a little hardship, so I thought it would be for the best. They'll have closure either way, so no harm, no foul."

"Don't you want closure for what you've done as well, though?" Kjelle regarded him perceptively, trying to gauge whether or not he actually followed his own advice. "Doesn't lying about the entire thing contradict that, and serve no better purpose? You should have tried to talk through it, like you keep saying."

"You don't know the half of it…" Robin's face darkened for a fraction of a second as he muttered to himself, returning an instant later to a more pleasing, albeit also more forced, expression. "That's not what's really on your mind, though, is it? Trying to find out if I adhere to what I preach?"

Kjelle sighed, her eyes fixating on the light in Robin's hand in order to avoid his face as she decided to take an unnecessary leap of faith with him. "Their deaths are more on a long, long list that need to be addressed. Avenged."

"By killing Grima?" Robin ventured a conclusion for her.

She nodded solemnly. "And by me getting stronger, so I can avert and prevent anything like this that ever happens in the future. I'll never be able to shake their deaths, and I don't think I want to - it's what drives me. I can't just work through that, like it's some issue-of-the-day or irrational phobia. It defines me."

Robin narrowed his eyes on her, treading as carefully as he could on as hazardous of a platform as he had yet to face. "That's a dangerous line of thinking, Kjelle. You're more than a drive for strength and a body count."

"Oh, trust me, I know." Kjelle flashed a wry, sardonic smile that almost made Robin twitch with how accurately it mirrored his perception of his own. He wanted to press her for more information, or even a full explanation as to what she meant, but at the same time didn't want to press too far or force her to reveal something at a time she didn't desire.

"Is that the only thing that's wearing down your conscience?" he asked instead of directly pushing her further, choosing a more conniving route that he would be able to abandon with ease should it become undesirable.

"...You were acting so cowardly when the mob first appeared." Kjelle set up her question, breaking her eyes away from the fire and redirecting them directly onto Robin. "How did you find the courage to face them despite being so scared only moments before?"

"I wasn't that scared…" Robin lamely made an effort to downplay his cowardice, Kjelle rolling her eyes in response. "Like what you said with how your friends may be better suited to facing me, I know when to choose my battles. As for how I found courage… well, you were there."

Kjelle blinked, hoping that the low light of Robin's magical fire would be incapable of illuminating her light blush. "W-What?"

"I already see you as being incredibly strong, Kjelle." Robin shrugged. "I suppose I have some kind of need to prove my capabilities to you as a result."

"...I see." Kjelle suppressed her blush with intense focus and a deep breath, closing her eyes to do so and then reopening them to focus instead on Robin. "I feel something similar, I think."

Robin couldn't hide away his pleased smile, the flame in his hand bolstering when his regulation of its use faltered. He restrained it to its ordinary state once he noticed it, conjuring a second in his left hand to aid in his effort before facing Kjelle again. "You ready to call it a night?"

Kjelle watched him summon the second flame intently, shifting her hand over to the steel lance she had clipped to the back of her new armour. "Can we duel first? You know, set my mind at ease and everything - not to mention that it helps me keep from falling out of my exercise routine that I have to shirk for all of this travel."

One flame, the one Robin had recently casted with his left hand, faded out of existence as his magical control returned to him in full, his face growing calm alongside the spell. "Why not. You sure you only want to do normal dueling, though?"

Kjelle had levelled her lance with his torso, but now tilted its head upward in hesitation and curiosity. "What other kind of dueling is there?"

"Magical dueling, of course!" Robin grinned, his left hand sparking with electricity as the flame in his right burned even brighter.

"Gods, not this nonsense again…" Kjelle groaned as she lowered her lance into a ready position once more, its tip aligning with the figure in front of her.

"There's a lot you don't know about magic, and a competent opponent could use that against you to devastating effect." Robin warned her forebodingly. "I've been holding back for a while using ordinary spells without any clever or strategic implementation considering how inexperienced you are, but for you to learn I'm going to have to show you pretty much everything. Be ready."

"Ha! Please; I've been ready for far too long!" Kjelle gave a short laugh at his cocksure overconfidence. "If you think I'll bend over in the face of a little magic, no matter how strong, I'll prove you wrong every time."

"Alright then. Prove it." Robin took several steps back from his position, placing him roughly in the centre of the snow covered yard. Both of his hands were raised, his left priming lightning as his right contained the fire he had used as a light.

Smiling devilishly, Kjelle charged at him with her lance trained on his torso, intent on proving that she would be able to kill him were it not for his cloak - and his promise to help locate her friends. Robin spun his hands so that their palms faced one another in the space several centimetres in front of his chin, almost at eye level for Kjelle. He casted the fire and lightning magic into one another, small sparks connecting with the ball of flame moments before she would have crashed into him.

Reality warped around the collision point of the spells, with Kjelle being exposed to the brunt of its distortion. Light from the magic bent inward around itself, her surroundings spiralling into the centre of the malformation and twisting further, then flipping and mirroring and bending into an unrecognisable state. In one moment, she was staring both at the stars above her and the snow at her feet in equal measure, and then in another she saw the front of the house mirrored before her, buried under the snow and yet floating among the stars, all twisted and warped as one. Her own lance and limbs joined the distortion, bending like the rest of her surroundings into the pinpoint of space an instant before the world went dark.

She reopened her eyes, despite not remembering having ever closed them, to the sight of more snow and the almost overwhelming urge to vomit. Her hands were growing numb in her gloves, having been buried underneath the thin layer of frigid whiteness alongside her lance when she had slid past Robin and landed on her hands and knees. The snow blurred into a rainbow of colours and textures as she fumbled for her weapon, her perceptions righting themselves by the time she had found it and used it as a support to shakily rise to a stand. She wished to open her mouth to speak to Robin about what he had done, but feared that doing so would result in a horrific outcome and allowed the man to narrate instead.

"Normally, you should be starting out with cantrips or something simple." Robin said from his new position one step to the right right of his original, his sidestep out of Kjelle's path having been effective when paired with his magic. "Immersion works well, though, so now we're here."

"Lesson one: dissonance." As he spoke, Robin was conjuring more magic, this time with his triad of anima tomes present in his left hand in order to accommodate for his increase in complexity. "Unlike types of magic - meaning fire and thunder, thunder and wind, or wind and fire - are discordant, and if they hit one another directly, it'll cause what you just experienced. I like to call it a 'spatial distortion' because that sounds cool."

"Dark magic is volatile enough that it's dissonant with all magic, even itself. Light magic supposedly isn't dissonant with anything, though I've never actually encountered any myself, so I can't speak toward the accuracy of that claim." He was summoning more orbs of flame, his right hand repeatedly flashing yellow then red before a gust of wind magic carried each individual fireball away. "If you need to block magical attacks, you have to use a like element or else the distortion will appear and probably throw you - who are for all intents and purposes an absolute novice - off of your game."

"Practiced mages, and those who have fought alongside or against practiced mages for long enough, should be able to use the distortions to their advantage and won't be thrown off." Balls of fire were now floating at intermittent distances and heights from his hands, illuminating their battlefield in a warm red light that overshadowed the green of the wind magic. Kjelle would have considered it to be close to beautiful, were she not in the midst of a duel and barely managing to stay on her feet.

"Aside from that, you should know that you don't need like magic to cancel out a spell, as unlike magic can still interact with other types of magic - like what I've done with these fireballs." he pointed to one that was drifting nearer him than the others, calling it back into his hand and presenting it to her. "Unlike magics can interact perfectly fine with one another as long as they aren't in direct contact - they can even touch one another, they just need to keep their direct centres of mass apart."

"All of this feeds into our second lesson: resonance." The fireball floated away from his hand, drifting into the space between him and Kjelle. "Magic can be redirected, or cancelled out entirely, by using unlike spells to repel the desired attack's centre of mass, pushing it wherever you'd like. This is useful when you don't know what kind of spell is coming at you, as you'll need to either block it with like magic - which will attract the centre of mass, by the way - or redirect it with different magic. Redirects also work with dark magic, which attracts itself but repels all others, and everything supposedly won't work at all with light magic."

"Just so you know, I tend to use thunder magic for attacks, wind for redirects or shielding, and fire for rare situational stuff." Robin placed away his fire and thunder tomes, holding now only his wind variant. The fireball that had drifted toward Kjelle was blown out of her path toward him with a wave of his hand and accompanying gust of wind, the grandmaster seemingly encouraging her to attack him.

Kjelle gulped, swallowing her pride more than anything else as she reevaluated her situation. She had been floored by a single indirect attack, and was now growing apprehensive as a result, Robin's relaxed posture radiating a disturbing danger more than a state of unpreparedness. Her senses had returned to her gradually as he had spoken, and she was now able to hold herself on her feet without the use of her lance.

"Why do you know this, and why do you think I would care?" she panted, her lungs apparently still catching up to her mind.

"For the first question, I've done my research and practiced. A lot, actually; I had an entire war to hone my abilities in combat. As for the second, it's a matter of knowing your enemy - if you know my tactics, you'll be able to get stronger when facing me, and then I'll be able to get stronger in turn. It's a win-win." Robin smiled disarmingly, though he still unintentionally radiated menace.

Kjelle shook her head, then lowered it in preparation to charge him. "I'll get strong enough on my own, without need for magic. That'll prove that I'm far stronger than anything you could hope to be." She initiated her charge, rushing toward him with the plan to feint with her lance, sweep his legs and follow up with a barrage of strikes that even he wouldn't be able to evade in full.

The fireball Robin had blown aside eroded rapidly, the wind and fire curving inward to the lightning at their core when Kjelle was at barely under than the halfway point to him. A burning light exploded forth from it, the searing white blinding her even when she shut her eyes, reducing her movements to nothing more than a series of stumbles.

"You're strong, or at least potentially so, but you're unrefined and unprepared. That makes you weak." Robin spoke factually and emotionlessly, though his words were aggravating nonetheless. "If you learn how to incorporate magic, or at least magical knowledge into your abilities, you would be incredibly powerful. The other Shepherds are probably capable of teaching you even more than me - Miriel and Ricken for magic, Sully and Stahl for riding, Frederick and Cordelia for lance combat, and however many more niche roles per person. You would do well to learn from them all before any critical battles pop up."

Kjelle staggered toward him, her lance still in hand as she managed to blink away the last of the searing white light. Another fireball immediately detonated to her left, blinding her once more.

"Anyway, back to the lessons." Robin continued on nonchalantly, opening his wind tome to a specific page, reading a line from it, and then snapping it shut. "As you can see, skillful enough mages can use both dissonance and resonance, sometimes in tandem, to their advantage."

"Lesson three is, for lack of a better name, miscellaneous." he said, watching as she struggled to compensate for her blindness, waiting for her to shrug it off before casting his next spell. "For this example, I'm going to be using wind magic, though every type has its purposes."

Kjelle finally managed to clear her vision, and Robin directed his right hand downward in order to showcase the capabilities of wind magic. The fires continued to light their battlefield, though he dissipated their wind casings and thunder cores so that only floating flames remained to cast light.

When Kjelle stepped into striking range of him, Robin shot off his wind magic, propelling himself upward into the air at a slight angle. Descending harmlessly onto the roof of the house behind him, he put away his wind tome and sat down on the edge of the roof as if to taunt his opponent.

"Wind magic can be used to propel its casters to essentially wherever they please, provided that they are able to sustain the spell long enough and manage to properly account for the effects on their body." Robin balled some snow from beside him in his hands, focusing on his task over Kjelle's bewilderment at his sudden movement.

"I used wind magic to get us out of the Ruins of Time, and to resuscitate you, and used it again the second time when I pushed you into the waters at Port Ferox. It's not my favourite, since that award goes to thunder magic for its combat ability, but it can be fun and useful to push things around at times." He inspected the ball of snow in his hands and, deeming it sufficient, jumped down to Kjelle, using wind magic at the last second to cushion his fall.

"Wind magic is versatile, but can't completely replace air itself." Tossing his snowball into the air and catching it, he judged it once more before holding it out to Kjelle. "It can be used to make seals that lock air in place, but if you're traveling at high speeds, you'll have to take breaks to breathe every once in awhile. Each type of magic has its own uses, which you can determine at any time based on your needs and capabilities."

Kjelle swiped at him weakly with her lance, disheartened by the magic he had cast so far. Robin easily stepped out of her reach, proffering the snowball to her again once she had lowered her weapon by a few degrees.

"This'll be your last lesson for the night." Robin smiled to her, this time without the sense of danger from before. "My offer for the 'honest' duel still stands; if you manage to hurt me with magic, I'll fight with only my sword and without my cloak."

Taking the snowball from his hand, Kjelle held it carefully and looked at Robin. "You know that's never going to happen. It'll never be possible for me to hurt you with magic, even if I did decide to start learning it."

"I'm sure you'll find a way." Robin persisted in his smile, fishing inside of his cloak and pulling out his fire tome. "Here, take this - it has some basic, easily learned spells in it, as well as some powerful variants, and I'm sure you'll be able to use them all in no time."

"...Fine." Kjelle sighed dejectedly and placed away her lance on her back, then accepted the book with her free hand. "Is this snowball supposed to be part of the duel somehow, or are you calling it off?"

Robin bent down, rolling more snow into his hands and forming his own ball. "I'm calling it off. I think it's pretty clear what I'm capable of with magic, and I don't think there's any reason to push you further right now."

"...I suppose I can't argue with that…" Kjelle muttered dejectedly. "What's the snowball for, then?"

"Remember what I said before, at the pier?" Robin watched her closely, her expression denoting that she did not, in fact, remember. "I said that you have to pause for the little things in life, like great views or fun times. Or, for example, a snowball fight in the middle of a beautifully lit snowfield."

"...In front of my dead teacher's house, after you played with me in a duel by using your magic." Kjelle glared at him, dropping her snowball to the ground and turning to leave. "I'm going to go get some rest, not have a snowball fight."

"Aw, come on, everything that's happened recently merits a wind down." Robin called after her, dropping his own snowball and dashing to catch up with her when she kept walking away. "Fine, let's call it a night, then." he said, and conjured another flame to light their path, allowing the others to dissipate from his lack of attention to them.

"You were right about the weakness thing." Kjelle said as they walked to the inn. "If Cassius had pulled even one of those moves on me, I would've been incapable of reacting in time. I've never seen anything like them before…"

Robin glanced in her direction, her crestfallen expression causing a pang in his chest. "You don't know that for certain. I'm sure you would have been able to adapt in time to at the very least stay alive, if not far more."

Kjelle shook her head from her position next to him. "I'm not a fool; I know that I would have been outmatched. If learning magic will make me stronger, then I'll give it a chance. Maybe then I'll be able to kill people like Cassius, and save others… and avenge the deaths I've caused."

Wincing at the gravity of her tone, Robin glanced at her again. Her face was mirroring her voice, and Robin grimaced as he recalled his careless statement from the Dueling Grounds, believing that it may be causing part of her strife. "You, ah… you didn't take everything I said before the fight against Cassius seriously, did you?"

"What do you mean?" Kjelle watched him skeptically as she walked.

"All of that stuff about the deaths in the fight being on you…" Robin winced again at the memory. "I was being contentious, and when I said that, it was careless. Their deaths weren't on you; there was nothing you could reasonably have done to prevent it. I was the one who gave the orders, and even landed the killing blow on your teacher. You can't possibly think that's actually on you in the slightest."

"No, I don't." Kjelle put his mind at ease, despite her statement only being partially true at best. "There are still many more deaths that could have been avoided if I were stronger, though."

"Then I guess that's all the more reason to get stronger." Robin attempted to bring the conversation to a close as they neared the inn, extinguishing his flame when torches began to provide superior light. "If you need any help with the magic, feel free to ask me whenever you want, alright?"

Kjelle nodded and muttered a half hearted thanks. Robin entered the inn ahead of her, and he held the door open so that she may follow him through, but she had stopped in place. Robin saw that she was looking over her shoulder at the house and stepped back outside to wait for her to finish whatever reminiscing she was engaging in.

He couldn't see her expression from his position, but Robin would never have assumed that she had narrowed her gaze on the house of her teacher in confusion. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't remember the man's name, or that of his wife - she was certain that she must have heard them both at least once, and that it would have been impossible to not have learned their names in so long of a time, but she was drawing a blank. Blaming her fatigue from the day and her dissatisfaction at her duel, she shook her head clear and turned back toward the inn.

She brushed past Robin and pushed the door to the inn open, stepping into its warm, calm atmosphere in the same movement. She nodded again to the innkeeper, who waved to them both and passed them the keys to their rooms as they passed by him.

Saying a meager goodnight to Robin as she retired to her room with a plate of food in hand, Kjelle placed Robin's tome at the edge of her bed and began to read over it as she ate, opening it to a random page in order to decipher whatever contents it provided. The words melted on the parchment in a similar manner to what had occurred with Robin's enchantment, and she closed the volume with an exasperated sigh, having not progressed beyond the very first spell it had provided.

She tossed it toward the foot of her bed, removing her armour and crawling underneath the covers, surrendering to a sleep that was far more fitful than one she would have had after a satisfying duel.

* * *

 **Those rules for magic are going to be my way of explaining some of the in-game stuff that happens in Awakening, so they hopefully won't be too difficult to remember. Like attracts, unlike repels, and messing around with unlike magic too much makes things get weird.**

 **I feel like that painting also deserves a special mention here, since it's going to seem insanely weird and out of place until much, much later on. It, like many other things in this story, is setup for callbacks and references much later on to try to make the story more coherent and purposeful. It's still going to seem out of place for a long time, though.**

 **Status: As of 06-04-18, I'm on chapter 24, Fun(?) fact: the point I'm at right now, in the original plan for the story, was going to be the third chapter, with the story's first major arc ending after chapter four. Now chapter 3 = chapter 24 and chapter 4 = likely chapter 28 ish. I really need to practice moderation in my writing.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	9. Chapter 9

Two sets of hooves trotted along the road to Arena Ferox, the nation's capital city and place of residence for the Khans. Kjelle and Robin had left the northwestern settlement early in the morning, avoiding the clamour of the early day and setting out to reach the capital before nightfall.

Robin watched Kjelle, or rather her armour, intently as they travelled. He had somehow failed to register its red hue during their interactions the previous day, but now that they were riding in the bright sunlight for hours on end, he could do nothing but focus on its familiar colour.

He cleared his throat in order to pull her attention out of the silence that had possessed much of their travel so far. "Hey, Kjelle? You mind if I make another guess about your mother?"

"Yes." Kjelle replied instantly. "Very much so, actually."

"Is it Sully?" he asked, ignoring her dissent.

Kjelle sighed, her face falling into darkness alongside the tone of her voice. "If I say yes, are you going to kill her, or torture her, or something?"

"What?" Robin recoiled, aghast. "No! Why would I ever- oh, right, the Grima stuff." he paused, considering how he should progress in a way that would convey his innocence to someone who had remained as skeptic as her. "No, I have no intention of killing any of the Shepherds, Sully included. Also, I would never torture anyone, especially not a friend."

"...Yes, my mother is Sully." Kjelle admitted quietly, her face remaining crestfallen. "What are you going to do now that you know?"

"Hm… nothing, I suppose." Robin had to consider what he would do himself, having never considered what course of action he should take in regard to Kjelle's lineage. "If you want, I can request for her to stay in Ylisstol so you can meet back up with her earlier."

Kjelle legitimately considered his proposal, her face brightening for an instant before descending into to an unreadable state. "No, she'd be useful in your missions in Plegia and preparing for Valm, and I wouldn't want to make her sit around when I could simply be patient for a little while longer. She's going to be picking up some of my friends, right?"

"Yeah - two people I believe, by the names of… uh…" he pulled out some of Kjelle's transcribed dossiers from within his cloak, leafing through them until he found the locations and associated names he desired. "'Severa' and 'Yarne'. Come to think of it, they're probably children of the Shepherds, too, aren't they? Is that how you came to know them?" He could only assume so, with Kjelle's memory-inebriated statements from two days prior suggesting strongly that Severa was the child of Cordelia and Frederick now that he knew of their possible link.

"If I answer you honestly, will you promise to stop asking questions like this?" Kjelle bargained, his queries growing uncomfortably well informed with every instance of him opening his mouth.

"Sure." Robin shrugged. "I've already learned a fairly satisfying amount, after all. Full honesty and all of the information you know would be appreciated, but I accept that may be difficult as long as you still consider me to be Grima."

"Yes, Severa and Yarne are children of Shepherds." Kjelle said. "Now please, no more questions about my time. I already promised to tell you everything eventually, so have the decency to wait until then."

"But if things go according to your plan, I'll be dead after that… whatever. Let's focus on what's ahead of us." Robin grumbled in a register too eager to be considered downtrodden.

They continued on for only a few metres in silence, at which time a small pain coursed through Kjelle's head, blurring her vision and causing her to raise a hand to her eyes in response - as well as give her an excuse to end their brief period of quietness. "I think I'm still struggling to get over your attacks from yesterday - the 'spacial distortion' or whatever you called it. When you cast magic at other magic, remember? This isn't going to last long, is it?"

Robin glanced to her and saw that she was still holding one hand over eyes, and he reached into one of the packs on his horse for a vulnerary. "The disorientation should disappear soon, and you'll start to get used to it the more it happens to the point that you don't even notice. On a related note, have you looked at that tome yet?"

He tapped the side of her arm with the vulnerary when she failed to notice it. She took it and swallowed a portion of the liquid, the healing process initiating immediately and somehow managing to remedy her headache.

Holding it in her hand before passing it back to him, she regarded the potion in utter disbelief. "Wait, how the hell did that work? Why would drinking a vulnerary heal something that isn't a physical wound?"

"Because it's magical, obviously." Robin sealed the vulnerary away into his bag, dismissing her concerns with an overacted roll of his eyes. Her brow remained furrowed in disbelief as he brought an extended finger in front of her face, leaning forward on his horse in order to reach near her.

"Follow my finger with only your eyes, okay?" he said, and moved the digit in various directions, from the centre of her vision to her peripherals, Kjelle warily and uncomprehendingly tracking his finger with an unblinking gaze. "You don't feel any kind of pain whatsoever?"

"Not since taking the vulnerary." Kjelle confirmed, closing her eyes as if to test them once he had brought her vision back to centre and retracted his hand. Sure enough, the pain had entirely dissipated, leaving her now only confused as to the method Robin had utilised to test her vision.

"Wow, I can't believe that actually worked." the grandmaster relaxed back into his saddle, ruffling through his cloak until he found an inkwell and then opening one of his bags in search of something else.

Opening her mouth to question him, Kjelle was cut off when he began his explanation, rifling further into his bag in search of whatever it was he was struggling to locate. "See, the vulnerary doesn't actually do anything, it's just that your mind thinks it does and acts accordingly. It doesn't really work with major things, like mortal injuries or anything of the sort, and will fail if the target sees through it, but it can work wonders if done properly."

"So… I'm still hurt?" Kjelle asked, watching him attentively as he continued to search through his bag.

"No, you were just having a special kind of disorientation hangover from the spacial distortion." Robin answered casually, as though that would make the utmost of sense to her, as he finally managed to locate what he was searching for. "Your mind thinks that the vulnerary cleared it up, and so now you shouldn't be experiencing the symptoms anymore… well, unless what I've said has ruined that effect."

Kjelle opened her mouth to ask another question, her words dying in her throat as she caught sight of the journal of strategies and removed secrets she had read through at Port Ferox. Robin held it open in one hand, leafing through it with his other in search of a specific passage, his writing equipment held awkwardly in the same hand that supported the book.

He snapped the journal shut after going cover to cover twice, and then replaced it into his bag and stowed away his writing equipment, having never written anything within its pages. "Hm… must have been a different book…" he muttered to himself, though Kjelle was able to overhear him in her newly formed hyperattentive state.

"What was that book?" she asked carefully, her voice coming across as far more tentative than the passivity she had intended to convey.

"Unimportant." Robin replied simply. "Anyway, now that you know about the placebo, has the pain returned at all?"

Kjelle shook her head, causing Robin to give a surprisingly bright smile. She solidified her voice, dispelling her wavering tone in the hopes of not exposing how much she actually knew about the journal as well disguise her interest as being passing. "How do you know about things like this 'placebo' anyway? Is it all from that book you just pulled out?"

"I've done my research in the libraries of Ylisstol." Robin searched in his bag for a moment longer, closing it once he had accepted that he did not currently possess the book that mentioned the placebo. "I bought copies of books that mentioned interesting things, and now I'm verifying whether or not many of them are factual. So far, I haven't had any real reason to doubt what they've said, and I think they've all held up against my fact checking."

"Was that book you pulled out not one of them?" Kjelle pressed further, hoping that her repetitiveness wouldn't expose her intentions.

"It is, in a way. But not really." Robin said vaguely, though also definitively. Before Kjelle could follow up with another, riskier question, he had recounted one of his own. "So, have you looked at the fire tome yet?"

Kjelle hesitantly dropped her line of thought, deciding that her answers would come eventually and to not push herself into the path of unnecessary danger. "I tried reading some of it last night, but I couldn't get very far." she replied honestly.

"Understandable." Robin looked to her again, away from the bag that had so enraptured him. "Whenever you want to try an attack on me, just say the word. I'm all for surprise tactics, so feel free to try any, but make sure we're stopped first so you don't injure the horses, okay?"

"Got it." Kjelle responded monotonously, considering another new line of questions through which she may be able to learn how to expose him, without having to wait the several days it would take them to reach Noire.

"Actually, Robin, could I get some help with the magic?" she asked with both falsified and genuine hesitation. "During my readings last night, I could barely get through a single passage, and whenever I tried to focus on one section I would forget another and everything on the page would fall apart. You have any tips for how to get through even a single spell?"

"Do you not know how to read incantations?" Robin ventured in an attempt to evaluate her situation. Kjelle shrugged, having known at one point how to cast the basic spells needed for her education, but now being incapable of replicating that process and being uncertain even of the nature of the magic itself.

Robin sighed at her obscure lack of clarity, preparing himself for his undoubtedly long-winded explanation. "Tomes are written in what's essentially a different language than everything else in existence. They're universal in and of themselves, and are written with the same letters we use now in common Ylissean and have been using since ancient times, but the process of reading them is entirely different. That ringing any bells about anything you already know?"

Kjelle shrugged again, earning another sigh from Robin. "All of the magic I ever used in the future was simple, repeat-what-Miriel-says meaningless nonsense. That's all that I know so far."

"Okay then…" Robin breathed out in exasperation, resigning himself to a full explanation. "So, because tomes are all written in the same manner, understanding the means of deciphering one allows you to read any of them, though different variants and more complicated spells can take far longer to understand than what you're attuned to. Also, because the language of tomes versus regular language is structured differently, it's entirely possible to be literate in one and illiterate in the other."

"Understanding magic is a process of both memorisation and application of what you already know." he continued, Kjelle following along closely despite her growing struggle to remain attentive, though she persisted out of her need to decipher his time reversal enchantment. "Once you've memorised the basic concepts and conventions related to a certain type of magic, you can apply them to more spells and other variants, and once you've beaten everything necessary into your own head you can cast the magic without need of a tome or copy of the relevant passage. That's what blood magic is - memorised magic without the use of a conduit, like a tome."

"'El' variants of magic are the common name for adaptations that are one step above the most basic form of a spell, with 'arc' being a step above even those. Each spell still uses the same base, meaning that the incantation for 'fire' will have to be used in addition to what's necessary for 'elfire', and so on. Higher level magic from there, as well as all dark magic, don't adhere to that convention, and are therefore all the harder to cast, and are mostly unique in their incantations when compared to their weaker counterparts. They still tend to have the same general base, though, and possibly some parts of each previous spell, so you can't exactly skip ahead to high level magic from the start."

"Extremely high-quality magic - valflame for fire, mjolnir for thunder, excalibur and forseti for wind, goetia for dark, and the Book of Naga for light - are legendary for both their rarity and the difficulty of casting them. I've never actually encountered any of them myself, and it's entirely possible that I never will. They're supposedly so powerful that they could never be casted as blood magic, since they would kill whoever attempted it before they got to the end of the spell by draining their life completely, despite the fact that dying from blood magic alone shouldn't normally be possible. So, you know… if you get to that point, I wouldn't recommend trying it out. Also, from what I researched, it's entirely possible that these tomes both no longer exist, and are in a different written format than anything else, so… this was probably all superfluous. It's still cool, though."

"Anyway, the trick to casting the first stage of magic and each after that is to keep a tome on you until you've memorised what you need to." Robin said, simultaneously suppressing a yawn at his own words, unused to such a massive amount of unbroken exposition without having any external stimulus to passively focus on, regardless of how exciting he considered magic to be. He began to pat his horse's head for lack of anything better to do.

"As for reading the first stage, what you need to do is treat it like an entirely different language. Don't try to associate the letters you recognise with what they are in any normal language, and instead act like they're symbols you've never seen before but are pronounced the same as what you know. It can be confusing at first, but you'll get the hang of it eventually, at which point the lack of association will cause the passages to flow well and not fade into obscurity once you've read over them."

"...So much of that was unnecessary…" Kjelle blinked rapidly to hide a twitch that had developed in one of her eyes. "You could have only said, like… the last two sentences of all of that and I would've been fine."

"I mean… it can be useful to know?" Robin meekly defended his rant, having gotten carried away despite his own boredom. "If you reach a high enough point in magic, you would have to know everything I said, so I'm essentially just saving you a bit of prospective time."

"I guess so." Kjelle dropped her dissent in order to mask her intentions, allowing Robin to believe that she may ever progress farther than learning Henry's - and apparently Robin's - time reversal enchantment. She swiftly devised another question that aided in reaching her goal, and asked it in the face of how potentially revealing it was. "Is the language used in tomes universal to all magic, or only other tomes? For example, if I wanted to enchant my armour like what with you've done to your cloak, could I jump to it after learning simple spells?"

"It's all the same." Robin confirmed enthusiastically, elated that she appeared to be taking an interest in magic, and therefore growing far stronger than what he considered possible for her as a knight.

His face fell somewhat when he took in her apparel in greater detail. "That armour - Sully's armour…" he said, having pieced together its origin from the moment its familiarity had registered. "It's important to you, isn't it? If you'd like, I can enchant it myself once we reach the capital, before our first battle."

Kjelle hesitated, considering legitimately accepting his offer despite knowing that doing so would eliminate her excuse to study enchantments, before ultimately shaking her head. "I think I would like to do it myself. You know, prove my capabilities and all that?"

Robin nodded in acceptance, continuing on in silence until Kjelle asked another question. "If it's not too much trouble, could I get a book of enchantments from you sometime? Provided you have one, of course."

"...I don't have one on me right now, no." Robin partially lied, causing Kjelle to grow imperceptibly more cautious. "I can copy some of what I've memorised down onto paper when I next get the chance, though. Will that suffice?"

"...Absolutely. Thank you." Kjelle actively reminded herself to remain polite amidst her growing apprehension and wariness, her tone in no way betraying her purpose.

They progressed on in relative silence for a while longer, their horses pushing low crests of snow aside as they navigated their thin, frigid trail to the capital. Eventually, Kjelle's curiosity got the better of her in the form of another question. "Just so I can be prepared, what kind of magic are you able to cast right now?"

"Practically anything but the legendary magic, both normally and as blood magic. My most recent addition to my collection is rexcalibur, which is part of the wind tome I picked up at the port, and is the last of its rank in magic that I've needed to learn." Robin replied with a smile. "It's nice to know that you want to learn how to fight me. You might actually be a challenge if you learn my ways."

"I'm still convinced that I would be more than a match for you if you stopped using magic for a single duel." Kjelle scoffed. "Anyway, what kind of spell do you think I would need to hurt you and get that proper fight?"

Robin brought a hand to his chin in thought, seriously considering her potential for magic. "Hm… I have no idea. Maybe spells on the same level I'm at?"

Kjelle stared at him, her mouth hanging open and eye threatening to twitch again out of her own incredulity and exasperation.

"Uh… you might not need that much?" Robin shrugged. "I haven't fought any mages outside of the Shepherds, and those were during training mind you, for over a year. I've pretty much mastered my counters to their techniques, and I don't think I've taken a serious hit from any of them in a long time, so I don't have too great of a basis for this."

He leaned sideways toward her, cheekily adding on to his own statement. "If you want, you can find one of those legendary tomes and master it. I'm sure you'd be a challenge then."

"I think I'll pass on letting power like that anywhere near you." Kjelle jabbed, lightly pushing him toward his own seat. "Do you think there's anyone alive who even knows how to cast them, let alone me?"

"Honestly, I think Naga might be able to. And Grima, of course." he added on hurriedly.

"Why would gods bother learning rare magic?" Kjelle asked skeptically. "They're already powerful in their own right, without need for things like that."

"Think about it, though - what if Naga and Grima aren't gods, but just really powerful mages?" he raised his tone enthusiastically, having evidently spent a nonzero amount of time mulling over this topic. "I'm thinking that they've mastered some kind of technique that allows them to drain vitality, like a really upgraded nosferatu spell or something, which grants them immense amounts of power and longevity."

"Naga isn't a mage, and I'm pretty sure if she were, she wouldn't be using dark magic, especially not in a way that sounds so… vile." Kjelle rebuked him. "If anything, she's a manakete like her daughter, lady Tiki. Actually, I'm pretty sure legends state that she's a divine dragon, which already disproves everything you've said."

"You saw how yesterday's spacial distortion bent light, yeah?" Robin asked in an apparent non sequitur, Kjelle nodding tentatively in response. "Well, what if they're capable of bending matter, too? It's possible that, if Naga knows how to cast legendary magic and has incredible control over her abilities - which she would have had thousands, if not millions of years to master if her being a dragon is accurate - then she used could have used the concept of magical dissonance to create the portals through time that you used to arrive here."

"That… almost makes sense, even with all of your assumptions." Kjelle regarded him as carefully as ever, though with an added sense of curiosity. "Naga's a god, though, meaning that she's almighty. She wouldn't need to use magic to do something she can do naturally."

"That's why I think she's not actually a god, but a mage." Robin followed up with the same vigorous enthusiasm as before. "If Naga didn't actually know about Grima and their plot to destroy humanity, or didn't have the power to stop them and seal them away, then it makes sense that she's powerful but not all-powerful."

"You know how Grima needs a massive sacrifice of human lives in order to be revived, right?" Robin asked, Kjelle not nodding in reply despite knowing the answer as she instead found herself once again questioning how extensive his research had been. "Well, I think Naga needs the same - it's why wars keep happening, because she doesn't naturally have the power to stop evil in the world. She has to wait for enough people to die so she can absorb the power necessary to bless a champion, who carries out her will and saves everyone in her name."

Kjelle found herself slowly returning to her more incredulous expression as he continued.

"That's why she wasn't able to stop Grima outright in your time: she didn't have the power. But, once the world was filled to the brim with risen, she would have an almost limitless power supply to draw upon, considering that all those people would be using the minimum of their power to exist and had already given much of it up through death. Once she had that much power, she would be able to cast incredibly strong magic, and maybe even portals through time and space. Maybe anyone can get that strong with a great enough source of energy - anyone could be a god with that much power."

His eyes were burning brightly now, with a passion Kjelle had rarely seen replacing his lacklustre sense of void. For her part, she had reverted entirely into her previous expression born almost solely of incredulity. "Ignoring everything you said about Naga that's horribly incorrect, and how far fetched that entire theory is, and the fact that it doesn't account for Grima's counteracting nature in the slightest, and that Naga hasn't given any indication about acting so deceptively, and that-"

"I get it, I get it." Robin cut her off, waving her along with his hand. "You think the theory doesn't hold merit. Get on with your point."

"...Actually, it makes more sense that I'd like it to…" Kjelle mumbled under her breath, Robin barely catching it and coming incredibly close to breaking out into a grin at the notion of support. "What I was going to say was that if you don't want me to think that you're Grima, you really shouldn't be bringing up things like a god complex and omnicide. Just saying."

"...Fair enough." Robin admitted slowly. "You can't deny that it's appealing to have that kind of power, though."

Kjelle lowered her head in thought, and ultimately found herself agreeing with him. "Yeah, as a pure hypothetical, it would be nice. With that kind of power, I could kill Grima without having to wait to train and get stronger…"

"Actually, you couldn't." Robin corrected her with an odd tranquility. "For a divine dragon to die, it either has to kill itself, or be killed by someone who shares their bloodline. That applies to both Grima and Naga, which is likely why neither have ever been killed."

"What!?" Kjelle cried out desperately at his revelation, ignoring how he had somehow come across information on Grima she and her friends had never uncovered. "Does that mean that I can't even kill you, and this has all been useless this entire time!?"

"I'm not a divine dragon, Kjelle." Robin corrected her again with the same unnerving calmness. "I can still die, and if the leaders of the Grimleal die as well, then Grima can never be revived. Alternatively, I could theoretically kill Grima myself, but…"

"...But Grima is a god, or at the very least an absurdly powerful divine dragon mage." Kjelle finished for him, steadying her breath after her initial distress began to dissipate. "You're not going to be able to kill it, unless you had the power to face it… unless you had your 'sacrifice'."

"Alright, alright." Robin lowered his head in tune to a growing sense of dejection. "I realise that it's all not possible, at the very least ethically if not statistically."

"Yeah, because 'ethically if not statistically' sounds so much more reassuring than the god complex and millions of deaths…" Kjelle muttered sarcastically, though she held a hint of truth behind her words.

"Let's focus on getting to the capital." Robin murmured, bowing into his horse in an attempt to ignore her verbal prods. "Say the word when you want to try your hand at magic against me. I'll wait for as long as it takes to get stronger."

"You realise that I might not choose to follow the path of a mage, even in part, and stick solely to being a knight, right?" Kjelle asked as she subconsciously ran her hand over the imposing form of the fire tome, the book currently being stored in a recess of her torso armour in a less than convenient way, as far as active combat was concerned. "My strength will likely come in a completely different form, so you may be waiting a long, long time."

"Trust me, you'll get the hang of it soon enough." Robin tried vainly yet honestly to encourage her. "I can see the potential you have already. If you hone it, you may very well be stronger than me, or any of the other Shepherds."

"...Really?" Kjelle asked skeptically and hesitantly, but hopefully all the same. Part of her wished to be stronger than her heroes, but another part whispered that she would never be that powerful and gradually began to shut down the first part with strings of evidence from her future past.

"Without a doubt." Robin smiled to her effortlessly and sincerely, easily melting away any insecurities that had been left to fester in her mind, at least for the time being. Kjelle fixated on the road ahead of her as an uncomfortable but not unwelcome warmth spread throughout her body, allowing the few remaining hours of their journey to pass once more in silence.

* * *

The streets around Arena Ferox were coated in a thin snow despite the warm temperatures characteristic of early autumn, as per usual. Robin and Kjelle had arrived within a few hours of their conversations' conclusions, with Kjelle now inspecting the variety of weapons Flavia had made available to fighters in the arena while Robin sorted out some business or another with the Khan's subordinates. The entire area somehow managed to smell of both regular dust and sawdust, the armies of training dummies that had been cut down days ago having yet to be fully cleared away.

Robin had disappeared shortly after he and Kjelle had arrived, losing himself to the halls of the arena in search of Raimi, the effective second in command of Flavia's administration. She was supposedly handling civil matters in Regna Ferox while the Khans were preoccupied, at least according to Robin.

Kjelle hefted a lance from the rack in front of her, comparing its weight to those she already possessed. It was lighter by far, the primarily iron components used in its creation, though being of quality she could expect from a Khan, having been used considerably less effectively than her current variants. She set it back down, running her hands over the sets of swords, bows, and axes that composed the rest of the rack's contents.

Each of the armoury rooms before this had been as unfruitful as now in helping her find an addition to her arsenal, one that she hoped would give her an edge over Robin in their duels. Having not yet found any unique lances, she resigned herself to practice with the steel lance she was already near mastering, her silver version remaining a short ways beyond her expertise. For the sake of covering her bases, she decided to take an axe and sword along with her, though she knew her lance already gave her an edge over Robin's swordplay that none of the weapons she had yet to train with possibly could.

Closing yet another armoury door behind her, she made her way to the central combat floor, intent on practicing her abilities solo until Robin reappeared. Thankfully, no one else appeared to be using the arena even though it was considered a public space during the tournament's off season, and Kjelle was nothing but glad that no one else would see her probable fumbles with her sword and axe.

The tiles that lined the floor of the arena were coated in an atypical amount of dust, for some reason having been underused in the absence of the Khans, with Kjelle's boots unintentionally kicking up small clouds as they clacked against the flooring. Seeing that she was wholly alone on the arena floor, she dragged a series of mannequins from a side room into the centre of the structure, placing them atop the intricate mural that was in its own right coated in a small amount of dust.

She took out her newfound sword, the simple bronze design already causing her to glower as she considered how inferior it would be to her lances, which she had set aside along with her tome, axe, and spare bags of equipment on the border of the mural to ensure that they wouldn't get in her way. The mannequin targets stood silently in the centre of the arena, watching her mull over her weapons in utter emptiness until she came to face them with her materials entirely sorted out.

Sword, axe, and later even lance were used in her practice, each being replaced with another as she progressively recalled her basic trainings and deemed her own efforts sufficient. Once she had finished with even that, she was left only with a dilemma: Robin had yet to appear, and she had absolutely no more training remaining that would be able to benefit her more than duels - even if she lost every one - or combat practice.

Out of boredom more than anything else, though it was coupled with her desire to remain at the arena proper so that she and Robin would be able to leave as soon as possible in pursuit of their first proper destination - as well as the urge to learn her necessary enchantment - Kjelle picked up her gifted fire tome and gave a vain attempt at reading its first passage. Almost the entirety of the first page was dedicated to what she could only assume was a first-tier fire spell, though she still had no idea what she was reading and held now only the opportunity to troubleshoot her issue.

Raising her hand to chest level, as she had seen Robin do during his less casual casts during their duels, she pointed her palm at one of the few unmarred training dummies that was still standing. The words in the book strung together roughly, her faltering pronunciations proving nothing more than barely adequate, at least by her understandings of what she was supposed to be doing. She recited the passage as best she could, slinging each line out as smoothly as her faltering understanding allowed while maintaining her disconnect from conventional language.

Nothing happened. There was no tingling, no pain, no light, and most importantly, not a single trace of flame. She retracted her hand by a few centimetres before shoving it outward again, reciting the passage with greater certainty and vehemence than her first attempt. The words on the page no longer fell apart as she read through them, but she was unable to muster any fire all the same.

She thrust her hand forward again, practically shouting the incantation only to have it fail the same as before. Her gauntlet was removed from her body at some point, Kjelle having somehow gotten it through her head that the armour somehow impeded her natural abilities, though its vacancy was of no particular assistance. Again and again she failed at casting, growing more and more frustrated with every instance that flames refused to manifest, until she had managed to exhaust herself more with the tome than any of her other weapons.

* * *

"So, Raimi, how's life in Ferox?" Robin chirped happily. He was walking alongside the knight, who had been promoted from head of the Feroxi border guards to Flavia's second-in-command-behind-Basilio. That was despite what Robin had considered a lacklustre performance in defending the nation from his attacks early in the past Plegian war.

The two had wandered aimlessly for some time as they discussed business, Robin depositing several letters and missives in her workstation while informing her perhaps too cheerily that he held the de facto powers of a Khan. Raimi had been oddly accepting of his proclaimed status even before he had produced his letter from Flavia, and now as they made their way to the central arena grounds, she gave off an air of not much more than calm detachment.

"Life is the same as the last three times you asked: cold." the knight walked beside him formally, her hands held behind her back and her head held high. "Have you nothing of proper value to say beyond your letters?"

"I'm trying to make conversation." Robin pouted as he pressed on to the arena floor. "Have you never had one before? Because it really seems like you haven't."

"Nonsense! I'm an exquisite conversation partner!" Raimi scoffed. "Come, try me with any manner of topics and I am certain you will be amazed."

"I asked how your life in Ferox is, and you said 'cold'." Robin rebuked. "I asked about the weather, and you said 'cold'. The people here? Cold. The shops? Cold. Food? Cold. Literally everything? Cold."

"Why, an honest answer is the perfect response!" she dismissed his words proudly. "What better of a conversation could there be than one which is direct and honest?"

"You've spoken to me more in these past few seconds than you have…" Robin paused, putting genuine thought into his statement. "...I think ever. Usually, I talk to Basilio or, more significantly and often, Flavia."

"It is… unnatural, I suppose." Raimi admitted. "Personally, I prefer when we don't speak to one another in the slightest."

"Ouch, alright." Robin winced under her brutal declaration before sighing. "Back to the letters, then… one of them is about a location referred to as the Dueling Grounds that needs to be cleared of bodies, which should be cremated as soon as possible. I ask for a fair amount of soldiers to go there, so I want to make sure: can you fulfill my request, knowing that it'll be a large daw on the soldiers you possess?"

"I'll make do." Raimi replied, wholly unconcerned.

"At least you didn't say 'cold' this time…" Robin muttered. "You're sure it won't be too much of a resource drain, though? You don't even know the specifics of what and who I asked for."

Raimi eyed him fiendishly as they walked, a smirk soon lining her features as they neared the arena. "Cold." she replied simply.

Robin sneered at her as he came to a stop outside the arena, resting his hand on its doors before moving to open them. "Sometimes I hate you, Raimi."

"Jealousy often distorts even the most noble of people." the knight laughed.

"Last I checked, I still outrank you." Robin smiled dryly. "I don't think I have much to be jealous of." He looked away from her, toward the arena doors, and began the ordeal of pushing them open.

"I have my station, which you do not. Wouldn't you of all people want to be closer in proximity to Khan Flavia?" Raimi gave a smile of her own, matching his droll humour. "I have at the very least that edge over you."

Robin stopped moving entirely, his hand locked in place on the door. Slowly, he turned to face his companion. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

Raimi was grinning exorbitantly, clearly enjoying her expedition into the grandmaster's uncomfortable zones. Her lips curled upward into her cheeks at heights Robin had considered likely impossible. "Why, I would have to be no more than a simple minded fool to miss what's happened between the two of you - and I assure you, I am no fool."

An intense light was burning in Robin's eyes, a devastating fire having been lit at some point unknown in their depths and contrasting horrendously with the easy smile his face persisted upon wearing. "Did you think we were in love?" he asked laughingly, his voice contemptuous and taunting above all else by a significant margin.

"Er… yes." Raimi admitted honestly, offset by his swinging demeanor. "All of the letters, and recommendations, and visits, and… everything. I thought you two were growing incredibly close, to say the least." she said, then paused before continuing, his trace of denial sparking her interest. "Am I wrong?"

"Horribly." Robin's voice grew grave. He knew that what she was saying was irrefutable; he had, after all, sent several letters and recommendations to Flavia's administration, and the woman herself - it was how he had come across the notion of a vacation in the first place, though his otherwise mentioned visits had been few and far between.

The grandmaster broke into an even more eerie of a smile, his face threatening to contort fully under its sway. "Maybe, at some point, there was the possibility of something happening. Not anymore. Not after everything that's going to happen."

Raimi stiffened, assessing the tactician and his words with a lens of utmost scrutiny and considering every word emerging from his lips with the utmost of seriousness. "What is to happen?"

"War. Death." Robin shrugged nonchalantly, pushing the door open with one of his shoulders once it had relaxed. "You know, the usual. Only a hell of a lot worse."

The knight opened her mouth to question him again, but was silenced by a loud curse shouted by Kjelle that echoed throughout the empty arena. Robin raised his hand toward the time traveller, gesturing toward both the woman herself and the myriad of fallen training dummies and weapons about the arena.

"Or, maybe not." he gave another smile, this one less artificial yet remaining as noncommutative as earlier, before he broke away from the knight commander on his way toward Kjelle.

"Son of a- ugh!" Kjelle shouted again when another spell failed, no flames or anything magical whatsoever manifesting in front of her outstretched hand.

"Having trouble?" Robin asked melodically, as if to taunt her, though he was legitimately glad that she was at the very least attempting to cast a spell.

"Your stupid book doesn't do a damn thing!" Kjelle shoved the item in question at his chest once he came into arm's length, pointing emphatically to the page she had unsuccessfully used for her training. "I swear to the gods, magic doesn't deserve all of the positive rep-"

"This is the foreword." Robin cut her off calmly, holding the book out to her so she could see its contents once more. He flipped ahead a few pages to a different section header, tracing a finger down its length until he had reached about halfway down the parchment. "This is the first spell - basic fire magic, like fireballs and artificial torchlight, are all on the pages here, in the first subsection. They should be usable by almost anyone, even the largely unpracticed, provided you can read the language."

"Wha- why!?" she ripped the tome out of his hands, flipping back to the first page and then over to the different section header again, as frustrated with herself as the magic. "Why the hell would the foreword be written in the language of magic and not in common!?"

"It- it is in common." Robin held back a laugh, settling for a light snickering instead. Kjelle whipped back over to the first page, seeing only now that it was, in fact, written in incredibly poor quality common Ylissean and not the incomprehensible magic language she had assumed.

Blushing in equal parts rage and embarrassment, she spun away from Robin and the slowly approaching Raimi, snapping the book shut and throwing it toward the rest of her equipment. Robin was still suppressing his laughter when she faced him again, and she gave her meanest glare in an attempt to silence him completely. She succeeded only in causing him to burst out laughing, his hand coming over his mouth in a pathetic endeavor to silence himself.

"Lady Raimi." she raised her hand for shaking to the newly appeared knight, willing the embarrassment lining her cheeks away and speaking over the lighthearted laughter sneaking out of Robin's covered mouth. "My name is Kjelle. It's an honour to meet you."

"'Kjelle', hm? I assume you're a Shepherd, one I'd yet to have met." Raimi accepted the handshake forcefully, tightly squeezing the other woman's unarmoured hand. Kjelle cringed slightly from the tiny amount of pain it caused, but strengthened her own hand in response and met the knight with equivalent force.

"I'm not yet a Shepherd - or at the very least, not officially." Kjelle replied, stealthily flexing her hand to erase any trace of pain once Raimi had released her grip. "I will simply be travelling with Robin for a while, until we reach Ylisstol within a few weeks."

"I see. You must be one of the people Khan Flavia was scouting before her departure." Raimi relaxed her overly tense arm now that she had finished her handshake, returning her extremities to their position clasped behind her back. "Well then, allow me to welcome you to Arena Ferox. Khan Flavia requested that rooms in her home be made available to Robin and any of his companions, so you may adjourn there as you please. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some important letters to ratify. It was an honour to meet you, my lady."

"Actually, could you hold up for a minute?" Robin asked, stopping Raimi from bowing. "Kjelle's trying to get stronger and does so primarily through dueling, but out of principle I'm waiting until she gets stronger until we have a duel where I don't immediately overpower her. You know, since I'm that amazing and everything. Could you fight her, please?"

Raimi blinked, hesitating before she reached for the lance she always kept on her person. "That is… an odd request. However, I acknowledge the merit of learning through combat, and will admit that battling a Shepherd - or at least a would-be one - is high on my list of priorities. Have at you, Kjelle."

"You- I- what?" Kjelle fumbled with her words for a moment until she snapped to full attention. "Uh, okay, okay… give me a second to grab my lance."

"Or, you could use a different weapon." Robin suggested as he walked to the edge of the centre sigil, lifting Kjelle's discarded sword and axe while ignoring her lances and tome. "Versatility is bound to be nothing but a positive for your strength. What do you say?" Noticing the dust lining the undersides of the weapons, and now his hands, he shook them carelessly to eliminate the particles, shortly thereafter transferring the sword and axe from hand to hand in order to brush off his body, murmuring about cleanliness as he went.

Kjelle paused, looking warily from the weapons in Robin's hands to her lances, to Raimi and then returning to Robin. "How strong is she?"

"Really? You don't want to try your hand at a fight you're uncertain about?" Robin goaded her, a provocative smile returning to line his features.

"Of course I will!" Kjelle shouted assertively, snatching the sword from Robin's hand and spinning to face her opponent.

"Poor choice." Robin said as he tossed the axe haphazardly toward the other weapons, a cloud of dust flying into the air along the path it skidded across. He stared at it curiously until the dust had mostly settled, turning back to Kjelle. "Swords tend to be difficult to use against lances, whereas axes tend to be advantageous. Frederick should have drilled this into your head the first time you ever saw him - and if I remember correctly, he was even alive for your education."

"I know!" Kjelle clamoured, bringing her bronze sword into a lightly practiced and largely unpracticed preparation stance. Frederick had forced her to memorise the weapon triangle, as the unforgettable great knight had put it, though that didn't necessarily translate into her remembering it every time it could be called upon. "I simply … desired the extra challenge, to make sure this is all with my time."

"Good on you." Robin flashed a thumbs up to her, then Raimi, before leaning in toward Kjelle to offer some last minute coaching. "Raimi was the head of Ferox's border guard for over ten years, and in her downtime would play at being Flavia's champion, though she never got the chance to realise her ambitions once the Shepherds arrived and showed her up. Now, she's Flavia's second in command, and undoubtedly one of the stronger knights in the region. Good luck!"

Kjelle's face fell slightly until she was able to shake it clear and nod to her opponent, who nodded in turn. Raimi immediately launched into an assault, her first swing of the lance heavy but characteristically slow, as per usual for a knight of any distinction. Easily backstepping out of the path of the swing thanks to her far lighter adopted cavalier armour, Kjelle was forced into an outright backpedal when Raimi swiftly followed up with a flurry of darting jabs.

Robin jumped back when Kjelle came close to colliding with him, blowing her spare weapons away alongside him with a blast of wind magic. A cloud of dust accompanied them, the tactician choking down a few coughs as he blew away the cloud with even more magic, unintentionally creating a considerably larger fog when more and more dust was picked up. He regarded the cloud as curiously as he had its tiny counterpart, temporarily ignoring the ongoing duel metres away. A gauntlet rolled up to his foot, and he bent down to pick it up, recognising it as one of Kjelle's new set.

Raimi held the shafts of her lance vertically to block a sidelong strike from Kjelle's sword. The bronze clanged harmlessly away from her once it struck, the weaker material failing to so much as scratch her refined steel. She leaned into her opposite leg, pretending as if the other knight had managed to destabilise her with the irrevocably poignant attack.

Seeing what she misconstrued as an opening, Kjelle fell for the feint, extending her sword as far as she could reach in order to strike the other woman's exposed weak spot underneath her raised arm. Raimi effortlessly clasped her empty left hand around Kjelle's right wrist, twisting the weapon out of the time traveller's unusually unarmoured hand. Her weapon hand morphed into a fist around the hilt of her lance and connected with the armour in Kjelle's chest, forcing her down onto one knee and then a fitful stand as the Khan's underling yanked her grasped hand skyward, her heavily protected knee connecting with all of her weight into Kjelle's torso and knocking her fully to the ground.

Robin returned his attention to the duel at the sound of Kjelle's collapse, the gauntlet still held in his left hand. He considered pulling out a wind tome should the fight grew out of hand, but trusted Raimi's restraint enough that he refused to worry. Nevertheless, he ran his right hand through the front of his cloak, brushing his tome and priming a small gust in case his intervention became necessary.

Kjelle lurched away from Raimi, pulling her hand free from the woman's vice grasp. She reached feebly for her sword, but was forced to raise her arms over her head in order to block a downward swing of a lance hilt. The weapon scraped across her armour as Raimi retracted it, tearing the paint on her single equipped gauntlet and cutting through the sleeve of her unarmoured forearm, drawing out a small amount of blood. Cursing at the hit, she kicked out at Raimi's legs, the knight commander jumping away from her sprawled opponent and giving Kjelle some much-needed room to operate.

She reached for her sword again, remaining prone on the floor so as to avoid the rush of attacks that would result when she inevitably had to rise. Raimi appeared overtop of her, brandishing her lance overhead in as unintentionally threatening of a manner as she could ever manage. She brought the weapon down at a blinding speed, clipping the edge of Kjelle's exposed wrist with its tip before being blown across the arena floor.

Robin stood behind Kjelle, his hand raised in preparation for another spell. Raimi landed on her feet after the magic had relocated her, and tensed as if to run at both Robin and Kjelle. Another flurry of wind magic immediately brought her to her knees.

"That's not playing fair, Raimi." Robin chastised, passing Kjelle her missing gauntlet and offering to pull her up to a stand with his left hand, his right still locked on the other knight. Kjelle purposefully refused his offer and stood solely of her own merit.

"It's not as if she would have surrendered." Raimi spat. "I know when to call a fight, and she was nowhere near finished."

"I'd say you beat her pretty soundly before you targeted her arm. There was no need to keep going." Robin replied calmly, earning a glare from both women.

"I could have won that!" Kjelle said, wincing when she replaced her gauntlet only for it to rub against her new wound.

"No." Robin stopped Kjelle definitively, averting his attention from Raimi to focus on her cut. He held one hand over it and directed another toward one of Kjelle's vulneraries, a purple light enveloping her potion-containing bag as a green light did the same for her arm and sealed the wound without so much as a scar. "There's no shame in that, either; you were at a disadvantage with an unfamiliar weapon. This is training, so it's not as if your loss has any dire consequences. Take it in stride and use it to get stronger."

Kjelle flexed her arm, the wound no longer causing her any trouble even as she slid her gauntlet back into place. She swapped her gaze between Robin and the place where her cut had once been, her eyes filling with wonder as she instantly decided to ignore the scathing aftermath of defeat. "How did you do that?"

"Nosferatu magic." Robin replied simply. He collected her belongings that had been blown aside, handing them to her alongside the bronze axe she had acquired.

"Nosferatu…?" Kjelle whispered, her voice barely audible. "That requires a source to drain from, doesn't it? What the hell did you…?"

Robin waited a second after she had trailed off before deciding to answer her unasked question. "I didn't use myself, or Raimi, if that's what you're trying to ask. I drained a vulnerary from your bag so that you can now recover from your wounds swiftly, without discomfort or needing to slow down to use a potion."

"...You can do that?" Kjelle asked, staring at her now-covered arm in disbelief, half tempted to remove her gauntlet and check the wound again even though she already knew what she would see.

"There's a lot of stuff you can do with magic that doesn't necessarily fit conventional battle protocols." Robin answered, his tone finally lightening as their topic of discussion shifted toward magic.

"And dark magic, you can cast that because you're… well, you know…" She trailed off, vigilantly conscious of the approaching Raimi, and instead of speaking darted her gaze down to his right hand where the Mark of Grima was undoubtedly writhing and wriggling upon his skin.

Robin followed her gaze, his expression darkening once more as he realised her covert intention. "Yeah, or at least I think so. I don't have any better explanation for it. Well, aside from being an alright mage, of course."

Raimi stepped into their peripherals, coughing to gather their attention. "I suppose I should apologise, or something of the sort?" she began in uncertainty. "I hadn't expected a Shepherd to be so…"

Kjelle narrowed her eyes on the other knight, her duel not yet forgotten. "So what, lady Raimi?"

Robin held his hands at length between them, making a small effort to hold the both of them away from one another. "Can we call this off? We need to leave soon, Kjelle. I don't want you to be nursing wounds for the next few days until we hit the snowfield, because I guarantee you that if you get hurt during another duel, I'm not going to waste a vulnerary on something so minor and preventable."

Both Raimi and Kjelle pushed him aside, closing in on one another as Kjelle dropped all but her steel lance to the embrace of the dust on the floor. Raimi too drew her lance anew, holding it menacingly in front of her body.

"Perhaps… 'weak' is the proper word?" the knight commander taunted. "Maybe 'pathetic' or 'unworthy' would work better?"

"I'll prove to you who's weak!" Kjelle seethed, pointing her lance dangerously close to the other woman's throat, though Raimi remained entirely unfazed.

"Godsdamnit…" Robin muttered as he sagged his shoulders, the sparks between the two knights now flying uncontrollably. "I'm going to go get something to eat. Don't get yourselves killed."

He exited the floor of the arena to the sounds of lances clashing against one another, the occasional shout and thud accompanying each fighter's intermittent successful hits. Rolling his eyes, he set off for another sector of or outright another building in search of a meal, the sounds of their conflict fading as he strolled deeper through the halls.

* * *

Robin lifted a fork loaded with a variety of hardy vegetables to his mouth, sidestepping when a small puff of dust drifted toward his position from the ongoing conflict in front of him. He set down his plate of food and utensils on the high wall of the arena seats behind him, pulling the iron-quality axe and sword he had found in the arena toward his new position before shrugging and tossing them over his shoulder into the stands.

The battles between Kjelle and Raimi had yet to cease, the count of victories since Robin had returned being five to four in Raimi's favour. He had managed to exit the arena, arrive at Flavia's house, cook himself, Kjelle, and Raimi a small meal, eat it all by himself, break into Basilio's home and return his stolen books, check up on his horse's health, cook another set of meals, return to the arena, find a somewhat stronger set of new weapons for Kjelle, and return to the scene of the fight without either contender ever showing any signs of having ceased their duels or even so much as tiring.

Now, he was watching their fights again, not bothering to concern himself with the myriad of wounds on both knights. Their plates of food sat on a pair of seats behind him, heated by weak magical flames in order to maintain their adequate temperature until the two had finished their battles. In spite of what he had said earlier, he had brought along two vulneraries of his own from when he had visited their horses, intent on giving at least one dosage to each fighter once they had concluded.

What little sunlight remained for the day was set to fade soon, with Robin growing progressively more impatient as their duels continued incessantly. After over an hour more of persistent fighting, Kjelle and Raimi finally lowered their weapons, the count of victories now climbing to twelve versus ten, yet again in Raimi's favour. Kjelle was still seething, her disdain practically radiating off of her armour as she and Raimi approached the obstinately relaxed tactician at the edge of the arena.

Robin boosted himself up onto the arena stands, removing the knights' meals from their magical flames and passing them down to each of the knights. They both took the platters, Raimi eating instantly from hers while Kjelle paused, poking at the food uncomfortably.

"...Seriously?" Robin asked as he watched her inspect the food. He sighed, taking his fork from and plate from where they sat atop the wall and jumping down to the arena floor to swipe an assortment of Kjelle's food off of her plate, onto his own, and then into his mouth. Making a show of chewing and swallowing the food, he returned his fork to his plate and his plate to the stands and crossed his arms when she still hesitated to eat. "I'm not going to poison you out of nowhere, Kjelle. Eat the damn food so we can leave."

She glared at him for a moment before she noticed Raimi watching them both curiously, and took in a mouthful of food to quell any concerns the other woman may be forming. "...It's alright. Thanks."

"Not a problem." Robin's voice dripped with sarcasm in accompaniment to a roll of his eyes. "For some reason, I had a lot of time to kill. Weird, huh?"

"You were the one who arranged for us to fight." Kjelle said defensively, taking the initiative to claim one of the vulneraries Robin had brought along and pass the other to Raimi, both knights using them to heal their light wounds.

"Yeah, yeah, I know…" Robin rubbed the back of his head and shook it dejectedly. "I just didn't think it would go on for so long. Can I take it that you're both satisfied now, though?"

"No." both fighters responded in perfect harmony, each casting glares to the other.

"Cool." Robin said dryly.

"Kjelle doesn't know how to accept defeat." Raimi declared with more than a hint of pride, holding her head high above the other woman's heated scowl.

"Raimi apparently can't accept that I was already improving." Kjelle countered, her voice retaining its threatening tone from earlier. "I was already winning matches, and was even on a streak at the end - five whole matches won in a row without a single loss. She can't handle how much faster of a learner, and better of a fighter, I am."

"I saw." Robin confirmed her justification with a nod. "You probably couldn't have done that with the sword, though. If you hadn't had your lance, you would have been destroyed every time."

"So what?" Kjelle scoffed. "It's my favoured weapon and I'm not about to be caught without it."

"Until the time comes that you are, and die because you couldn't fight without anything else." Robin stated coldly. "If you master a variety of weapons, that's all the less likely to happen. Also, no offence, but Raimi's not exactly the best of the best - if that had been Flavia, Basilio, or anyone else strong enough to meet you as an equal on the battlefield, you would've been screwed."

"Hey!" Raimi cried out from between mouthfuls of food. "I literally proved that I'm stronger than her minutes ago, several times over!"

"Care to keep going, then?" Kjelle asked with a tinge of insult lining her words. "I'm fairly certain that a few more rounds would prove that my equal is in no way some doddering old-"

"Alright, time for us to leave!" Robin announced with an awkward laugh, trying to dismiss Kjelle's offense before she could initiate another set of duels. "Come on, Kjelle, we have way over a day left of travel until our next stop, and Raimi, you have some letters to address. We shouldn't hold each other up, yeah?" It was far less a question than it was a statement, Robin collecting his plate from atop the wall at his back alongside the new additions to Kjelle's arsenal and strongly urging the woman in question toward one of the exits to the arena, though she never actually made any steps in any direction.

"Right then, I suppose an actual apology is in order." Raimi cleared her throat and launched into her statement. "I apologise, dear lady Kjelle, for the degree to which your own ineptitude has blinded you to my clear superiority. I can only hope that this fault is rectified at some point in the future."

Robin stared blankly at the Khan's hand, matching Kjelle's expression perfectly. "Really, Raimi? Really?"

"However, I will admit that you were an admirable opponent." the knight commander continued hesitantly after a short pause. "You showed ingenuity and strength, and would have likely been capable of matching me in due time."

"...Thank you, lady Raimi." Kjelle bit back her dwindling distaste, giving the other knight a polite nod and returning to her meal.

"Anyway, if there's anything else you two need before you depart, please hesitate to let me know. I have a fair amount of work to catch up on." Raimi handed her cleared plate to Robin, said a quick word of thanks, and turned to exit the arena proper.

"One more question, Raimi, if I may?" Robin called after her, the knight stopping and looking back to him with a muffled sense of disdain. "Are there people in the capital anymore?"

Raimi blinked, her face contorting into an uncomprehending sneer. "Of course there are people here; is this supposed to be some kind of joke? If so, you've failed spectacularly."

Robin traced one gloved finger over the wall behind him, a thin line of dust being removed in its wake and leaving a clear indication of where he had touched the stonework. "Are you sure? Because this arena has been unused for, what… one week, if that, and there's already this much dust? Not to mention that I saw literally no one when I left for Flavia's house, and there was no one to look after our horses anywhere. Where is everyone?"

"Oh. Well…" Raimi trailed off, losing herself to a moment of serious consideration. "...I suppose there has been a drop in soldiers since Khan Flavia came into power, and another significant drop following the conclusion of the Plegian war. Come to think of it, those drops have been occurring fairly regularly since…"

"Hmph. Figures." Kjelle entered the conversation, handing Robin her cleared plate as well before crossing her arms indignantly. "The cowards can't handle when someone like Khan Flavia takes power, so they turn tail on their own nation. They're probably hiding away in the comfort of their homes, whining about their leadership without bothering to do a damn thing about it, because they know someone like Khan Flavia could kick their ass any day of the year."

Robin tilted his head, delving into deeper consideration on the matter. "If you're trying to say that they're sexist, you'd probably be accurate, at least for some people - Basilio's loyalists in particular, despite how amicable the man himself has been. But, at the same time, Flavia's proven to be an excellent ruler, and they'd probably need to have their heads shoved halfway up themselves to have not realised that by this point. There's something else happening, especially considering how energetic this place was over a year ago when the Shepherds and I first arrived."

"You would be correct, sir Robin." Raimi confirmed with a curt nod. "Ferox has experienced a steady decline in general activity since before the last leadership tournament, which is when I can recall the first bouts of absences being reported. Also, I believe that it's worth mentioning that Basilio's loyalists have essentially disappeared - if not due to Khan Flavia's peerless leadership, then to your own influence, Robin. Many considered you to practically be an extension to Khan Flavia since the end of the war."

Kjelle rolled her eyes, though she was unable to hide the mark of curiosity toward Robin's relationship with the Khan that was steadily growing within her. "Okay, I can see a bit of the problem if Robin's considered a leader. From Basilio to him, basically ignoring Flavia in the process. She's probably twice the ruler either of them could be."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence…" Robin muttered before turning to address Raimi again. "What are these absences about?"

"Exactly what they sound like: absences." Raimi stated plainly. "The largest decline in presence was after the war, when many requested some form of leave, most to be with loved ones or other matters of the sort. Some of those people haven't returned since, though it's notable that very few if any have had missing persons reports filed for them, so they are likely still in their villages or cities, doing as they please."

"But what about people from this city itself?" Robin questioned. "Last time I was here, I went drinking with the Khans and some of the Shepherds, and each place we hit was booming. What happened to all of those people, who were here only days ago?"

"Come to think of it, Robin and I never ran into anyone at all during our riding out of the port." Kjelle added on. "We should have come into contact with someone by this point, considering how significant the routes we took were in relation to the port and the capital."

"Hm… there are the matters east of here." Raimi suggested thoughtfully. "There have been issues with slavers and bandits and the like, and many of the troops who were still in active duty following the war were dispatched on longstanding missions to evaluate and eliminate any of the threats to civilians that proved persistent. Even some of the border guard was repositioned into the eastern snowfields following reports of risen, seeing as how those things insist on killing and converting villagers into their own abomination of an existence."

"Wait, what do you mean by 'convert'?" Robin narrowed his eyes on the knight, wondering if she had somehow come across the information on risen he had overlooked and learned himself only recently.

"Khan Flavia gave a briefing on the topic some time ago." Raimi explained. "Risen kill living humans, which become risen a few hours to weeks after their deaths. Supposedly, it'll all stop once the heads of the Grimleal are eliminated, a strategy for which Khan Flavia voiced her approval. I believe that's where she is now - Plegia, that is - if I'm not mistaken. In addition, I believe she sent for Robin to handle the matters which remained to the east."

"That's right, on both counts." Kjelle answered before Robin, her curiosity leaking into her voice. "But how did Khan Flavia know about the risen's relationship to living humans? Not even the heads of Ylisstol knew of such a thing until recently. Though, to be fair…" she gestured toward a decidedly displeased Robin to finish her statement.

"I suppose it's due to Khan Flavia's natural superiority to any other world leaders." Raimi boasted for her liege. "In all seriousness, she is quite adept. I wouldn't doubt that she's acting in the best interest of her people, and likely Ylisse's as well, at any given time. She probably studied the risen to find a means of protecting civilians, and discovered their finer traits."

Robin had narrowed his eyes to an almost aggressive point by now, though Kjelle was placated by the answer and concluded their conversation before he was able to decide whether or not he wanted to press further. "Ah, I suppose that makes sense. At least as much as any other answer." she said in an abruptly carefree manner. "Thank you, lady Raimi."

"Of course." Raimi bowed politely. "Now, I really must be getting back to my work. Rest well, the both of you."

"...Sorry for holding you up." Robin said his goodbye absentmindedly, having to shake his head clear when Kjelle turned to face him.

"So, what's the game plan now?" she asked, placing her weapons away on her person and even accepting the axe and sword offered to her by Robin.

The grandmaster remained locked in thought despite his efforts for a few moments longer, taking a long second to reply. "It'll take about two days to reach the snowfield from now, so I suggest we rest up at Flavia's for the night and depart early in the morning. I could use the bath anyway…"

"Got it." Kjelle confirmed casually, comparing her bronze and iron weapons to one another. "You actually think I could get stronger by training with these?"

"Absolutely - and it's not like your lance mastery will suddenly start deteriorating, either." he said, taking one of the bronze swords from her, spinning it in his hand, and then tossing it into the air in an exaggerated display of familiarity. "Just look at me, or almost any other Shepherd; we've almost all taken on multiple types of weapons and are all the stronger for it. The only exceptions I can think of are Lon'qu, Tharja, Panne, Olivia, Virion, and Nowi, who prove that you can still stick to whatever you please if you so desire. That's countered with people like Frederick and Chrom, or anyone else, who are all the stronger for taking on a variety weapons that can give them an edge in combat."

"So… you'd recommend learning as many weapon types as possible?" Kjelle summarised his points into a more straightforward, and for her far more manageable, format.

"And riding, if you can." Robin added. "A great knight is typically far more effective on a battlefield than a general, a cavalier more so than a mercenary, et cetera. Then again, foot soldiers still have their uses, so you can do as you please. I would strongly urge you toward using a mount, though."

"I told you before, riding isn't my forté." Kjelle dismissed his part of the conversation with a shake of her head, taking back the sword he had grabbed and placing it underneath one arm alongside the axe of similar make. "I'm gonna return these two to the armouries, then go find Flavia's place and call it a night."

"Alright. Her house is one of two connected to the arena by cobblestone walkways." Robin informed her passively. "If you get to one that had a broken window lock left of the main entrance, that's Basilio's, meaning you took the wrong path. There's a temporary enchantment that can significantly reverse the flow of time on it for now, but I'll undo it so that you can differentiate which is which. I'm gonna call it a night as soon as I get there - it's been a surprisingly long day."

"You've got that right…" Kjelle muttered as she turned to exit the arena. "See you tomorrow, I guess."

"Goodnight." Robin waved cheerfully to her as she left, waiting for a few moments and staring at the dust lining the arena before making his own departure. Something in Ferox wasn't adding up, and he resolved that there was some form of secret to uncover relevant to the nation's Khans and citizens.

He hoped that Kjelle would be able to assist in unravelling this supposed mystery tomorrow, and resigned for the night content that he would be able to come to some sort of understanding of his uncertainties. It was only once he had bathed, reviewed his new wind magic, and selected a room for the night that it occurred to him how unconcerned and indifferent Kjelle had been at his mention of the extremely rare and powerful time-reversal enchantment.

Kjelle, for her part, specifically walked to Basilio's home before Flavia's after she had returned her bronze weapons, checking the lock on the window to verify that it was in fact broken. Sure enough, it was, and she was also surprised to the smallest of degrees that she encountered zero people as she wandered through the arena and to each Khan's home, though the buildings were all incredibly close together. She retired for the night in the first room she could find, also taking the time to unpack and bathe as Robin had, though unlike him she fell into a near-immediate slumber.

Robin stayed up for over half an hour analysing his journal, which was now the only book left in his bag of non-camping supplies, checking for any indication that Kjelle may have read from it. He found no such thing, and satisfied himself with the assumption that she had not examined its revealing pages, even though he had already taken extreme care to ensure that none who ever came across it would know of the horrendous things it held. Instead, he reasoned that she had encountered the enchantment in her own time, and accepting that he had overreacted he fell into an incredibly peaceful slumber.

* * *

 **The further I'm getting in this story, and the more that I write, the more okay I've gotten with heavier editing. When I started, I was honestly scared to change too many things for fear of messing up my original ideas or losing the (sometimes already fairly obscure) focus of a given scene. The first chapters suffered a fair deal from this, but I'm still proud of how they've turned out, and the very fact that I've actually made them. I'm still not at the point where I can edit them perfectly, but I like to think that I'm making progress.**

 **Status: As of 26-04-18, I'm finishing chapter 25.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	10. Chapter 10

Robin and Kjelle progressed across the roads east of Arena Ferox, already well on the way to their first destination, having set out early in the morning. They now had several hours of travel behind them, though the twenty- or thirty-plus that remained proved as daunting a prospect as ever.

As per what was apparently usual, Kjelle had awoken first, and was required to wake Robin. From there, they had prepared meals and restocked their supplies in Flavia's home and in the thankfully bustling stores across the city, respectively. Kjelle continued to find it disconcerting how empty the city had initially seemed, though she had at first failed to notice the lack of people and buildup of dust as Robin had done.

They had journeyed practically the entire day do far without much small talk. Whenever Kjelle glanced to Robin, he was evidently still mired in thought about some matter or another, and she was reluctant to disturb him. She continued to despise the silence looming heavily in the air regardless of when or why it appeared. Luckily for her, Robin ended the silence himself with a question.

"Did you or any of your friends learn any enchantments in your time?" he asked.

"Uh… a few." Kjelle thought back to her friends, running through a mental checklist of who had been capable of what feats. "At least two or three knew how to use them, probably more, and a fair amount were able to remember them well."

"...Interesting." Robin muttered at a register Kjelle was barely able to hear, the knight going so far as to strain herself to ensure she caught his simple statement.

"Why does it matter?" she asked after a short period of time, her voice absent of wariness entirely and instead filled solely with curiosity.

"Did any of them know how to cast an enchantment that reverses the flow of time?"

Kjelle tensed in her saddle before calming herself with the knowledge that Robin wasn't aware that she had read his journal, and was not currently looking at her to see her slip. She decided to give him an honest answer, hoping it would be the right choice. "One person, and she only attempted to properly use it once. ...It didn't go very well."

"Hm. I see." Robin satisfied himself with solving at least one mystery from yesterday, though it only gave rise to another smaller one that caused him to furrow his brow. "Wait, how does an enchantment not go well? Doesn't it either fail or succeed?"

"She cast it on a corpse that hadn't yet risen." Kjelle answered, her voice unnaturally composed.

"Oh." Robin said as though that answered his question in full, the actual realisation of Kjelle's implication hitting him a second later and forcing his tone into being far more gentle. So much magic exerted on a corpse could in no way result in success, unless the purpose was to destroy. "Oh, gods, that… that must've been horrible."

Kjelle sighed without any trace of being wistful or nostalgic. "Yeah. It was."

"...What happened?" Robin prodded tentatively, preparing himself for the refusal she was likely to present.

Kjelle looked over to him, her expression and nothing more making clear her unwillingness to speak on the subject. He dropped the topic without hesitation, moving on to his next point of interest that had as of late begun to concern him.

"Do you think Flavia's hiding anything from us?" he asked. "Or Raimi, or Basilio, or anyone in power for that matter?"

"I don't see why they would." Kjelle replied honestly, thankful for the change in topic.

"There's something wrong about so many people in the capital disappearing." Robin said. "Also, I think 'Marth' may be working with them. She was already cooperating with Basilio earlier, after she had first arrived, and it would explain how Flavia knew about people becoming risen as well as how she knew to send Gaius after you and your friends."

"You've been thinking about this since at least yesterday, haven't you?" Kjelle asked, remembering his strikes of absentmindedness later in that day. "This isn't some completely random theory. You've put time into it; I can see that. But, at the same time, Flavia said that she hadn't been able to locate Marth since the war."

"Which is why I think she might be lying." Robin stated plainly. "What I'm not a hundred percent on is why she would lie."

"Maybe she's still trying to protect you and the Shepherds?" Kjelle suggested. "That seemed to be her main intention when she was still with us. She probably thought that involving you or anyone else wouldn't help toward that end."

"...Maybe." Robin acquiesced his point, Kjelle's explanation making as much as sense as anything he was able to brainstorm. "I still don't get why Marth wouldn't contact the Shepherds, though. Surely they could help her too?"

"If I know her - and I do - it's because she doesn't want anyone to get hurt. Maybe she thinks that the Shepherds aren't yet ready for such an undertaking." Kjelle said, then hesitated for a second, considering how far she was willing to go before giving way to new ground between them. "Her name is Lucina, by the way."

Catching his raised eyebrow from the corner of her eye, she continued explaining. "Lucina. That's Marth's real name. She's the firstborn to Chrom and Sumia, and has a sister named Cynthia, who became a pegasus knight. I think I mentioned them before, when I was… reminiscing?"

"You did." Robin confirmed solemnly, though not without his own trace of curiosity. "Didn't you say you would only tell me this before you were able to kill me? Why say anything now, considering how difficult that would currently be?"

"Actually, you're the one who said that; I simply didn't bother contradicting you." Kjelle corrected him. "I also mentioned Inigo, Brady, and Owain. There's a guy named Gerome. I think that's every one of my friends that I've yet to name for you, or give you papers on - Flavia didn't have any on them, probably meaning that Gaius hasn't found them yet."

"Why are you telling me this?" Robin questioned her, his caution outweighing his thankfulness. "For all you know, you may have just given me everything I need to wreak absolute havoc as Grima."

"The more I work with you, the more I'm starting to think that cooperating works toward our mutual benefit." Kjelle admitted, looking further down the road to ensure that she wouldn't have to look directly at him, despite her urge to do exactly that. "If I give you information like this, I think that for now you'll do what's best, even if that sentiment doesn't last forever."

"...I see." Robin followed up slowly. He shook his head to clear it, moving on to another, far less grim, subject. "So, is there anything else you'd like to say, or anything you've noticed so far that may be of help to the both of us?"

"Are you kidding me? I didn't even notice that anything was wrong in the capital." Kjelle laughed to herself, her care for the matter fading as they advanced ever onward. "I'll tell you more eventually, once I've ran enough things by my friends. You'll have to wait until I meet them for that, though."

"How could you not notice things in the capital…?" Robin wondered aloud, placing away her promise for more information until it became relevant once again.

"Honestly, it wasn't that different from my time. I guess I was so used to it that I never noticed." she shrugged, her head remaining locked forward while her eyes darted furtively toward Robin at random intervals. Every glance she took in his direction was somehow helping her remain rooted in the present, even if she didn't understand why.

"...How would that remind you of your time?" he asked prudently, his concern for dragging her mind back into her future having manifested long ago.

"There were never too many people after all of the wars and risen, and ashes were pretty common all over the world." Kjelle explained, her voice soon falling into a hushed and insecure tone. "Hey, uh… I'd like to say some stuff about my time for a little while. Can you… look at me while I talk?"

Robin blinked several times before screwing his face up in a complete show of confusion. "What?"

"This kind of stuff has to be talked about, right?" Kjelle bobbed her head toward him, watching him intently and compelling him to remember his own words from far earlier. "Doing that will help me, so… please do it. You know, mutual benefit - I tell you information you care about, and I get to work through stuff and maybe even help my friends."

"...Alright." Robin acceded to her placidly, being unable to refute his own talking points. He rotated his head to look directly at her, mirroring her own pose as each of them allowed their horses to trot along with reduced control. "What is it you want to say?"

"In my time, human beings became a rarity that grew progressively less common as the years passed. Ashes would line the ground of every land like the snow here in Ferox, in more ways than one - it would form clouds and storms that would blot out the sun, and would fall en masse in random areas." Kjelle began her explanation with what Robin could only assume was background information, though he still considered it to be useful and pertinent with regard to how much he could potentially learn from each part of her testimony.

"That's why I was so used to everything in the arena yesterday; it was no different than usual for me." she continued. "I think I had almost outgrown it, actually, considering how little I ended up thinking about it while I was training at the Dueling Grounds. Over time I… I think I almost stopped caring. I was so ready to hide from everything… but I guess I haven't forgotten it quite yet."

Robin tilted his head in confusion, but allowed her to progress undisturbed while he ensured that he never looked away from her.

"While I was training here, I spent over a year doing practically nothing, even when the Shepherds passed nearby during the Plegian war. I never even learned much of anything, either - my teacher had urged me strongly to pursue a path other than that of war and death, and although I never truly listened to him, I never bothered learning very much, either."

She took a deep breath and proceeded further. "He used to tell me this story, about how he had killed all of his wife's family while fighting in the arena, and came to know her through that twisted means. Apparently, he resented himself for what he had done, and dedicated much of his life from that point on to helping her."

Robin nodded silently, her claims of the man's story matching the vague testimony he had received from the obscure village's youth days ago, and he then nodded again for her to continue when she hesitated.

"...I thought that his story was tragic. How he had killed so many people close to her, how he had become so strong in combat and then wanted to atone for everything he'd done… I never really understood how she forgave him, and I admit that I still don't fully get it, but she always seemed happy."

"Despite everything bad that had happened in their lives, they loved each other. I think I got so caught up in that, I started to forget my own responsibilities, and my own time… or rather, I started to ignore it." her face grew crestfallen for a moment as her eyes wandered around the forests surrounding them, her gaze returning to Robin in short order and her sadness dissipating. "Once I saw their happiness, I wanted a part of it, and so I stayed with them and leeched off of it as though that would somehow grant me its splendor. I… I wanted to pretend that it somehow made me stronger."

"More than anything, I wanted to pretend that things would be okay, even if I didn't uphold my duty." she persisted in speaking in the face of the growing tremor in her voice, her eyes remaining locked on Robin. "I had hoped that everyone else would be strong, like Lucina, and would've handled things and that I would be able to live in happiness both in Ferox and later with my family in the Shepherds. Only now do I realise how naive that all was, and how I'll need to fulfill my role in slaying Grima."

"Now that I'm seeing everything that's happening in this time, and that has happened, and how strong you are… I'm growing afraid again." she shuddered, clearly suppressing something that Robin would've been eager to press about if he weren't both concerned for her status and unwilling to interrupt her. "I'm in no way weak, mind you. I've always considered myself to be incredibly strong, but being faced with everything in this time, I don't think that I or any if my friends will be able to perfectly rectify all that we should."

"So… now I'm at a conflict of interest. I know what has to be done, and that I have to do something to stop and kill Grima, and effectively avenge everything that happened in my time… to… to make up for it all." she shuddered again, barely noticing that Robin was slowing his horse in time to follow her own unintentional suit. "I also want to have that ideal life, free of worry and strife. A life that doesn't involve Grima in the slightest, or having to fight to survive, with my only drive to become stronger being my own desire. I want to forget what my world was, and move on to something completely different, even if doing so ends up ruining everything. I… I want to know that I'm stronger than anyone or anything, even in this very moment, and in that I'll find my peace."

"...Are you asking me for advice?" Robin spoke up for the first time since she had begun, dismounting his horse after it had come to a complete stop. His eyes remained locked on her, his face remaining in her view despite how awkwardly it caused his movements to become.

"I'm concerned that I won't be able to reach either of my goals." Kjelle explained, following his lead absentmindedly and also dismounting. "If I kill you, I don't think it would be possible to have the life I want, since the Valmese invasion and responses from those around you would ruin everything… not to mention the whole 'you might be innocent and capable of defeating Grima' thing. If I don't, though, then nothing is stopping me from alienating myself from my friends and possibly dooming the world. I don't know which would make me stronger. I just… wanted to say all of that. For whatever reason."

"Because you hope saying it will help you through it." Robin surmised her point, her subsequent nod confirming her aspiration. He broke the lock of their gazes, lowering his face in thought before walking away from where they had tethered their horses and toward the edge of the forest that lined their path. Kjelle's chest tightened for a moment in distress until she was able to relieve the feeling on her own, and then walked in pursuit if him.

"Your goals aren't mutually exclusive." Robin said as they walked, stopping in front of the forest's first trees. He stood in place for a second before breaking into a brief fit of shivering, as though all the frost of Ferox had been brushed across his skin, but it subsided quickly and he turned toward the partially concerned knight behind him to address her properly.

"In all honesty, I can't even begin to imagine a world where I'm not Grima. If I try, then everything becomes real, and… it becomes way too terrifying to think about." he said, then paused in order to withstand another shiver, turning toward the forest again when it had faded. "The Shepherds may vilify you for killing me, but they're reasonable people. They'll see what had to happen, and if you manage to overpower me, then I'm certain that the world will be safe in your hands."

"There are two options for what'll eventually happen: either you defeat me, in which case the threat of Grima is eliminated entirely, or I defeat you, in which case I'll do anything to make sure that I kill Grima as well." He shook again, and Kjelle couldn't help but wonder if he had some form of aversion to Grima itself. "Either way, even if you do end up killing me, I want you to know that there are no hard feelings. We can both try our best, and one of us will gain the power to decide the fate of the world. No matter what happens, the grand scheme will have a happy ending."

Kjelle blinked, his words coming as a surprise while being as supportive as ever. "You're seriously saying that there won't be any hard feelings? That even if I manage to kill you, everything will turn out okay? And that you promise to do everything in your power to stop Grima if you defeat me?"

"Yes to all three." Robin confirmed with a cheeriness that belied his previous and true insecure tone. "So for now, I want you to cast a spell."

"...Wait, what? How do those play into each other?" Kjelle balked, her voice returning to a more pleasant yet confused tone as she too pushed away the dreary segment of their conversation.

"Simple: you getting stronger by learning to cast magic is the perfect representation of how powerful you are." Robin stepped to her side, leaving a clear path between her and the nearest cluster of trees. "That's why I promised the honourable duel thing would take place after you're able to hurt me with magic, because it means that we're both at a point where we're mostly equals. That'll probably be our penultimate duel, with the last one being where one of us dies."

Kjelle paled slightly at the mention of the final duel, both due to her own perceived unpreparedness and the notion of such a decisive fight. She took a deep breath before she began to draw her tome. "Tell me, how can you be so sure that there'll be a happy ending? How do you know we won't both fail?"

"Because we'll both be strong enough to take on anything, and the one who wins the final duel will be even stronger than that." Robin answered proudly, watching her take out the tome with an eager gaze. "You using magic, and me using physical weapons in our penultimate duel will be the proof of our strength. So, let's get going."

He gestured to the closest tree, urging her to cast a spell at the frigid bark. Kjelle sighed, resigning herself prematurely to a scenario of failure and preparing herself for such an eventuality when it would inevitably appear. She clutched the fire tome in her left hand, flipped its pages open to the first actual spell in its sets, and raised her right hand toward the tree.

Surprisingly enough, she didn't immediately falter as she had expected; instead, a soft orange light manifested a short distance from her hand, a tingling sensation of numbness running up her arm as it intensified. She couldn't help but let out an excited flight of laughter when a small flame materialised in front of her hand and steadily grew. Robin grinned as it appeared, losing himself temporarily to the fire and the notion of her considerable rapid progress.

The fireball grew to a size that was almost large enough to cast before flickering. Robin barely had the time to even consider words of warning before the numbness in Kjelle's arm overtook the entire appendage, any nervous response fading entirely before needles of pain wracked through her, ranging from her hand to beyond her shoulder as her spell detonated itself.

Recoiling at the onset of the pain, it took Kjelle a moment to comprehend what had happened, and a moment longer to form a proper string of expletives. Any trace of the fireball was eliminated entirely as Robin shot off continuous gusts of wind, preventing the misfire from contacting either one of them or even the ground as his face contorted into a frown.

"Okay… that admittedly isn't what I expected would happen." he said once the spell had been pacified completely.

"What did you think would happen?" Kjelle followed up with an unusually high content of venom, her words dripping with the intangible substance. "It's magic; it's as pathetic as always. There's no real need to gauge my abilities by us-"

"Alright, let's go again." Robin cut her off with a wave of his hand and pointed toward the tree once more.

Kjelle blinked before groaning and shaking her head forcefully. "No. I'm not going to waste time I could spend on other better weapons by practicing fruitless spells."

"Seriously? You fail once so you abandon everything? All of that determination from earlier, just… gone?" Robin goaded her, or at the very least attempted to do so. Her scowl showed him that he had either succeeded beautifully or failed horribly.

"I was a fool to buy into all of that crap you spouted off to me." Kjelle turned her back to him and began the short walk to her horse. "Let's get on with the mission. I'll get stronger on my own, in my own ways."

Robin stopped her with the commanding and serious tone he had mastered over the course of directing soldiers in war, despite how friendly he often treated them. "I was serious, Kjelle. We can get stronger together, with no hard feelings between us. I'll help you cast a spell right now so you can get a feel for it."

"I'll pass. Even if you are serious, it's not like I'll suddenly become an amazing mage to surpass even the likes of you." Kjelle spun to face him now, holding her horse on standby for a few seconds longer. "I'll stay as a knight. That way, I can specialise myself. Become someone stronger than anyone else based on my own merit, not the pretentious ways of others."

"Um, ouch? 'Pretentious'. Really?" Robin sighed and shook his head. "I get that you might not care too much right now, but that stuff can help you get more powerful if you give it a shot. Why bother trying to outmatch everyone when you can simply rely on others once in awhile?"

"...I don't want to be the one that relies on others. I want to be the one people rely on." she answered with as audacious of an air as she could muster.

"Come on, Kjelle. One spell. So you can see your own potential."

Kjelle watched him with such utter contempt that Robin considered how she may end up leaving without even giving an answer. Eventually, though, she took a few tentative steps toward him.

"How about we make this worth my time first?" she stopped prematurely, several steps from her original position where she had failed her initial spell. "If I fail again… you won't pester me about magic anymore, and you'll duel me with only physical weapons."

Robin resisted the urge to throw his head back, though a steady laugh escaped his mouth anyway. "Sure thing. Trust me, you won't fail this time."

Kjelle cocked her head and grinned, eager to take him up on the conditions of their new agreement. She raised her tome and hand again, preparing to fail even worse than before. It wasn't exactly difficult, considering how hard she had tried with the first spell, the tingling pinpricks of pain that persisted in her arm serving as a reminder of her actions.

"In all honesty, I'm not nearly as capable of pure magic as Tharja, Miriel, or even Ricken." Robin began priming something Kjelle couldn't distinguish with both hands as she read from her tome, his palms pointed toward her. "Ultimately, I'd like to think that I have a bit of an edge over them in creativity, and my enchantments and blood magic definitely give me an advantage over each of them, but they're still better than me purely as outright mages."

"What about sir Henry? Or is he not with the Shepherds in this time yet?" Kjelle broke herself from her readings briefly in order to make her inquiry, the man having been nothing short of a legend in her time. "He was supposedly stronger than every one of the Shepherd spellcasters, though even that didn't spare him from a similar fate…"

"Henry, huh…" Robin searched back through the limited memories he held, knowing the name from somewhere before he was able to place it to a person. "Oh, him. Yeah, he's not with us yet."

"...But you know who he is?" Kjelle paused again.

Robin tensed silently, taking care to hide it from where he stood at the edge of her vision. He had grown complacent with her, and he had let down his guard, almost forcing something out of the mess of grey into which he never wanted to delve. Thankfully, his situation was still salvageable. "Obviously I've heard about him. He's actually been on my potential Shepherd radar for a long time, considering his strengths and supposed unwillingness to directly oppose Ylisse. I merely haven't had the time to seek him out yet."

"Anyway, back to the point I was trying to make." Robin clapped his hands together in an effort to accentuate his point, the magic in them thankfully avoiding one another to the point that he didn't cause an unwanted distortion. "I'm strong because I can rely on any one of the Shepherds, and I know how to incorporate their strengths into anything, being a tactician and all that. So, to prove to you how strong we can be when we cooperate, I'm going to give you a bit of magical power. I excel in combined dark and anima magic, and my previously mentioned creative uses and tactics, so now you're going to get a feel for what it means to truly have power as a mage."

He held one hand out toward her, turning the other one inward at himself and casting his spells in tandem. A purple light enveloped his torso, a green counterpart stemming out of his other hand and onto Kjelle, partially illuminating her armour and skin in an ethereal glow.

"By casting specialised nosferatu magic on myself, I can draw out my power and transfer some of it to you." he explained. "Now you should be able to cast magic almost effortlessly, provided that you haven't forgotten how to read."

Kjelle stared at her own body, her legs, chest, and most significantly hands becoming surrounded by the green light. She could practically feel it pushing into her, and she underwent a slight period of fear when she considered the potential dangers of what was happening to her, but it faded instantly when the magic's positive effects began to set in. Sheer power was beginning to course through her, easing the strain of her armour and progressively bolstering the veritable power each muscle in her body held. The ambrosial effects of the spell worked its way through her entire person, intensifying her senses and perceptions and giving her a feeling of borderline invincibility.

"What the hell is this? I've never heard of anything like it… how did you learn this?" Even her voice came out differently as she spoke, her words carried an odd echoing and soothing ring as though she had taken on another, far less abrasive persona purely due to the newfound magic in her veins.

"This is what power feels like. Wonderful, isn't it?" Robin's voice came out as distant yet close, similar to her own, as though he was several metres further from her than he truly was and had projected his voice toward her, if not directly into her ears. "As for how I learned it… study and practice." he answered the second question simply, a coldness hiding beneath the surface of his response that was unnoticeable to Kjelle in her new state. "Now, go ahead and cast the spell."

Kjelle breathlessly prepared her magic, the power from Robin coursing into her palms as flames manifested in front of her. This time, the fireball expanded to a proper size effortlessly, flying away from her palm as she commanded and striking hard the front of the tree. Flames scored deep into the bark, scorching the frozen exterior into wisps of ashes and threatening to engulf the entire tree in short order were it not to have faded out of existence then and there.

Retracting her hands in order to examine them in full, Kjelle gaped at them in absolute awe, barely capable of understanding what precisely had happened, let alone that she was the one to experience it. "Does… does using magic always feel like this?"

Robin slowly shook his head, a smile growing on his face as he remembered coming across the feeling of awe in his own right. "Only when you kill someone."

The empowered blood in Kjelle's veins ran cold as her sharpened mind processed his statement, operating at an addled pace suffused with disbelief. "...What? What do you mean?"

"This kind of power isn't exactly easy to come across." he explained with a tranquility that grew more and more unnerving to her ears with every word. "You could get it through constant training, or you could do what we're doing now - transferring power from one being to another. It can be non-lethal, like this, but the best results come from killing someone and taking control of the energy that made everything they were, from claiming all of their power as your own."

Kjelle's hands began to tremble in her line of sight, though she still felt nothing but the otherworldly power of Robin's magic in them. "Stop… stop casting your spell. Get this out of me!" she shouted, clawing at her armour as if doing do would somehow undo his spell and remove the power.

"Isn't this what you want?" Robin asked without a trace of curiosity as his voice fell into a monotone serenity. "Unparalleled power… strength that can determine the fate of the world, and your own. What you're experiencing is a fraction of what we'll need. It's not like I'm dying to give you this either - only other people from the war and risen died for this."

"I don't care! Stop it!" Kjelle shouted again, no longer batting at her armour as she instead struggled with a horrifying sickness welling up within her.

The lights around the both of them faded as Robin retracted his hands, the spells dissipating into nothingness. Kjelle heaved as the power left her, each piece of her armour weighing down against her even weightier than before and straining her muscles exorbitantly. It was as though her own strength was being sucked out of her alongside the magic of the spell, and she fell to the ground on her knees with a shudder when her legs became too weak to hold the rest of her body upright.

"You need to get stronger, Kjelle. We both do." Robin's voice sounded somewhere near her, but she was unable to see him from her new position as she struggled to hold on to consciousness. "Taking power is the best way to do that. I need to be able to protect the Shepherds from whatever's coming in Valm, and you need to save them too, as well as find your friends. We both need so much power, and taking lives is the best way to go about it."

Kjelle breathed deeply and shuddered as her strength slowly reappeared. She was able to push herself up into a position that could almost be considered standing, were she not trembling violently and still partially leaning forward.

"Do the other Shepherds do that?" she asked with an equally precarious voice.

"They don't do exactly the same thing as me." Robin admitted, a trace of emotion returning to him in the form of borderline annoyance, if not for his underlying acceptance. "Each and every one of them has killed before, though. During the war, that was how each and every one of us got stronger, by killing other people. I'm simply ensuring that nothing goes to waste in the process."

"...What the hell is wrong with you!?" Kjelle cried out once she had fully retained proper posture. "It's one thing to have to kill out of necessity, because there's a war, or risen, or bandits, or whatever else, but to take people's power like this… to enjoy doing it, to call it 'wonderful'... there's something seriously wrong with you if that's how you feel about it."

Robin began to laugh. He laughed more and more, to the point where he had to bend over to prevent himself from falling down, though he never sounded especially happy. "Have you forgotten the whole Grima thing already? That drive for power is what I am!"

"No - you said you would stop Grima, which would put an end to all of this, which means that even if you win the final duel things will turn out okay." Kjelle argued against him, her voice returning to its more characteristic strength as she progressed. "Isn't that what all of this is for? Getting the power to stop Grima, to save everyone in the Shepherds, like you said?"

"I'll do anything to help any single person in the Shepherds." Robin stated decisively, leaving her no room to refute him should she have so desired. "This is my way of doing that. This is how I can get stronger, and it's how I will get stronger, even if you disapprove of it."

Kjelle closed her eyes in a moment of deep thought, reevaluating her situation after her initial outburst. "Tell me… what happens if you do this to a living person? What happens to someone who's dead, or risen? And how does it even work?"

Robin grinned, Kjelle having given him the perfect opportunity to recite some of the information he had taken such care to memorise over his year and a half of known recollection. "On living people, it's only a more powerful nosferatu spell. On the dead, it greatly damages, if not destroys their bodies - in effect ensuring that they'll never become risen - though the caster only gains a fraction of their original power. With time, this power builds up, and lets the user strengthen themselves to the point where they're naturally as powerful or even stronger than they were with the temporary boost."

Taking a deep breath, Kjelle exhaled slowly, giving herself time to gather her thoughts. "Okay, that… doesn't sound as horrible as you first made it out to be. It may even be helpful…"

"It's really not that bad. Kill one person, take their power, and learn to harness the equivalent of it in your natural capabilities. Kill a hundred people, have the strength of a hundred people in one person. Kill a thousand, have the power of a thousand. Slay a god… and become as gods." his smile intensified, practically shining in his ambitious glee.

"Yeah, no, never mind, I'm not doing that. Ever." Kjelle shuddered again and turned back to her horse. "If you want to do something that messed up to compensate for your lack of natural talent, then go ahead; you'll need it to keep up with me. But, seriously… stop saying things that are so Grima-esque. It makes travelling with you way creepier than it has to be."

Robin paused for a moment before shrugging and following after her, toward his own horse. "Alright, fair enough. It's not like you'd be able to cast the necessary magic anyway."

Kjelle rolled her eyes as she mounted her horse. "I'm not going to fall for such obvious bait. I'm not you, after all."

"Was that your attempt at a quip?" Robin laughed, without his monotone traits that had apparently managed to disappear in full during the short walk to his horse. "You're only right because of… what, the one time on the pier? Meanwhile I have dozens of battles already under my belt from before you were even here. I'd say I'm already pretty strong and capable in my own right."

"Well, of course you'd give yourself a shining seal of approval." Kjelle gave another, more exaggerated, eye roll.

Once they had prepared to depart, she pushed her horse along the path in silence for a short time once, another matter soon pressing into her mind in turn. "Out of curiosity, how many people have you used that spell on?"

Robin brought a hand to his chin in thought, calculating numbers and estimates as their horses trotted along. "Including risen, who mind you give way less energy than living people… somewhere between two and three thousand. Closer to three, if my math is right."

Each of their horses were made to stagger as Kjelle recoiled, unintentionally moving her mount in Robin's path and causing them both to compensate for the unexpected turn. She coughed before speaking, her words catching in her throat alongside her shock. "You… you've killed three thousand people?"

"For people, no more than two hundred, tops. And that's total; I haven't used the power draining spell on all of them." Robin clarified, giving his horse a small push back toward its true path. "Risen account for almost everything I've done, and I've ended well over two thousand of them."

"Gods, two thousand…" Kjelle balked, her horse once again veering and eliciting a curse from Robin as he, too, was forced to change course. "That's all in less than two years?"

"Uh, yeah…" Robin said slowly, uncertain of where her surprise was originating from. "They appeared pretty prolifically after the portal showed up… er, portals, I guess, if you arrived through one as well. Were they not like that in your time?"

"They were, I just…" she trailed off, collecting herself and starting anew. "They were everywhere in my time, to the point where they could overtake entire cities in a matter of days. I never thought that there would be so many already, even if some had followed my friends and I through time."

"I'm willing to guess that the war against Plegia didn't help in that regard." Robin said. "Hundreds if not thousands of people died during that, and if they all come back as risen… then…" he froze up as a new realisation struck him. "Oh gods, then Emmeryn… Phila… they're…"

"...They died in this time, didn't they?" Kjelle connected the same set of dots, her horse slowing but not stopping as she reached the same conclusion. "They're going to come back as risen… no, the Plegian war was so long ago, they undoubtedly already are risen."

"No, no… you said that people wouldn't come back as risen if their wounds were grievous enough, right?" Robin latched onto her earlier words, knowing that a corpse couldn't rise from nothingness. "Emmeryn jumped off of an execution platform and her remains were too scattered to bring back to Ylisse after the war… and Phila was filled with arrows from a horde of archers. There's no way they could come back… right?"

Kjelle withered under his expectant gaze, her answer coming slower than she thought possible. "...I don't know. If there was no body left to rise, then no, but I would have to see them to be certain."

The two continued on for a short ways in near silence, Robin's whispered curse at her words being the only sound either made until Kjelle had formed another question.

"Hey, Robin… would you drain their power too? Emmeryn and Phila, I mean?"

Robin glanced over to her as their horses trotted onward, his face shifting in authentic consideration. "I… I don't know. Is there a way they can be… healed, or revived, or… whatever would have to happen for them to be made normal?"

"If it were possible, I'm sure the Naga or mages of my time would have already accomplished such a feat." Kjelle answered soberly. "You don't suppose it's possible, do you?"

"I don't know. Maybe?" he replied vaguely. "If it's possible, then I would try to help them. If not, then yeah, I would drain their power too."

"I see." Kjelle shivered at the concept of doing something like the horrific drain to one of the Shepherds, and again at the thought that the power Robin had fed her may very well have been of similar origin. "Don't you think there's something wrong with that?"

"They're already dead." Robin replied simply. "Like I said, at least this way the living will have some kind of use for them."

"Gods, you don't have any respect for the dead, do you?" Kjelle gave him a reproachful frown. "Does none of that never seem wrong to you, purely from a moral standpoint?"

"Not in the slightest." Robin said, his voice conveying a total seriousness that left nothing up to question. "You might fake respect for the fallen out of some need for posturing or vindication, but I'm fully willing to accept the reality that they're of more use feeding me power than they are in the ground."

"Remember what I said about the Grima-esque stuff?" Kjelle asked, astounded by his turns from tactician of the Shepherds to Grima's vessel all without becoming a different person. "Well, having morals seems like a pretty not-Grima thing to do, and not having them is very, very Grima."

"Oh, come on, you practically dragged that one out of me." Robin lolled his head toward her and leaned partially off of his horse, dramatically drawing some shrewd laughter from the depths of her lungs at his absurdity. He righted himself as they moved, allowing the atmosphere to grow comparatively amicable before a question of his own came forth. "Kjelle… did you feel good when you had that power?"

Kjelle quivered at the all too recent memory of his spell. "Yeah, I felt amazing. I think that was the most terrifying part of it all."

A monosyllabic hum originated from Robin's mouth, giving Kjelle a slight cause for concern when he gave no further reply.

"Do you feel something similar when you do it?" she asked after almost a full minute of silence.

"Not anymore." Robin shook his head. "I mean, I haven't used it since the end of the war, but even then it felt like each individual person was progressively worth less and less. Guess that means I'm getting stronger, huh?"

"Probably." Kjelle said, her tone noncommittal. "Did you enjoy taking their power, or was it out of necessity, with the good feeling being nothing more than an added bonus?"

"...I enjoyed it." Robin responded after a short pause.

"...Oh." Kjelle, too, paused for a time before responding, her voice growing darker and softer at the same time. "Did… did you enjoy killing them?"

Robin took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he considered her question, the vision in his eyes fading an instant before he shut them and kept them closed. "I know that Grima would." he answered vaguely, giving Kjelle as much reason to justify her fearful concern as to have it dispelled. She changed her focus from him to their path, allowing his statement to fade with time as they travelled ever onward.

* * *

Daylight broke, as certain of a constant as ever, over Ferox. Kjelle and Robin had stopped their progression for the day a few hours after sunset, Robin having used magical flames to light their path as darkness had descended. They had pressed on over a considerable distance, Robin claiming that they had spent longer than anticipated at Arena Ferox, and had retired for the night immediately upon stopping without waging a duel.

Of course, Kjelle had been certain to meet her required hours of daily training despite their constant travel, though she had taken significant liberties with what she considered training, relying more on stretches and a quick run than anything else. Now, she had awoken yet again before Robin, and found herself fully prepared to depart before the grandmaster had shown any signs of stirring from his tent.

Without the duel to set her mind at ease, Kjelle had been left to mull over everything that had happened the past day over the course of the night, and now the morning. She felt almost weak whenever she thought about it all, the power he had transferred to her being as terrifying as it was delightful. Now, she felt as though she were beginning to understand the strength people could actually have, and the true allure of what she had desired for so long: power to overcome all else.

It was with a heavy mind, concerned with the implications of her own drive toward strength and that of Robin, that she entered his tent with the intent to wake him. Inside, she found that he was still soundly asleep, and suddenly became hesitant to wake him. He seemed happy now that he was asleep, free of his relation to Grima and the Grimleal, as well as the responsibilities of being a grandmaster to what was quite possibly the most significant nation on the planet. It felt wrong to ever wake such a pleasantly unaware person. Still, she resolved that she must, as he would only end up berating her if she allowed him to sleep in and expend more time on their schedule - and if he didn't, she certainly would herself.

Then again, she could kill him now and be done with everything. She had considered such an option before, and now found herself wondering how she had forgotten such an eventuality could occur. Killing him in his sleep, putting an end to everything that had troubled her and her friends for their entire lives… it seemed so simple now, stood over his peacefully sleeping form with her weapons resting firmly on her back.

Slowly and breathlessly, she drew her steel lance and carefully rested the tip of the spearhead against his throat. So simple of an opportunity was presenting itself to her, and now that she was so close to attaining her goals, she thought of herself as not much more than a fool for not taking advantage of her ability to slay Grima without major effort. She tightened her grip on the hilt of the lance, the tip pressing further into his skin and whitening the area it touched as blood was pushed away from the new source of pressure.

Her hands faltered when she began to think of what pressing down at this point would mean. Could she even kill him, knowing how he had helped her so far, and was going to help her, and how they were both supposedly capable of driving each other to new heights? She lessened the pressure on her weapon slightly, grimacing when a speck of blood appeared on the man's throat from where the lance's tip had punctured skin.

Staring down on him now, she realised that she didn't see Grima or their avatar anymore, but instead only Robin. He was the driven tactician of the Shepherds, and while he had his moments of troublesome overly-ambitious power craving in what she could only assume was behaviour similar to the fell dragon, he was still kind at heart. While he had made it clear that he was in fact Grima's vessel, she couldn't help but wonder if it was even truly possible for him to be so vile a person as she had originally believed.

After all, how could he be so evil as to destroy the Shepherds, and the world, when they were what drove his desire for power in the first place? Even if he had his faults, they served to make him somewhat more human, not more evil-dragon-mage-god. She wondered now more than ever how evil one person could ever be, even if they were set on a course of villainy by a future predetermined. And now, she also began to wonder if perhaps her future really could be averted peacefully, by working alongside the man who had proven to be a friend to the Shepherds before becoming their greatest foe.

She was here to rewrite history, wasn't she? This would be exactly her purpose, then, to save both the future and the man who somehow became so twisted as to be the fall of the Shepherds, of her family and those of her friends. She did have the same drive for power as him, and at this moment, she couldn't find it in her heart to condemn him for having what was in effect so similar an inspiration.

This was Robin. Not Grima, or their avatar, or anyone from the Grimleal. Withdrawing her weapon to her side, she resolved to grow stronger along with him until their final duel, and perhaps even after then should they be able to settle that in a cordial manner, regardless of how far-fetched such an ambition was. Because this was Robin, and Robin could be trusted.

Smiling as she watched the semi-regular rise and fall of his sleeping chest, she realised that she was reassured purely by the thought of having him accompany her. He was representative of this entire time, a wonderful shred of something that could so easily come to ruin that she would have to grow stronger in order to protect and nurture it. And he was powerful. That part made her feel happier than any other.

She repeated to herself that this was, in fact, Robin, tracing her gaze up to his face where his inspiring features still lay at rest. This was what she sought to protect, the peacefulness and serenity of the world. Though he may not encompass those values all the time when he was awake, he certainly possessed them now as he slept, every aspect of him denoting him as a simply complex man of flesh and blood, with not a trace of Grima in his entire body.

Reason screamed against reason, and emotion against emotion as she continued to watch him. A desire to kill him and avert everything that had happened to her, to fix everything, fought desperately against the tiny, guilty spark of hope that urged her into believing that she would be strong enough to do anything, to save even Grima's avatar. New resolutions danced in her mind, the ability to save even him and prove her strength through so great of a challenge charging into place alongside her previous ideals of saving the past and sparing the world of her future.

Her gaze wandered up to his face, and she accepted that she would not be able to kill him in such a worthless way as in his sleep. If he were to fall, if either of them were to fall, it would have to be at the culmination of their greatest strengths, not some cowardly assassination.

Every one of his features still radiated nothing but calmness, and were without a doubt her new connection to this time. The features that had grounded her, that had always appeared so soft despite her hostility, his ambition, and their shared knowledge, were what made him seem so amiable. How could his warm smile ever be evil, or the soft hazel of his eyes reprehensible when they so peacefully stared into her own as they now did?

"Gah!" Kjelle jumped backward as his eyes came into the focus of her own, a small wave of melancholy washing over her when her surprise prevented her from taking in the brilliance of his gaze, and the remainder of his features. "You… y-you're awake!?" she sputtered out, her face reddening involuntarily as she only now took in her discourteous actions and the oddly private internal monologue she had hosted.

Robin blinked, a nonexistent film clearing from over his eyes as he did so and allowing him to take in his surroundings. "What?" he asked groggily, his sight outpacing his thought as he absentmindedly brought a hand to rub at the spot of pain that had appeared on his neck.

"Ah, of course, I must've… woken you up." Kjelle admonished herself for forgetting her original purpose, and again when she saw that her lance was still drawn, causing her to hurriedly sheathe it away in the loops on her back. "I, uh… was going to wake you. We should be leaving soon, and you slept in. Again."

Robin said nothing for a short time as she stood awkwardly, shifting her weight from foot to foot in anticipation of an excuse to leave and not explain herself. Her chest tightened slightly when she saw that he was holding his hand up into his line of sight, his two foremost fingers smeared with red from the miniscule puncture on his neck.

"...Why didn't you do it?" he asked, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence. "Killing me would have prevented the horrors of your future."

"Not necessarily." Kjelle shook her head, ceasing her awkward movements and steadying herself in order to carry out conversation. "There's still Valm, no matter what. And that looks like it's going to be absolute hell…"

"You still would've averted everything about Grima, and the second Plegian war." Robin argued, his voice gradually pulling out of the alluring grasp of sleep.

"Flavia's handling half of that, remember?" Kjelle adopted the same tranquil tone as him, excluding his sleepiness, hoping that it would somehow place them on equal ground in a battle that didn't actually exist. He blinked, causing her to raise her eyebrows at his apparent forgetfulness of the Khan's gambit.

"Right, right, the Grimleal stuff…" Robin's memory returned to him after a few moments, though his voice sounded anything but pleased. "Didn't you say that she was likely to die on that little excursion?"

"Anybody is, but I also said that if anyone could pull it off, it'd be her."

"She's already strong, probably more so than most of the Shepherds." Robin admitted after a short period of silence. "But what about Grima, and everything else that could happen leading up to or as a result of avoiding the second Plegian war? Shouldn't that still be a major concern for you?"

"It absolutely is." Kjelle nodded, her face boasting a contented smile nonetheless. "That's still a long ways away, though. There's a lot of training, and a lot of dueling left in the meantime."

"...You're really focused on getting stronger, aren't you?"

Kjelle nodded again. "We share an ambition in that regard. I believe the best way for us both to get stronger is together, through the means I said. ...I may not be at your level as of right now, but I promise, one day I will be, and when that time comes I'll prove to you how powerful I really am."

"I don't doubt it." Robin laughed easily, using his merriment to suppress a frown.

"So let's get to it, then." Kjelle extended her hand to him, angling it toward him and expecting him to take it and use it to rise for the new day. "Come on, we've got a lot ahead of us. May as well go together, for now."

Robin watched her armoured hand astutely, seemingly becoming enraptured by it, but made no move to accept the gesture. "Uh, I… still have to change clothes, and get ready, and… everything…" he murmured at an almost inaudible level, blushing slightly when he ruined her inspirational moment.

"...Ah. Right." Kjelle's blush returned as well, though to a lesser extent than previously as she began to ungraciously backstep out of his tent. "I'll… uh, wait by the horses, I guess."

She exited the tent and made her way to the horses as she had indicated. Robin took longer than anticipated even now that he had awoken, and she found herself gleaning over her fire tome as she waited. She even attempted to cast a few spells, albeit still unsuccessfully, before Robin approached her and they began the next stage of their journey.

Unbeknownst to her, Robin had spent the majority of his time since she had roused him mulling over her actions and words alike. His frown had taken control over his expression as soon as she had departed, her claim that they could cooperate striking a chord within him that he hadn't realised he possessed, only for that fact to agitate him more than anything.

 _This is good, isn't it? Us working together will be of far more benefit than operating against one another…_ he thought to himself. _Sure, it'll complicate things when it comes time for the final duel, but… it's worth it, isn't it?_

He had groaned, lowered his head into his hands, and spent far too much time considering the multitude of pros and cons of their cooperation, unnecessarily causing her to wait for far longer than necessary before he joined her. When he did, he bore no trace of his tumultuous line of thought, his expression the same as ever.

* * *

Sparks fizzled away from Kjelle's hand as she failed to cast another basic fire spell. Most disappeared immediately when she groaned in frustration and cancelled her cast, but a few lazily descended onto her horse and fewer still managed to grace the frost laden ground at an even lower height, the small trace of magic within them sustaining each particle for their short lives.

"Was that… thunder magic from a fire tome?" Robin asked incredulously from his position atop his own horse next to her. "How the hell did you do that?"

"...I'm messing something up really, really badly." Kjelle admitted after a short pause. She sighed and reattempted the spell, though nothing happened whatsoever in this iteration, not even the erroneous sparks.

Robin watched her try and fail a few more casts before he decided to intervene. "You know, it's fine if you only get the incantations down for now. It's a fair bit easier than casting the entire spell at once, which is incredibly simple once you've mastered its components individually."

"...I don't even know if I'm getting the incantation right…" Kjelle muttered, her voice obscured from his hearing when another failed spell created a loud popping noise, ever so slightly startling their horses. She cursed and dropped her book unceremoniously into one of her bags, then turned to address Robin.

"Is this actually the best way to tell if I've gotten stronger? It seems like I'd be better off with physical weapons, like my lance, or even the sword and axe we picked up at the arena… not trying to master something that's completely foreign to me."

Nodding, Robin didn't avert his eyes from their path. "It is the best way, and that's because it's foreign to you. You've trained all of your life with a lance, so now's your chance to prove that you're far stronger than ever before by mastering something difficult, like magic. Also, and I may be biased on this, but my personal opinion of magic is that it out classes all other weapon types. Even if you think it won't make you stronger, you can at least see it as a means of reaching your potential."

He shot a glance in Kjelle's direction and saw that she was still looking at him, an expression of skepticism written plainly across her features.

"...Honestly, it's more about the concept of mastering it, not actually learning magic." he continued with uncertainty, his words being true but coming with a surprisingly personal uncomfortable sensation. Kjelle tilted her head in confusion, making it evident that she wished for him to explain without ever giving verbal acknowledgement.

"It's about proving that you can learn it that matters, you know?" He attempted to clarify his point, but was met with a shake of the head from Kjelle. "If you're good enough with a lance, it doesn't matter how good you are with magic, since strategies can be built around buffing your strengths rather than making up for your weaknesses, so it's the drive to succeed that matters instead of actually succeeding."

"...I still don't understand. How would having the drive to learn something pointless prove my strength?" Kjelle furrowed her brow in even further confusion, glancing back to the bag with her tome in it periodically as though it somehow held an answer. "Also, I'd like to point out that my strengths far outweigh my weaknesses in any situation."

"Sure, sure… I mean, I haven't seen you fight any large scale battles yet, but you seem fairly strong. As long as you have the drive to succeed at anything, you'll be perfectly fine."

Kjelle's confusion remained at the same level as before, his response doing nothing to assuage her repudiation. "So, I have to bother enough with something I dislike to see it through, and to you that'll make me strong? Not mastering different techniques and weapons, or other actual strengths?"

"Without the drive to succeed, there's no real reason to try getting stronger, because you won't be able to do very much." Robin explained casually, suppressing the sincere gravity behind his words. "For you with magic, you think it could ultimately be useful, but you don't want to have to put too much effort into something that might be fruitless, right?"

Kjelle nodded slowly, and with partial uncertainty, but allowed him to continue.

"The thing is, whether or not your task is something that absolutely has to be done or a simple hobby or anything like that, you need to have the motivation to succeed or else nothing will come of it. You have to save the world, and so you've been working toward that constantly, which is good, but you also have to get even stronger."

"You're saying that without any motivation, whatever I do is useless?" Kjelle attempted to surmise his argument, though his position still made as little sense to her as ever. "Honestly, I don't see how that would work. Once I've done something, I've done it; it's as simple as that. I'm not going to become incapable of doing it because I'm somehow not driven enough."

"No, it's not that. It's more that you won't be able to do it in the first place because you lack motivation." he fumbled with some unformed words for a moment before deciding on a course of action, pausing to collect himself and then continuing.

"Do you know what it's like to try to do something, whether you want to or not, and then have nothing happen because you don't do anything or aren't capable of doing anything?" he asked, having finally collected himself in full.

"Vaguely, I suppose?" Kjelle shrugged, his point coming off as debatable to her no matter what he said. His point did resonate with her, but she preferred to avoid that truth. "It kind of sounds like trying to stop you- er, Grima. I wasn't able to do it in my time, so now I've come back here to stop you- ah… them. ...Is that kind of what you mean?"

Robin eyed her curiously at the moments of her corrections, his look veiling something darker beyond what she was able to see before he cleared his expression with a shake of his head. "Not quite, but close enough. You want to stop Grima, meaning you would have to kill me or the dragon itself, so you train to get stronger. To get stronger, you practice as much as you can. When you practice, you learn to use a tome, no matter how much you spurn it, because you know that it will eventually make you stronger."

"That's how I'm saying your motivation helps you to succeed, by going down to the lowest possible factor and working up from there." he continued. "It doesn't matter how small your progress is, as long as you're doing something toward what you want."

"Your drive to succeed is what makes it possible to reach new heights in the first place, no matter how little progress you make, as long as you make some. Even if it's just one more swing of a sword, or one word in a book, or even just managing to get up for the day and telling yourself 'today is going to go well'... it's all what allows you to improve yourself. That's the proof that you're strong, that you're able to keep trying."

"It's okay to keep failing, as long as you keep trying. For every failed spell, every misfire or every time you don't manage to reach your goal, you still make progress toward it. No matter how small that progress is, as long as you keep going and learn from what's happened, you can't go wrong. That's the strength everyone needs in order reach their dreams. It's the strength you need, and it's the strength I'm already certain that you have, even if you haven't found it yet."

Kjelle watched him silently, the skepticism in her expression having faded somewhere over the time of his monologue due in no small part to his surprisingly genuine inflection. Once he fell silent, she couldn't help but wonder if it were somehow personal to him - he hadn't shown that much care to something so seemingly minor before, at least as far as she knew.

She cleared her throat, ensuring that she wouldn't be accidently cutting him off mid speech. "Is that something you do yourself? Try and try again, no matter how little progress you make, and you're okay as long as you keep trying?"

"Of course." Robin nodded, his voice happy but with a constrained somber edge. "During the war, I actually wasn't as good at coming up with strategies as Cordelia, or Frederick, or even Chrom sometimes, as bad as that may sound. Still, the Shepherds relied on me and trusted me to see them through each battle, so I never gave up until I had created a winning strategy."

"There were a lot of times where I would spend days making only one or two troop movements worth of progress, and half the time I would have to go back and change those later. Still, I always saw it as progress, and no matter what happened I would make sure to get at least one thing done every time I looked at my planning sheets, even if it was something miniscule. As long as there was some form of progress, or even at least an attempt at progress, I felt that things would turn out okay." he sighed and lowered his head, and before Kjelle was able to speak up he had launched into another line of his own.

"After the war, I tried taking up a wide variety of hobbies. Swordplay, lances, bows, axes, riding, flying, reading, more strategy, everything I could think of. I've ended up mastering practically every one of them - if you gave me one of your lances right now, I'm sure I could wreak as much havoc on enemy lines as you."

His voice lowered in tone to a level that was difficult for Kjelle to hear; however, she heard it nonetheless. At the same time, the inflection on each and every one of his words became subsequently more foreboding, and sounded as though they were laced with loathing.

"I actually thought that doing all of that would help… but it didn't. Why would I ever think that learning to fight more, or learning more and more and even more strategy would ever help…?"

Kjelle watched him carefully, her concern outweighing her curiosity by only a small margin. Through the way he spoke, she sensed that this was a topic she wouldn't be intent on delving too far into, lest she bring out the unwanted more sinister side of the tactician.

 _Wait, when the hell did that happen?_ Kjelle questioned herself, finally pulling her gaze away from Robin in her moment of self-reflection. _The entire point of being here with him, of going through all of this… it's all to expose him for what he is, or what he could potentially be. Why would I not want him to slip up…?_

She glanced back to the grandmaster, who had raised his head again from its lowered position, but with his body language simultaneously making no indication that he would be keen on discussing any matters further. _No, he might be good… but,_ _he might also be the greatest evil this world has ever known._

Exhaling deeply and slowly, she resolved herself to a final course of action. _I'll need to find out what he really is, good or evil_ _before I can do anything. If he's good, then_ _he can live and help save this world… if not, then I'll have to stop him, no matter what. ...Right?_

Kjelle shuddered slightly at the grave weight of her own resolve, the unease in her chest almost requiring physical aid in order to be calmed. With a thinly restrained, insecure certainty, she reached down into one of her bags and pulled out her fire tome, flipping it open to the first spell in the book.

If Robin noticed what she was doing, he gave no indication. For several more hours she attempted to cast a simple fire spell, never once succeeding but also never once giving up the hope that she one day would.

* * *

 **I'm technically a day late on this, but that's in terms of hours and I've still got that grace period, so it's mostly okay. A lot of these chapters tend to go up late enough at night that timezones decide the date anyway, but at least I'm still proving that I can do this much writing. Have to adhere to that ideology I had Robin spout at the end, after all.**

 **In retrospect, I feel as though I've been a little unnecessarily hard on this story. I'm still more than proud that I've done so much work on it and have learned so much and all that, but I don't think that really comes across in my writing or these notes. Oh well. I'm not about to go back and retcon my work, unless there is some massive, horrible mistake, so I guess everyone reading this gets to see my opinion of the story develop alongside each chapter. I still like to think that I'm a great writer, by the way.**

 **I've started working on another story, though that isn't about to slow down my work on this one. That story will also be far smaller and hopefully better controlled than this one. Seriously, this story has grown to be insanely large, though I'm not exactly complaining. I like writing.**

 **Status: as of 17-05-18, I'm finishing chapter 26. This hopefully means that I'm about halfway through the story, and I'm going to try to keep the pace up on much of the next major arc, though I don't want to rush anything.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	11. Chapter 11

Many hours worth of travel had passed, the only sound from Robin and Kjelle's movements being the occasional loud burst of a failed spell from the latter. Sunlight was set to fade soon, but at the same time, both travellers knew they were almost upon their destination and had few intentions of stopping.

Robin was the one who ultimately decided that they should stop for the night, though Kjelle wasn't very far behind him in that regard. The grandmaster lead his horse off into a small clearing a short distance from the road, and Kjelle followed behind him, her tome having never once left her hands aside from a few short rest breaks.

Snow crunched beneath their boots when they dismounted, the noise becoming progressively more prevalent the further northeast the two riders journeyed. Beyond their current location, massive snowfields lined much of the Feroxi countryside, spanning the majority of the nation's eastern half with only a few sparse and largely inhospitable-yet-welcoming villages dotting the equally inhospitable landscape.

Their first destination was to be the nearest snowfield, where they were to repel a bandit attack on a village, from which point they would head north to the bandits' stronghold, and then east along the topmost roads of Ferox in order to reach the first of Kjelle's friends, Noire. Each period of travel from this point on would supposedly only take them one day to reach each destination, with one day per location being dedicated to the inevitable battles they would host, before a few larger detours and travel times were to be soon expected.

Extending the heels of his feet down into the ground and his hands into the air, Robin stretched out the weariness that persisted upon appearing with each day of constant travel. The cold bit at him, and he retracted his limbs prematurely and held them close to his body. Shooting a glance over to Kjelle, he saw that the knight wasn't quite shivering, but at the same time wasn't faring as well as him against the low temperatures.

"Hey, are you sure you don't want me to enchant your armour at all? Not even before the battles, or to make it cold resistant, or anything?" he asked, knowing the metal would be far less resilient than his cloth once it had acclimated, even without any enchantments. He found himself almost worrying for her as a result.

Kjelle removed one gauntlet and rubbed the other against her now exposed hand in an attempt to warm it up, and winced when the metal revealed itself to be colder than her surroundings. She replaced her removed gauntlet and went about preparing her tent and meal for the night. "I'll be fine. Besides, I still want to learn the enchantments myself."

In truth, she would have greatly appreciated the fortification he offered, but at the same time she knew that decoding his enchantments and restoring the lost pages of his journal would conclusively demonstrate his potential for evil, and if not, then his equally probable innocence. Should he be revealed as Grima, however, she had no reason to expose her play so early, and so she took the more reasonable of the routes that remained for her and feigned an aplomb ignorance.

"Right." Robin nodded, her answer predictably being unchanged from before. "Well, whenever you want to, you can start trying them out. I'd suggest learning to cast a bit of magic first, but you can honestly start whenever without having too much difficulty."

"Wait, really?" Kjelle turned to face him, her interest piqued. "I don't have to learn magic to cast an enchantment?"

"Nope - well, actually, you need to be able to read the language that they share, but that's not too difficult once you can wrap your mind around it." Robin smiled easily, glad to share his knowledge on magic. "They're more of sidegrades to one another than different tiers of difficulty altogether. Some enchantments are more difficult than others, like magic, and being able to use one will make the other easier, but they can be learned independently."

Kjelle glanced to the fire tome at her side, the pages within having proved impenetrable to her ventures at spellcasting. "...Okay. Once I learn to cast some of this, can you show me some enchantments? I'd still like to learn them myself."

"Sure." Robin agreed, as easily as ever. "Ask me whenever you're ready."

He turned to address his own horse and equipment, ending their conversation for a second before Kjelle called him back "Robin? ...Can you show me some casting so I can have a reference point? I don't want to keep working at this if I'm only hitting a wall and nothing else."

Robin looked from her to his equipment before shrugging and walking over to her side. He raised one hand, pointing his palm away from her and the horses. "I'll take this slow, so pay attention, okay?"

She nodded, watching closely as the space in front of his hand began to glow orange, then red as a small flame appeared before his gloved palm. He was reciting one of the verses from the fire tome quietly, his voice almost inaudible as the heat from his spell began to crackle in opposition to the cold air.

The flame grew steadily larger, his voice remaining balanced and confident as its size increased. Once it was a few centimetres larger in diameter than his hand, he tensed his arm, the fully formed fireball shooting straight over the ground until it collided with a tree trunk, the small lick of flame that remained upon impact disappearing soon after.

"Well, did that help at all?" he inquired after a few moments where neither of them made any movement. Turning around to face Kjelle once more, he found her swapping her gaze frequently between the tree and her opened fire tome, a frown dominating her features.

She sighed and snapped her book shut, steadying her sight onto Robin. "Honestly, I have no idea. I still don't know where I'm messing up, or how to get over it, or anything."

"To be honest, I don't know either." Robin admitted with a small sheepish trace in his tone behind his casual normality. "Maybe you're still too focused on using conventional weapons? Trying to use magic like a lance or sword would probably be a detriment to learning any spells."

"How so?" Kjelle asked slowly, concerned that she was about to be brought into an even more troublesome and investing venture than simply learning magic.

Robin reached into his cloak and withdrew his levin sword, flourishing it for her with a flick of his wrist. "Only special weapons use magic and ordinary attacks in an equivocal way. These weapons, like my levin sword, are the only ones that use both in a relatively comparable manner. Why don't you try casting magic with this?" Grabbing the sword by the flat of its blade, he held it out to her, reaching into his cloak at the same time to offer his thunder tome as well.

"A levin sword… and thunder magic?" Kjelle hesitantly took both weapons, weighing them in her hands warily. "I don't have practice with either of these."

"Doesn't matter." Robin waved away her doubt without concern. "Try using them as they are now. If my theory is correct, then you'll be able to cast magic using the sword without any major problems."

Kjelle eyed him and the weapons carefully, and with a sigh resigned herself to an attempt at casting with the levin sword. She pried the thunder tome open to the first page that held a spell, then pointed the sword at the same tree at which Robin had casted his fireball.

Reciting the lines of the spell as best she could, the hilt of the sword began to hum calmly in the grip of her gauntlet. She could feel it intensify even through the steel, the hum growing stronger and yet more restful as she finalised the spell.

Suddenly, a small pinpoint of white appeared against the growing black of the sky, and an instant later a blinding light filled the air around their rest site. A monstrous cracking sound burst into existence alongside it, and once Kjelle's vision had returned to her unimpaired by the blinding light, she was able to see that the tree she had been aiming at was split cleanly down its centre, embers glowing down its length from where her thunderbolt had struck.

She gawked at the tree for a second before spinning to face Robin, her expression of disbelief remaining strong on her face. "Did you do that, or did I actually…?"

Robin watched the tree with his eyebrows raised, her progress coming across as surprising even to him. "That was all you. I've got to admit, that's actually pretty impressive."

"Holy shit…" Kjelle breathed out slowly, taking in the damage she had caused anew. The embers were beginning to fade from existence, their heat overtaken by the cold air, and shortly after the last of their rank had disappeared one of the tree's halves sagged down onto the frosted ground. "Hey, so… can I try this on you?"

"You- oh, right, the duel thing." Robin began to dissent, but cut himself off once his state of moderate awe had waned and his faculties had restored themselves. "Yeah, sure. Give it your best shot."

He took several steps away from their horses, stopping at a distance midway between Kjelle and the destroyed tree. Thankfully, the horses had remained perfectly calm, having been trained for such excessive combat magic for much of their lives. Crossing his arms, Robin found himself waiting for Kjelle to prepare another spell for longer than he had anticipated, though it was what he should have expected for someone so new to magic.

Kjelle primed her spell, the levin sword once again working wonders for transmuting her magic into reality. She paused when she realised that Robin was doing nothing to defend himself, and was instead standing with an air of borderline impatience shown through his crossed arms and occasionally tapping foot.

"Are you not going to try blocking it or anything?" she asked when he still failed to do anything, even as she struggled to hold in her spell.

Robin shook his head calmly. "I don't think you're at the point where you can hurt me yet, with or without my enchantments. You're strong, sure, but not that strong. But hey, maybe you are, in which case my cockiness is all the better for your goals."

"Okay." Kjelle breathed out again, and then released her spell. Lightning crashed down from the sky in a similar manner to her last attack, the bolt illuminating the night and arcing directly into Robin's chest.

Clouds of snow whipped up around him, but aside from a few stray particulates that flew toward his exposed eyes, the grandmaster was completely unperturbed by the attack. Once the clouds cleared, he was standing in the exact same spot, his arms having never uncrossed.

He shrugged, some of the snow that had been lifted into the air cascading off of his shoulders. "Sorry, I didn't feel anything. You've made good progress, though." he added as if to encourage her.

"You… how did you…?" Kjelle stammered as she wrapped her mind around what had transpired. "That same level of spell split a tree in half… how did you take an entire hit without so much as a scratch, or a scorch mark?"

"Guess I'm more resilient than a tree." Robin shrugged again, them walked casually toward her, extending one of his hands as he went. "If I could have my weapons back now, please?"

"Wait! I need these to cast magic." Kjelle clutched tightly onto the tome and sword, holding them close to herself in spite of their borderline freezing temperature. "Can I… I don't know, borrow them for a little while?"

"They're my primary weapons. If we're having a full scale battle as early as tomorrow, I'd vastly prefer to have them on me." Robin reached her, his hand remaining extended to reclaim the weapons, and he waited for her to pass them over voluntarily.

"You said you can use weapons other than swords and tomes, right? Not to mention that you still have blood magic." Kjelle grasped at his earlier information, preferring not to refer to it as a straw. "Why don't you use my lances, or the weapons we picked up at the arena, and let me train with your gear?"

"We don't know how difficult this fight will be." Robin refuted, his hand enduring the more tangible cold it experienced when heightened, even through his glove. "I'd rather be safe than sorry. Please, return the weapons."

Kjelle took a step away from him, the tome and sword still held tightly against her. "How about only for tonight, then? You can show me your skills with other weapons, so I can learn from what you know about them or whatever, and I can keep practicing with magic."

Robin closed his eyes and released a short, frustrated breath before allowing his arm to fall back to place at his side. "Fine. Let's consider this your next lesson in bird killing, then."

Nodding with a satisfaction that hid away a small shred of discomfort, Kjelle moved the tome and sword into the hold of a single arm as she passed her lances over to Robin. He accepted the steel version, placing the silver variant on a clear spot on the ground where he had at one point considered constructing his tent. Moving further away from their horses to ensure that neither came to harm, both he and Kjelle held their weapons tentatively, uncertain of how to begin.

"So, you're going to… watch me, I guess?" Robin opened, making his uncertainty clear.

"That would be the best way for me to learn without actually duelling you, which would violate your whole point about the honourable duel." Kjelle said, her own uncertainty fading far faster than his. "If you want to narrate what you're doing, that would also be of help, since I'm going to be practicing with your magic as much as possible."

"Alright." Robin nodded, his own confidence having returned in full. "If you're going to try to learn normal magic from a conduit weapon, you should know that the skills necessary for each aren't completely transferable. The sword makes casting way easier, and can even substitute for a tome if necessary, but it won't be anywhere near as powerful. Once you know what it feels like to use magic with the sword, latch on to that sensation, and try replicate it with only a tome, but also make sure to account for where the sword does all the work when you do make the change. Got it?"

Kjelle nodded, holding back from attempting to use the levin sword again until he had shown his skill with her lance. Robin got the message, and took a typical fighting stance against an invisible phantom of an opponent.

"You can probably already tell that I learned how to use a lance from Frederick." Robin laughed easily, knowing that his stance was basic compared to anything she had practiced with. "I'm honestly the worst with a lance out of all the weapons I know, but I'm still capable with one. Next up the line are axes, and after that are bows, with my mastery of swords and magic being at the top."

He followed up his words with a few simple pantomime attacks, each being easily telegraphed and a little showy, with far too many twirls, spins, and unnecessary jabs for Kjelle's liking. All in all, his show was vaguely disappointing. Kjelle found it almost insulting that he had claimed to be her equal.

"...Is this all you've got?" she asked after a few more attacks, her doubt at his ability shining through before he could finish his circuit.

"Not quite." Robin smiled disconcertingly at her, as though he had been waiting for her to question him so he would have an excuse to show off. "Where I shine in combat is with ingenuity and creativity. So, if I add a little magic to my attacks…"

Lightning rapidly began to course along the length of the lance, long bolts of yellow light spreading out from his hand and all eventually culminating on one end of the weapon or the other. He underwent the same routine of attacks as before, this time shooting spear after spear of magic at various locations around their training area.

Each jab heralded another phantom of the lance, which would fly away in the direction of the attack and collide with whatever was in its path, electrocuting trees and snow while embedding themselves within every surface. When he spun the lance, sparks flew in the area the weapon had once occupied, creating circular and ovaline flat shields of sparks that remained in the air for several seconds after he had moved on to another attack.

Kjelle watched with one eyebrow raised as he completed his set of attacks, a veritable graveyard of lightning spears now lining the trees and ground around him. The magic and lance combination was slightly more impressive than his earlier bout, though she had yet to be wholeheartedly impressed by any of his attacks.

"And now, if I do this…" Robin concluded his set of attacks, raising her lance overhead and intensifying the magic with which it was lined. He slammed the lance down into the ground on its tip, embedding it in the snow, with the lightning growing brighter even when he released his grip and stepped away.

Every spear of thunder connected via long arcs of lighting to the actual spear at once, and then one another, creating a web of magic that traced its way along the majority of the clearing. Robin gazed proudly over his handiwork before using a wind spell to boost himself over and out of his corner of the web, landing harmlessly next to Kjelle.

"Pretty cool, huh?" he asked, turning around to admire his work again. "If anyone gets too close to the pylons or their arcs, they'll get shocked. It's not necessarily lethal, but it's still great for keeping people subdued when they're too weak to break the spell, or keeping those who don't know how to break it away from you."

"It's marginally better than what you were first going for, though that wasn't exactly hard to beat." Kjelle said, watching the magic in case there were any new developments he was hiding within the impressive-but-not-awesome attack. "When you said you were capable of wreaking as much havoc as me on enemies, I was thinking you would actually be able to, and this isn't exactly what I would call on par with me. This seems like it could be useful of only it weren't so incredibly situational."

"They can explode." Robin added cheekily, grinning at his work before transferring his expression over to her. "It might damage your lance, but do you want to see?"

Kjelle raised her other eyebrow at his claim, the promise of the phantom spears exploding being an enticing one. "If you think you can pull it off without damaging the lance too much, go ahead. I'd still like to use it in battle, though, so don't do anything too intense."

"Got it." Robin's smile brightened as he turned back to the web of magic, raising his hand toward the mass of lightning. "I'll just have to lower the power of the next spell by a little bit…"

His hand flashed a bright yellow, and a horde of pinpoints similar to the ones Kjelle had created during her use of the levin sword appeared over the web, with one point in space manifesting above each spear. Massive thunderbolts descended from each point at once, with a comparatively smaller one falling onto her lance in the centre of the pylons.

The spears exploded brilliantly into sparks and stretched shafts of light, with her lance's electricity simply dissipating into the air and leaving the metal unscathed. The explosion was almost blinding, as much of Robin's magic apparently tended to be, though Kjelle was able to see the damage it caused without issue.

Snow from around the each landing site of the thunder spells was thrown haphazardly into the air, with massive gouges being made into the frozen ground which scorched the frost itself. Any trees that had been hit with a phantom lance were split in half or shattered completely, as with her own attack, and a few seemed set on burning into ashes completely under the draw of the magical energy that had bombarded them.

Kjelle found it surprising that she had never before accepted the sheer power contained in magic - to be able to rend nature so easily was a considerable feat most conventional weapons would struggle to accomplish. She carefully walked into the centre of where the explosion had taken place, giving Robin ample time to stop her in case there was any potential cause of harm lingering from his spells. She considered for a second that she shouldn't trust him with something so critical as her personal safety, though she was able to remind herself that he hadn't yet acted out of her better interests, and so managed to convince herself that she was in no imminent danger.

Tentatively, and now without the trace of doubt that he may attempt to hurt her, Kjelle removed her lance from its resting place in the ground. Appraising the quality of the weapon, she found that there was no visible damage anywhere on its surface, and gave it a practice swing to ensure that there were no new structural impairments. Finding it to be satisfactory, she began the walk back to Robin to give him the weapon and begin her own training with his sword and tome.

She paused before stepping over the first of the craters, for the first time noticing the sparks floating gently in the air about her. They were nothing short of breathtaking, and she found herself waiting in place in order to timidly hold her hand out and catch one as if it were freshly falling snow. The spark vanished as soon as it came into contact with her gauntlet, and Kjelle stared at the spot it had touched for a while longer before snapping back to the present, shaking her head to dispel her moment of frivolity and return to her training. There was an odd beauty to be found in so much destruction. She hoped that wasn't a sentiment Grima or Robin had never expressed.

Robin watched her with one eyebrow raised, her easily forgotten instant of bewitchment drawing his attention for longer than he knew, though he made no attempt to broach her trace of uncharacteristic behaviour. He accepted the lance when she returned to him and offered the weapon, returning to their horses in order to acquire her sword and axe as well.

Kjelle resumed her endeavor to cast magic, the levin sword allowing her to easily project thunderbolt after thunderbolt onto her surroundings, each being at least as devastating as its predecessor. Eventually, she forewent the use of the sword and thunder magic, returning the weapons to Robin's bag and relying solely on her fire tome. She latched on to the feeling of casting the thunderbolts, as Robin had recommended, though she was still unable to cast any spells without the use of a specialised weapon.

For his part, Robin refreshed his skills with axes before moving on to a more basic regimen with the swordplay he already knew well enough. None of his attacks were as vibrant as when he had used the lance, but he ensured that each incorporated magic in some way, this time relying solely on wind as to avoid having to cast any more unnecessary blood magic.

Blades of air and devastating gales struck against trees and earth in tandem with Kjelle's lightning, the attacks never colliding as each person refrained from impeding the other's practice. Far after she had foregone utilising the levin sword, with a significant amount of time having passed since the fall of absolute night, Kjelle set aside her fire tome and simply settled for watching Robin practice his swordplay.

"How are you able to do that?" she asked during a natural lull in his training, a blade of wind having recently finished slicing through the air ahead of them. "The weapons you're using right now aren't levin, or enchanted… so how can you cast magic with them?"

"I'm not; I'm only using them as a basis for each spell, not as a conduit." Robin explained, relaxing his stance to accommodate for speaking. "It's the same as casting magic normally, but in this case I adjust for the weapon I'm using as well, which can change the magic by a fair amount."

Kjelle frowned, his information being welcome but carrying worse implications than she had hoped. "So, will I not be able to use weapons like that until I've already mastered magic?"

"At the level of stuff I'm doing right now, yeah." Robin admitted, taking away the last tiny amount of hope she still held that she would someday soon be able to surpass him in magic.

He winced when her face fell, and immediately thought of a way to remedy the situation. "If you can get your hands on a levin lance or axe to counter my sword, you would probably be in better shape with normal combat that's combined with magic - they're called 'shocksticks' and 'bolt axes' if I remember correctly, and we probably have some in Ylisstol. In the meantime, you or I could enchant one of your weapons so that they can be used like a levin variant, but with a different magic type so that I could still use my thunder tome."

Before she could respond, he launched into the ramifications of his offer, wanting her to know the full details whether or not she accepted. "You'd still need a tome to use it though, at least until you can remember some spells. It's possible to cast using a weapon as a base like I've been doing without any enchantments, but that's blood magic territory if you don't use a tome. The tome and weapon need to be combined in order to make things easy and effective, so doing anything without knowledge of both would likely be fruitless."

Kjelle sighed, all of his talking only bringing her back to the same conclusion as earlier. "So in other words, I need to learn magic before I can properly use a levin or enchanted weapon in combat. Or even anything but a levin or enchanted weapon. Great."

"Yeah…" Robin nodded to himself, casting a long gaze at her lance where it sat unassumingly on the frozen ground.

"I guess it's back to magic training for now, then." Kjelle said, disheartened but determined. "If magic can make me as strong as or stronger than you, then I'll learn it. Even if it takes forever, and I have to go step by step the entire time, I'll become a mage-knight-uh… thing… worthy of saving the world."

Robin said nothing until he had snatched her steel lance off of the ground, holding it up horizontally from a point midway down the hilt to her while also holding it close to his own body. "Let me enchant this. It'll be a massive help for your learning process, and it'll help to make you stronger than ever before. Please? You'll still have the silver one to fall back to if you dislike it."

Tempted greatly to take the lance from him and return to training with it, Kjelle restrained herself and made no move to do reclaim the weapon. "I want to learn the enchantments on my own, not have them handed to me. I want to earn this, to prove that I'm actually strong. You giving it to me won't do anything."

"Push your pride aside for a minute to think about this." Robin ordered calmly, without the intent to incite any volatility. "If you can use this like a levin weapon, it'll only accelerate your ability to cast magic normally. That makes you stronger than simply being a knight could ever allow. It'll help."

Kjelle stared at him for several long, agonising moments as she weighed her options, the promise of superior strength outweighing her pride and desire, as well as the need to restore his journal, and urging her to learn the magic for herself. Although, if Robin was being entirely truthful, then maybe using the enchanted weapon would make learning magic and therefore the enchantments easier. She released a breath she hadn't intended to hold for so long, and nodded to him.

"If this really will help, then do it." she gave her permission, and he beamed in response. "But if this somehow goes wrong, or makes me overly reliant and weak, or anything else that's negative for me… or if you even so much as think that all of this is due solely to pride again, then I'll kick your ass."

Robin rolled his eyes and hefted the lance over one shoulder, the iron sword held in his other hanging limply. "Yeah, I'm sure you will. 'Cause you've proven so capable of that already, and everything."

"...Was that an insult!?" Kjelle exclaimed incredulously, her expression growing before she managed to reign it in. "I swear to every god imaginable, I will destroy you in every single duel as soon as I learn to counter your magic."

"Here's hoping." Robin smiled easily to her, causing her to almost regret her outburst as they made their way back to their horses. Nevertheless, her spark of anger remained.

He spoke up again before she began to unpack her remaining equipment, one of his bags already in hand. "Do you want to see what the enchantment process looks like? It might help you learn for yourself."

"Uh… yeah, sure." Kjelle accepted, not seeing a potential downside to his offer.

Smiling, Robin gestured for her to follow him a short distance away from their mounts, to an area near the location they had used to train. He opened his bag, removing the familiar journal he possessed alongside two vulneraries and a concoction, and flipped to a page of the book Kjelle knew to be close to the approximate location of his enchantments.

Her agitation got the better of her apprehension as she watched him read from the book, and she spoke up before he could begin the enchanting process proper. "Didn't you say that that book didn't have any enchantments? What are you getting from it?"

"Stuff… related to the enchantment I need." Robin lied blatantly, though he believed that he had fooled her passably based on how effortlessly he continued from that point on. "So, first of all, to enchant anything I need a source of power. I could use blood magic, but I've already used a fair amount training and it's not the kind of thing you want to strain."

He picked up one of the vulneraries he had removed from his bag, holding it out for her to examine as if doing so would reveal some form of secret. "For the purposes of this enchantment, I'll be using the magical energy present in healing potions, in this case two vulneraries and a concoction, to substitute for the materials and energy I'm currently lacking."

"I'm thinking of calling the energy needed for magic 'ether'." he continued, setting the vulnerary down on the ground and addressing Kjelle directly. "The only precedent I've found for naming this stuff is some sorcerer who wanted to call it 'quintessence', which sounds nowhere near as cool as 'ether'. Also, Chrom and some of the ancient royals learned a technique they called 'aether', so I think it's pretty fitting."

Kjelle watched him silently for a moment before realising that he was waiting for her to respond. "Oh… I... really don't care. At all."

"Alright, ether it is." Robin persisted unfazed, turning around to face her lance, his book, and the assembled potions. "Normally, I'd need an enchanting book to transmit ether into the material in question, and for the necessary verbal or written component used in casting any magic. In this case, I've already memorised the enchantment I'll be casting, so I only need a supply of energy to finish my work, with ether luckily being the same across tomes, potions, people, et cetera."

"Then what's the book for?" Kjelle cut in, still indecisive as to whether or not she should trap him in his lie. "If you have everything necessary already, what's of value in the book?"

"Notes and… cool stuff." Robin lied again, brushing away her inquiry. "You won't need it to cast your enchantments, so it doesn't matter very much. I'll just have to write the incantations for the enchantments you want down, since I've memorised an irrational amount of them."

"...Right." Kjelle gave up on her line of thought for the time, not wishing to draw too much attention to herself. "Please, continue."

Robin complied easily, more than willing to demonstrate more magic. He took hold of the lance with his right hand, the Mark of Grima becoming visible even underneath his glove as its writhing lines began to glow a furious shade of purple. His other hand opened, and a greenish light began to draw toward him from the vulneraries.

"What I'm doing here is prepping the lance for the enchantment." Robin explained as the purple in his right hand shifted to red. "If there's no preliminary energy to acclimate the material to new magic, it'll become all the more likely to break. Now, time for the ley lines…"

Engravings appeared, originating from Robin's closed hand and extending up and down the length of her lance before every path terminated a few centimetres short of their respective ends. The light stemming from the vulneraries faded, and Robin moved his left hand so that it now hovered over the concoction and sucked the light from that instead.

Correctly assuming that they held no danger, Kjelle picked up one of the vulneraries to examine its contents, and looked inside to see that the usually vibrant blue-green liquid had been reduced to a dull paste. She set the almost-empty container back onto the ground, returning her attention to Robin.

The engravings flashed a bright red before growing dark, with the glow disappearing from Robin's hand as well. He held onto the lance for a moment longer, spinning it and appraising his new engravings, before he handed it back to Kjelle.

She took the lance tentatively, expecting some grand power to immediately begin coursing through her contrary to what she had experienced with the levin sword. "...Is this it?" she asked after a few seconds of nothing happening, the engravings having faded into obscurity in the darkness of the night.

"Were you expecting something more?" Robin asked genuinely, but with an edge of mockery.

"Well, yeah." Kjelle admitted honestly. "Can I just… use magic with it now?"

"Yeah." Robin confirmed placidly. "Why don't you try using it - I've made it for fire magic, so you can use your tome with it whenever. Simply point, recite a fire spell, and let the lance do the work. If you want to learn how to cast magic normally, you should focus on the feeling and process of casting with the lance, and try transferring that to a normal spell."

Kjelle did as instructed, equipping her fire tome in her left hand and using her right to point the tip of the lance at a nearby tree. She recited the most basic fire incantation she could aloud, the engravings suddenly reappearing in their bright hues of red and flashing as flames licked up the sides of her lance, coating the weapon entirely. She felt no heat or cold on her hand, and the metal didn't hum as the levin sword had, but instead felt exceedingly natural in her grip.

The flames curled into a magical phantom of her lance, similar to what had happened when Robin had used his thunder magic with it, and the effigy of her weapon shot off rapidly into the tree she had indicated. It exploded on impact, shaking the wood and scorching its bark without ever doing as much outright damage as the levin sword.

"Hmm… not as good as my sword…" Robin wondered aloud. "Eh, I guess that's to he expected, considering that it isn't specially forged or anything. Still, I wish I could have done better."

"This… this is amazing!" Kjelle beamed, her jubilance contrasting starkly against Robin's more contrite tone. "Now I'll be able to learn magic so much easier, and grow so much stronger… thank you, Robin."

"Huh? Oh, uh… you're welcome, I guess." Robin said, caught off guard by her authentic appreciation in the face of what he considered to be a mediocre job at best. "I could probably do better if I tried again, though. Maybe even get you a weapon on par with my levin sword… you know, like an 'ashen lance' or something that sounds cool like that."

"'Ashen lance'?" Kjelle parroted him, her disdain for the name shining through her contentment. "Gods, you sound way too much like Owain sometimes…"

"That's one of your friends, right?" Robin asked, his voice holding a neutral tone in order to avoid dealing any unintentional damage and miring her in the world of her future. Kjelle nodded, aware of what he was doing but not caring. "Hm. ...Is he cool?" Robin asked in followup.

"Not in the slightest." Kjelle laughed. "He's overly dramatic all the time, and has an absurd fixation with 'heroic' names and other nonsense."

"Sounds like he'd either be my best friend, or I'd absolutely hate him." Robin joked, earning a smile from her that he mimicked before coming to an unexpected realisation. "You know what? I think that's the most you've ever told me about any of your friends."

"...I suppose it is." Kjelle replied calmly, without the hint of anger or uncomfortable air that had accompanied such ventures earlier in their journey.

"Want to share anything else?" Robin asked sincerely, though with enough levity that she would be free to refuse without inferring any ill will between them.

"Don't push your luck." Kjelle warned, her tone composed but also with her own trace of humour. Still, she gave no indication that she would be willing to discuss anything major with him further, and returned to practicing with her newly improved lance in short order.

Robin watched her train for a few minutes without saying anything, keeping careful track of the engravings that lined her weapon. He spoke up once they began to fade, stopping her before she could expend the enchantment's magic completely. "Once those engravings start to fade, you'll need to give the lance some time without casting anything to recharge. If you push it too far, the enchantment will degrade and eventually lose power entirely, making it an ordinary lance again."

"Noted." Kjelle responded simply, running her hands over the weapon as she examined the engravings. Sure enough, they had already begun to fade, and she clipped the lance onto the loop on her back, concluding her training for the night. She paused and took a moment to judge her surroundings, only now in the absence of magical lights realising how dark the night had become.

Her stomach growled, and she covered it with her arms as if doing so would conceal the noise. "...We haven't had dinner yet, right?"

"I'll whip something up." Robin grinned at her, causing her to steady her gaze against his in an attempt to conceal her embarrassment at her stomach's misconduct. As he went about preparing the meals, she set up their tents, and the two shared a simple-yet-lavish portion of food before retiring for the night.

* * *

Chilled air woke Kjelle a few hours earlier than normal, the sun having yet to rise by the time she had prepared for the day and exited her tent. She roused Robin from his slumber, expressing a small amount of veiled jealousy at the warmth his cloak undoubtedly provided without actually voicing her envy. She knew that Robin would then only insist upon enchanting her armour for her.

The duo set out for the snowfields after a light breakfast, Robin not bothering to prepare their rations in the slightly more elegant combined manner he had the night before. They arrived at their destination after a few hours of easy and uneventful riding, neither traveller stressing any topics that didn't come effortlessly to them both.

The snowfield was remarkably unspectacular, with a thin layer of frost coating the forests and plains alongside which an unfrozen river ran. While the snowfields of northeastern Ferox were typically characterised by their ever present permafrost, that by no means indicated that the lands themselves would be coated in perennial snow, of which Kjelle couldn't help but remark she had seen more near the Dueling Grounds than their current location.

Upstream of the river, over which a bridge ran, sat a large and equally unfrozen lake. Before the bridgen the river was joined by a second stream which changed their combined courses toward the south of the forest paths from which Kjelle and Robin had emerged. Below that lake was a single village, lying snug between the two rivers, with another bridge connecting its naturally cut segment of land to a more rugged looking snowfield on the far side of their location, this one holding no evergreen forests as its opposite nearer them boasted.

Bandits were already crawling over the snowfields by the time Robin and Kjelle had arrived, with Flavia's intelligence that had indicated consistent raids in the area proving to be incredibly accurate. A woman was guarding the village from a subset of the bandits, and both Robin and Kjelle were instantly able to place her as one of the travelling merchant Annas. Robin and Kjelle dismounted their horses, tethering them deep in the forest in an area where they were unlikely to encounter any of the bandits, and began to prepare themselves for battle.

"Alright, time for a quick game plan." Robin spoke up as Kjelle checked her pieces of armour individually, clipping and unclipping them to examine each section inside and out. "The bandits' main objective appears to be the village northeast of us, the one that an Anna is defending. I have higher mobility than you, so I'll head up to her while you cover the bandits to the south, and then I'll rendezvous with you by way of the eastern snowfield, and we can clear the bandits as we go. Sound good?"

Kjelle narrowed her gaze on him, barely managing to contain the small smile that threatened to break out on her face that would have exposed her far too early. "Oh? Who ever said that you were going to be giving the orders here?"

"That… that's literally my job." Robin said in disbelief, completely missing her initial effort at making a joke.

"I… that was supposed to… nevermind." Kjelle aborted her attempt at a halfhearted jest before it could cause any further confusion or discomfort, sighing at the loss before moving on. "Yeah, that sounds fine. Don't expect me to wait up on you, though."

Robin blinked, considering her intentions for a moment before deciding that doing so was a lost cause and advancing their conversation in a different direction. "Don't get cocky. You don't have your normal armour, you have modified and unfamiliar weapons, and we don't know a lot about who we're facing."

"Ha! As if common brigands would ever be a match for me." Kjelle boasted, clasping the last of her armour into place with an amount of emphasis that almost made Robin smile.

"If things go bad, try to regroup with me or the Anna. Also, make sure to be wary of your limits." he reminded her again unnecessarily, handing her a vulnerary only for her to refuse as she pulled out her own from those Flavia had provided. She then tucked it away into an alcove of her armour.

Kjelle nodded to Robin, and the two departed for the scene of the battle. As they emerged from the forest, they were able to gauge their opponents in greater detail, their disheveled appearances and poor quality weapons being evident even from a distance. Most of the bandits were maneuvering from the snowfields east and south of the lake toward the village, though there were a few in the forest north of Kjelle and Robin that both fighters decided to ignore in favour of their ordinances.

Kjelle watched as some of the bandits to their south gave an effort to rally as they advanced, a few of them raising their weapons into the air with a wordless shout. Their equipment was obviously low in quality, with all of the weapons that Kjelle saw being wrought of steel at best, with almost every bandit being an axe wielder with iron weapons. Two mages were advancing from the south as well, and while they caused a slight amount of concern to well up within her, they were still clearly nothing in comparison to the risen she had once known.

In fact, Kjelle found herself growing incredibly confident in her own ability to succeed against the bandits, and when she looked to her side to speak to Robin she could no longer suppress her arrogance. "You know what? Since you're going to be busy with running around, I'll bet you that I manage to get ten kills before you. How about it? You want to wager… I don't know, a meal?"

Robin turned to face her slowly, the look of competitiveness or maybe even scorn she had been expecting never appearing as she was instead met with a look that could only be described as concern. "What the hell are you saying?" he asked dubiously, her behaviour putting him on edge as much as he typically did to her.

"A wager." Kjelle answered simply, an uneasy sensation beginning to crawl over her skin in response to the tactician's perplexing stare. "If I get ten kills before you, I get one of your meals, or vice versa. If you want, we can raise the stakes a bit… I have no intention of losing, after all."

Thousands of thoughts rushed through Robin's head as he attempted to wrap his mind around whatever she was playing at. Was this a plan to entrap him, to force his hand and have him demonstrate his Grima-ness? Was she legitimately betting these people's lives for something as petty as a meal? Would she even be willing to do something so heinous to prove herself, or was there even an underlying plot afoot he hadn't yet seen? Did she realise how inappropriate it was to devalue lives so greatly? Did he care, and did any of it even matter?

He stared at her for a moment too long, causing her to snap her fingers in front of his face in order to pull him from his thoughts. "Hey, Robin? You there?" she asked casually, as if she hadn't just proposed a bet on the lives of others.

Robin blinked, shaking his head to dispel his questions and return his attention to the present, resorting to what he knew best. "I'm not taking that bet, Kjelle. Or any like it. Ever."

"Afraid that you'll lose?" Kjelle goaded, her attention split between him and the number of bandits that were gradually beginning to notice them.

"We're about to be taking lives, Kjelle. That's never something to take lightly."

"Yeah, but… they're bandits." Kjelle countered, confused at how he was experiencing so great a moral conflict over something she viewed as simple. "They've chosen their path in life, and it opposes ours. We protect people and they harm. We're better than them. We're stronger, so we're going to win, which entails their deaths. It's not complicated, so why not try adding a little fun challenge to it?"

"'Fun'?" Robin echoed her incredulously, his voice growing colder the longer she spoke. "We're moments away from killing people - living people. Does that mean nothing to you?"

"Compared to the lives of the innocent people they'll inevitably end or ruin?" Kjelle wondered superficially for a second, her mind already set on an answer. "No, the bandits' lives don't matter in comparison."

"Good gods, and you think that I sound like Grima?" Robin recoiled away from her, shaking his head in disgust. "Try looking at yourself for a second. You're actually claiming that a life has no value due to the nature of its owner. Does that not sound the least bit Grima-esque to you?"

"Are you, of all people, seriously comparing me to Grima?" Kjelle held back an indignant laugh.

"You're turning the act of taking lives into a game!" Robin shouted with a distinctively level tone, his gaze hardening on her. "You're not even going to take their deaths seriously, are you? They're just… what, grunts? Faceless nobodies? Common thugs? Is that all they are to you? A number that'll show up when this is all over and nothing more?"

"I'm sorry, are they supposed to be worth anything significant?" Kjelle stepped toward him in an attempt at making herself come across as intimidating or perhaps even menacing, failing when the fire in his eyes caused her to briefly falter.

A bandit was approaching them over the bridge now, iron axe raised to waist height as he snuck loudly over to the forest they had approached from. Kjelle made note of their progress, knowing that Robin would be unaware of their approach, but made no comment as the grandmaster launched into another bout of speech.

"They're people, Kjelle. People with lives, and families, and ideals, and ambitions, and thousands of other things. If everyone in the world were to decide that people like them weren't worthy of their lives, my first memory would have been bleeding out in the field I woke up in with a lance shoved through my chest. I'm not going to will that on anyone else. These bandits have to die, yes, but I shouldn't be- you shouldn't be relishing in their deaths."

Kjelle rolled her eyes, moving to shove past him in order to address the bandit that had begun to near their position. "You've killed hundreds of people already; you said so yourself. You really think I'm going to listen to some kind of hypocrite that claims-"

She was cut off when Robin placed his hand on her shoulder, halting her movement before she could pass him with a surprisingly strong grip. "You aren't me, Kjelle. You aren't Grima."

The bandit was directly behind Robin now, his footsteps silenced by the light traces of soft snow lining the ground. They raised their axe to strike, and before Kjelle could even shout a warning, they had struck down on rear of Robin's shoulder opposite her.

"For the love of-" Robin shrugged the hit off and spun around, the bandit's face flashing in shock that his advantageous attack hadn't pierced the man's enchanted cloak. Within an instant the hand Robin had clasped on Kjelle's shoulder met his features.

The bandit angled backward as Robin's hand pushed his head down and in a direction the reverse of their body's momentum. Once in a position where the bandit's head was at almost a ninety degree angle from upright, Robin fired a rapidly charged thoron shot down into the snow, through the man's head. White powder flew up in response, obscuring Kjelle's view slightly but not enough to hide her sight completely. An ethereal green light then enveloped the bandit's body, their skin collapsing inward as their life was swiftly drained from their corpse.

Magic made little sound when casted regularly, and even less when shot so rapidly and close to its target. Nevertheless, Kjelle found the noise almost deafening, and she couldn't manage to pull her attention away from where Robin had carelessly tossed aside the corpse of the bandit he had so effortlessly killed no matter how hard she tried. When he spun back around to face her, the fire in his eyes was brighter than ever, even if it was something she was barely able to notice in her current transfixiation.

"You are better than me!" Robin pulled her attention away from the corpse by means of his voice alone, his register having grown all the more forceful. "You aren't going to enjoy killing people, and you aren't going to be the one who causes their demise! You aren't going to be the one who hates loving all of this!" his hand flew out behind him, drawing her attention over to the bandits that were running to attack the northern village.

Kjelle's eyes wandered back over to the corpse as he fumed. Had she really grown so complacent as to trust a man who had proven, time and again, exactly how dangerous he could be?

Robin sighed, his anger fading as swiftly as it had arrived. "Okay, look… make sure that you don't get overzealous when you're fighting. Trust me, it leads to some pretty horrible things. We fight out of necessity, not desire - you have to know that, now and always."

Conflict rose anew within Kjelle. Every few hours she spent with Robin proved him to be the greatest threat imaginable, a potential physical incarnation of that which she despised and that which had ruined her time, but the rest of the time he came across as being more trustworthy and kind than she had ever anticipated. She found herself wondering which side, or what degree of combination of sides, was his true nature. He surely couldn't be the two dimensional villain of her future past.

"...Let's get this over with." Kjelle said softly, ending their conversation and redirecting both of their attentions over to the bandits before their situation could grow any more grim.

Robin opened his mouth as if to say something more, but simply sighed and acquiesced. He gestured for her to go ahead of him, and she complied without a second thought, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the corpse as possible. Robin cast a glance back to the body as he followed her, his fingers naturally finding their way up to the bridge of his nose and pinching down to relieve a wave of stress. He rubbed his entire hand over his face as of to clear it of a substance that didn't exist before he began his dash toward the Anna.

* * *

Kjelle tore her lance out of the gut of a bandit that had approached her, shutting her ears off in preparation for the noises that followed as he died. Red dripped down into the snow, and she lowered her weapon to the ground in order to quickly wipe it clean of the new contents it bore. She found herself wondering how she had ever considered making a game of this as she wrestled for control of her stomach, her gaze accidently falling on her most recent kill before she was able to avert it.

So far, she had felled three axe users and one of the mages that had caused her a moderate amount of concern. This bandit was her fifth kill, and she no longer held any clue as to how she would have been able to reach ten, let alone Robin's count that supposedly surpassed hundreds.

Her minded wandered ever further, and she now grew curious about the other Shepherd's kill counts, especially those of her parents. Were they as proficient as Robin? Less? Maybe even more? It was sickening to consider, and yet she couldn't redirect her line of thought - it was as intriguing as it was despairing.

What Robin had claimed before the battle, about not wanting her to enjoy killing or relish in battle, was making progressively more sense. Against risen in her time, it had been a simple matter to kill, but even then taking human life had been beyond traumatic. She resented that she had expressed what she was now perfectly fine admitting had been incredibly Grima-like behaviour, and resented even more that she hadn't expressed concern for her actions ever since appearing in the past.

More than anything, she found herself remembering the look in Robin's eyes. A fire had lit within them after he had killed, and Kjelle worried over how she found herself no longer able to discern exactly what that fire represented, or the effect it held on Robin himself.

A spark of concern ignited within her as she began to consider that he may be weighing the suffering caused by Grima against himself, as it would have explained much of his disturbing behaviour and his most recent outburst. Resolving to reassure him that he was, in fact, himself and not Grima, regardless of how authentic or how hollow such a sentiment from her would be perceived, she returned the majority of her attention to the battlefield. With any luck, nothing would grow to be too emotional, though Robin thankfully appeared to not be the emotionally extraneous type.

Another set of bandits were approaching her position from the south, including among them the mage she had yet to deal with and two berserkers who appeared to be leading the enemy forces. She turned her head to check the status of the archers to her rear, the first of their rank beginning to cross the bridge that led to her.

Breathing deeply and slowly, she pulled out her fire tome and began an incantation, the engravings on her lance glowing in response as she aimed for the archers. Kjelle used her breathing to calm herself, fortifying her will to succeed and grow stronger while silently hoping that Robin wouldn't reappear from his flanking position and handle the new batch of opponents. She wanted to prove herself even if it meant killing more and more.

She shook her head clear of any and all thoughts of Robin, resolving once again to grow more powerful in her own right and face her difficulties with as great of a determination as ever before. Her lance glowed brightly as she finished her spell, a fiery replica of her weapon flying out to meet the first archer as she resigned herself to another brimming round of combat.

The firebolt connected with the archer directly, the bandit being wholly unprepared to counter a magical lance attack from a knight and having no time to dodge or defend themselves. When the flames cleared and the last dregs of magic dissipated, they were standing in the same position, cowering at what they had expected to be a fatal blow.

Slowly, the realisation dawned on them that they were still alive, and they began to check their armour as though doing so would reveal that they were mistaken. Kjelle, her gaze narrowed on them in confusion at how they were left standing, casted another magic lance.

This time, the bandit saw the attack coming but made no attempt whatsoever to dodge, instead raising their arms in a cross to shield their body. Again, the magic did absolutely nothing.

Kjelle rapidly glanced from her weapons, to the archer she had attacked and their equally confounded companions, and then to the group of bandits approaching her from the south. She primed another spell, but this time, her lance refused to glow.

"...Shit."

* * *

Robin landed gently in a plume of snow, putting away his wind tome within his cloak once he contacted the ground. He had successfully jumped his way over to the village in only three spells, a new record for a distance that he assumed was at most one hundred metres.

The nearby Anna shot him a wary glance as she cut down another bandit, her fifth in the battle. Her expression brightened considerably when she recognised his cloak, with any Anna worth her name being capable of spotting as influential of a buyer as a Shepherd from no matter how great a distance. Robin nodded to her, wordlessly acknowledging their newly formed alliance as he shifted his attention over to the nearest set of bandits.

Iron slicing through air diverted Anna's attention back to the battle, an axe wielding bandit having approached her in the short time she had used to look over at Robin. She countered swiftly with a strike from her sword, the man falling to the ground after only a single hit, and she transferred her gaze over to the next nearest foe, unconcerned for her own safety yet atypically worried for that of the village.

Seeing that she could easily handle herself, Robin shot off a volley of thunder magic to swiftly end the enemies closest to him and the village, barely paying enough attention to ensure that his shots both connected and were lethal. He then took out his wind tome again and launched off into the air in the direction of the eastern snowfield.

Wind ripped past his head as he soared, almost becoming powerful enough to encourage him to shield his face with more magic. Particles of snow clung to his exposed face and tempted him to brush them away, but he knew that doing so would require him to cancel his spell, and so he tolerated them until he was nearing his touchdown.

Another, larger, plume of snow met him as he collided with the comparatively far more rough ground. Few bandits had taken this route to the village, and he couldn't suppress his smile at the prospect of a few more easy kills before he reminded himself that he should be frowning.

Each of the bandits fell with as little effort as Robin had predicted, and he was soon preparing to boost his way over to Kjelle, the knight seemingly struggling as she fended off over a half-dozen enemies at once.

He paused before taking off, sudden movement without motion in his peripherals drawing his eyes back over to one of the men he had most recently killed. They were standing again, watching him silently. Straining to make out their unexplainably blurred features, Robin quickly realised that their entire body was no more than a mess of grey, with no discernable characteristics whatsoever.

Robin blinked. The bandit disappeared, their fallen body replacing the standing form as if they had never stood in the first place. He blinked again, the body remaining on the ground, with his features now easily visible despite the blood and snow that coated him.

Reminding himself that he had to smile, Robin rocketed off toward Kjelle.

* * *

"Oh my, aren't you a fiery one?" the bandit leader to Kjelle's left asked, their pink armour being one of the few things to distinguish them from their counterpart to her right. "Wouldn't she fetch an absolutely magnificent price on the auction block, Victor?"

"Oh, you know I do enjoy the slave trades, brother dearest." the other bandit leader, apparently Victor, responded. "Pillaging is only a fraction as enjoyable. Although, slavery is Ezra's territory, and wouldn't it be most unpleasant to work with a man like him, Vincent?"

Kjelle grunted as she blocked a strong axe strike with the side of her lance, already regretting the loss of her shield and the drop in her armour's protective capabilities caused by her loss of her heavy knight equipment. She attempted in vain to shout down the two bandit leaders, but was silenced when the mage struck her exposed back with a spell that served to pester her more than anything else.

"Oh, it would be absolutely awful!" Vincent cried out in what Kjelle almost mistook for genuine anguish. "Why, he would probably request for us to split the profits half-and-half with him again. Wouldn't that be the most awful thing ever?"

"Oh, absolutely dreadful!" Victor replied. "Why don't we take her ourself, and cut Ezra out of the process entirely?"

"Oh!" Vincent cooed solely for the sake of saying 'oh'. "We would make more gold than any one pillaging could ever hope to match! What a wonderful idea, Victor."

"Oh, but didn't mother always say 'trust the process'? We wouldn't want to defy her wisdom by defying Ezra's process, now would we?" Victor asked, his face growing crestfallen as he disproved his own idea.

"Would you two shut up!?" Kjelle shouted, secretly thankful that they, the two unequivocally most threatening members of the bandit crew, had been too busy talking to attack her.

The mage she had yet to kill punished her for her waning attention, magical flames slamming into her side and throwing her off balance. She righted her stance before anyone could hit her again, her enchanted lance glowing brightly as she charged an attack, her fire tome on standby in her left hand.

This time, the spell followed through successfully, a phantom of her lance colliding with the mage and bursting into an even greater inferno upon impact. The mage crumpled to the ground, dead from the first moment her attack had connected, and Kjelle bit down her distaste for the death in order to focus upon her own weapon. "Are you kidding me? Now it works!?"

"Oh, she really is fiery! You were right, Vincent!" Victor laughed, both Kjelle and the other non-brother bandits frowning at the action as they continued to fight.

"Oh, and do you know what I remembered, brother?" Vincent asked with his own trace of levity. "Mother is in the ground - meaning we're wiser than she was! We can make our own lovely process!"

"Oh, you're right, Vincent!" Victor's grin widened, Kjelle barely catching it out of the corner of her eye as she drove her lance through an archer that had grown too bold and had stepped within her reach. Pulling the steel out of their body, she shivered, but accepted it as necessary and quickly shifted into a defensive stance that forbid her opponents from finding any openings.

"Oh, she killed another one of the help." Vincent pouted. "Should we intervene yet, Victor?"

"Oh, I'd say we give it a few more minutes." Victor replied. "Let's see how she handles this - you and I would probably only end up damaging the merchandise, anyway."

"Oh, that's a fair point." Vincent conceded. "Every coin counts up, so we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves and kill her. That would reduce us to mere raiders, and we would be out of our own slaving business before we even got the chance to properly start!"

"I swear to the gods, if either of you say 'oh' one mo-" Kjelle was cut off when a bandit lunged at her, their axe's practically blinding arc of movement forcing her to put all of her effort into blocking their strike. She shoved them away with the side of her weapon, and followed up with a series of jabs that left the man motionless on the ground.

"Oh, she's gotten even more mad!" Victor laughed. "What are you going to do, though? Will you kill us? Will you even be able to do anything to us? It'd be best for you to come peacefully, darling. We don't want to have to lower your value."

Kjelle cast one final magical spear at the last of the lesser bandits. Seeing the shot connect and the man crumple, she placed away her tome and prepared to engage the two berserkers before her in the best way she knew how, her lance feeling far more familiar in a two handed grip than one.

Robin touched down abruptly next to her, dusting a small amount of snow off of his cloak after his landing had kicked it up into the air. He took in the bodies lying near him and the two berserkers that still stood before turning to Kjelle. "Wow, you really cleaned up here. I'd congratulate you, but considering how many people have died…" he trailed off, as though the last part of his statement was supposed to be obvious.

"I can assure you, it was out of necessity." Kjelle spoke to him in an overly cold tone. Robin glanced over to her, knowing her voice to be too levelled for her personality and circumstances, and was easily able to see that she was shaken.

He shifted his gaze over to the berserkers, judging their capabilities in an instant and deciding that he would be able to handle them solo. "If you want, you can pull back to the village now and keep Anna safe. I'll handle these two."

"I'm not going." Kjelle responded, her voice remaining discernable in its unnatural calmness. "There's still more fighting left, after all. It's not time for me to stop yet. I can still grow stronger! ...Besides, I don't think that these two are the type to cause me to falter should I get in the position to end them. They're despicable."

Robin narrowed his gaze on her, the action being made as much out of concern as it was out of scrutiny. He shook his head and retrained his focus onto the bandit leaders, both relieved and distressed that she had chosen to stay and fight.

"Oh, do you recognise that cloak, brother!?" Vincent piped up, shaking Victor's shoulder as he pointed unnecessarily to the new arrival. "That's that tactician man from the far south, in Ylisstol - the new Exalt's right hand man! Meaning he's worth a pretty penny! And meaning that the two of them-"

"Are Shepherds." Victor finished for his brother, his voice losing any and all amounts of levity and excitement. "You should go back to camp. I'll wrap things up here."

"Oh? Trying to get all of the glory for yourself?" Vincent laughed, either failing or refusing to notice the gravity in his brother's tone.

"Go." Victor ordered sternly, his voice growing even more grim. Vincent stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment before doing as instructed, casting frequent glances backward as he made for some unseen camp to the east of their position, seemingly in the direction of Robin and Kjelle's next destination.

Kjelle stood in place awkwardly, as offset by Victor's sudden change in demeanor as the man's brother. "...You know what's going to happen now, don't you?" she asked the remaining bandit leader without any shred of contempt or pride; she was genuinely asking if he knew that he was about to die.

"Yeah, I have an idea." Victor replied gravely, his voice having lowered considerably since the passing of his more lighthearted, yet also absurdly dark, comments.

"You're protecting your brother." Kjelle stated, avoiding asking another question. Victor nodded all the same. "Why?"

"It's what family does." Victor answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Kjelle winced, his words barely falling short of being equivalent to a physical strike against her.

"Now, I know that this won't exactly be worth much, but I would appreciate if you lot were to leave my brother be." Victor continued. "He's a bandit, like me, and we've done some pretty horrible things… but he's my brother. I know that deep down, he can be a good person if he tries. I've simply never tried to help, to nurture that part of him."

"Until now." Kjelle reached the only conclusion that she realistically could. "You want to sacrifice yourself, so that your brother gets another shot at living."

"Bingo." Victor confirmed. "What do you two say? It's a lot of trust for no reason, but I would appreciate it more than anything."

Kjelle tensed, the bandit's words cutting unexpectedly deep into matters she would rather leave undisturbed. It might be possible for him to reform, but she also knew that they had committed greater atrocities than most civil people would ever permit or be willing to move past. Then again, they were proving that they had their own values, and that maybe they weren't as two-dimensional as she had thought or preferred. She hated when things stopped being so easily transparent. "I… I'm sorry, but I can't guarantee anything."

She turned to Robin, hoping that delegating the task of the decision to another, in this case more capable person would ease the strain of her own decision. "What's your call, Robin?" Subconsciously, she found herself assuming that he would accept the proposal, and somehow work toward proving that Vincent could be saved. She wasn't the fondest of the idea, but she wasn't fond of killing him, either.

The grandmaster's eyes were fixated so intensely on Vincent's retreating form that she found herself wondering whether or not he had heard anything she or Victor had said. "Hm? Oh, do me a favour and handle this guy." he said after too long of a pause, angling his head toward Victor as he began advancing on the man's brother.

"What? You- ...okay." Kjelle accepted reluctantly, having to calm herself before she accidentally refused, believing that his orders would lead her to the best possible outcome despite what her mind was telling her. She pointed her lance at Victor, holding the man at a distance away from both Robin and herself.

"I guess that's to be expected." Victor sighed, arming himself with a throwing axe a grade above anything the other bandits had used. "I'm not exactly going to let you two go without a fight, though. For Vincent!"

He lashed out to his side, at Robin. Kjelle caught the axe head with the tip of her lance, using all of her strength to hold the weapon up and away from the grandmaster. Robin stepped to the side, out of the berserker's immediate range, and began going about the process that would allow him to fly over to Vincent with wind magic.

Victor yanked his axe toward himself, destabilising Kjelle as her lance was pulled along with the other weapon. His closed fist met the side of her head, knocking her down into the snow with as much force as one of Robin's powerful wind spells. Lunging toward Robin, his axe met with air as the tactician launched off into the sky toward the now barely visible Vincent.

Kjelle pushed herself into a standing position, scrambling for her lance in the snow as she went. Once she found it, she pulled out her fire tome, anticipating that Victor would track Robin and preparing to stop them.

The bandit leader's face grew even more grim as he helplessly watched Robin disappear into the distance. He leaned forward as if to sprint, but was halted when a flaming lance exploded in the snow in front of him. After a few seconds, all traces of the flames died down, and Victor slowly stepped into the small crater to retrieve the cold metal lance that lay within.

Blinking uncomprehendingly when she saw that the berserker was holding her weapon, Kjelle glanced down toward her right hand. "Son of a bitch, how!?" she asked herself more than her opponent. There was no lance in her grip anymore, and as if on cue, she lost the sense of touch through her frigid gauntlets that now told her she had accidently sent the physical weapon flying alongside its magical counterpart.

She returned her attention to Victor as the man broke into an unsettling smile and prepared to charge yet again, this time at her. Fumbling slightly, she put away her tome and reached for the spare silver lance on her back, hoping that she was able to use the higher class weapon despite never training with anything of similar make before.

Victor was upon her far faster than she had considered possible, the man's heavy muscles belying a startling swiftness. Before Kjelle could even raise her silver lance to block his attack, her older steel lance had been driven through her flesh above her hip and Victor's axe had caught in the armour on her shoulder centimetres from her neck. She fell to her knees with a scream from the lance hit, barely even noticing the axe swing even after Victor had connected the weapon with her shoulder.

He tore the axe out of her armour forcefully, leaving the lance stuck inside of her as he pushed her aside into the snow. Stepping away from her, he began to make his way east toward where Robin had descended upon Vincent.

"G-Get back here!" Kjelle called out weakly as she held the pole of the lance around where it had impaled her. More than anything, she didn't want to be left behind by someone who had proved in seconds to be at the very least her equal, with Robin's request to defeat him becoming a mere afterthought. "D-Don't try to w-walk away… I'm not about to give up!"

"Don't worry, dear, I'll be back soon enough with Vincent in tow to pick you up." Victor gloated gleefully. "You know, after all the horror stories of do-gooders traipsing around the continent for the past year and even during the war, I hadn't anticipated them to be so… weak. Maybe we'll be able to kill you after all - or maybe, we could sell the prettier of your rank on the slave markets… there were supposedly so many beauties among you, Ezra's workers started to sing your praises!"

"I-I can't believe that… that I ever thought you c-could be saved, even for a second…" Kjelle said, struggling to maintain her grip on consciousness as much as on her lance.

"Oh, and then we could rule all of Ylisse…" Victor ignored her, beginning his walk toward his brother once again. "That would be so wonderful… the finest castle in all of the lands, all for ourselves. I'm sure Vincent would love that."

He disappeared into the white haze that was forming on the edge of Kjelle's vision, her fading sight accentuated by the complimentary snow and white sky below and above her. Soon, her vision had narrowed precisely onto the shaft of her lance, and she slowly began to draw it out of her body.

A scream escaped from her lips, growing into more of a high pitched wail as she progressed. The tip of the lance caught on the back of her armour, and she struggled to pull it through the malformed plates that lined the rear of her abdomen.

"Godsdamnit, no…" She whimpered weakly as she realised that she couldn't realistically pull the lance out of her front in her weakened state, and she put what little strength she still had toward rolling onto her side. Her legs had grown numb by this point, and her hands were beginning to lose their grip as she fumbled awkwardly for a vulnerary from within her armour. Eventually, she found one, and eagerly drank from it to recover a small fraction of her strength.

She clenched her teeth as she attempted to relax her lower body and began removing the lance again, the sounds of her blood and bones running slick against the steel giving her as much reason to grimace as the actual pain. Once the weapon finally tore through her armour and slid out into the snow before her, she fumbled with one wholly numbed hand for the vulnerary she had moments ago held while the other held feebly in place over her wound. Finding the vulnerary dropped in the snow after far too long of a time as she would have preferred, she sloppily drank a portion of the healing liquid and poured another directly onto her damaged armour, into her exposed injury.

Snow and blood filled her vision as she turned over onto her hands and one knee, the damage on her hip persisting even through the vulnerary's healing effects. She finished off the entire potion before struggling to a stand, tentatively prodding her wound with one hand to ensure that it wouldn't suddenly reopen.

Verifying that she was healed, Kjelle bent down into the snow and grabbed hold of her fallen weapons, placing the silver variant away in the bands on her back and gripping the steel version tightly. She took a few careful steps in the direction Victor had ran, then broke into a light jog when her wound caused no issue, and then started to sprint, intent on defeating the bandit leader and proving her strength.

* * *

Robin skidded to a chaotic stop several metres from Vincent, the tactician being unacclimated to performing such large jumps with his wind magic. The bandit leader noticed and turned to face him, their axe remaining in place at their side.

"Oh, tactician, did you want to come with me?" Vincent smiled. "Why, I should be thanking you, shouldn't I? You've made my job so much easier - you're guaranteed to fetch a high price from vengeful enemies, or old friends, or any other variety of buyers!"

"You really think so?" Robin asked calmly, urging the berserker to speak more as he swapped his wind tome for his thunder variant and his levin sword.

"Oh, but of course!" Vincent's smile intensified as he drew his axe, easily catching the grandmaster's desire to prepare for a fight as he spoke. "I wonder if you'll put up as much of a fight as that woman… Victor's probably killed her by now, provided that she isn't halfway to the auction block." he laughed, his voice coming across as hollow to his opponent.

Robin tilted his head, surprised by how grave the bandit's underlying tone was. "You know what's happened, don't you? That this Victor fellow isn't coming back? That he's probably already dead at my companion's more than capable hands?"

Vincent said nothing, but the strained grief he allowed to slip onto his face served as enough of an answer for Robin. The grandmaster nodded, neither with sobriety nor mirth, but with an unreadable blankness as he prepared his weapons for combat.

Both men stood still, waiting for the other to make the first move. Eventually, Robin grew overly wary of how patient the bandit was being, and shot off a few weak thunder spells in order to gauge their abilities. To his shock, Vincent was able to evade his attacks without much effort, and so he upped the power of his spells to their next tier.

Even so, Vincent was able to dodge his elthunder casts easily, and a small spark of concern ignited within Robin as he grew to realise the danger in which he may have inadvertently left Kjelle. The bandit leader was making a small amount of progress toward him now, and he upped his spells to their highest degree in the hopes of ending their fight quickly and returning to the battle involving Kjelle.

Vincent defied expectations yet again as he dived directly into physical range of Robin, his axe bearing down into the snow where the grandmaster had been standing seconds before he had begun backpedaling away. A thoron shot met with air and disappeared into the horizon when the berserker ducked nimbly beneath it, their axe swinging upward toward Robin through a small amount of snow.

Robin sidestepped out of the way of harm, using his levin sword to block a whirlwind of successive attacks that he hadn't thought would be possible without a brave weapon. Still, he managed to block or evade each hit, only having to rely on his enchanted cloak to deflect damage twice.

"You're a strong one, aren't you?" Vincent said once Robin had pushed him back, the berserker clearly far more winded than his opponent from the onslaught.

"I'd like to think so." Robin replied as calmly as before, although he had no reason to try delaying their fight any longer. He primed another thoron shot, easing his grip on his sword in anticipation of his own light flurry of attacks.

Vincent opened his mouth as if to say something more, but was cut off when Robin sliced forward with his sword, barely missing the man's upper chest as sparks from the weapon fell onto his clothing. Two more similar strikes pushed the berserker backward, and another three forced them to dodge toward Robin's right, directly into firing range for his magic.

Thunder ripped through the air and into Vincent's chest, searing past cloth and skin as a beam of energy tore into and then out of the man's body. Vincent collapsed forward to the ground in short order, his axe falling harmlessly into the snow as his face became obscured by white.

Robin approached the man's body carefully, as though they would jump up and attack him at any given moment. He kicked their axe further away into the snow and bent down to examine the wound he had inflicted.

Based on what he had assumed from the berserker's physical strength, Robin had believed that they would be able to withstand far more than a single shot of magic, no matter how powerful. However, upon inspecting the body closely, he was proven wrong, with the man before him being well and truly dead. He considered for a moment that he may have simply not fully known his own strength, but was pulled from his thoughts when the other remaining bandit dashed into his vicinity.

"Gods… Vincent…" the second bandit leader breathed, their voice barely more than a whisper. He quickly turned his gaze on Robin, the grandmaster already in the process of preparing another spell. "You! You took Vincent from me! I'll kill you!"

Victor threw his axe at Robin in a characteristic rage, the tactician easily sidestepping out of its trajectory before firing off his spell. Thunder magic ripped through the air once more, his second shot boasting much of the same effects as his first. Victor fell to the ground in the same manner as Vincent, and Robin walked up the second body the same as the first.

He nudged their side with one foot, examining them this time without lowering down into the snow. "Hm… interesting. I guess I've actually gotten a bit stronger with my casting recently. Weird, I haven't done too much training aside from wiping the floor with Kjelle…"

Victor coughed, causing the grandmaster to jump backward and rapidly prepare another spell. "Vincent…" he croaked. "I see flowers… can you see them, too…? They're so… beautiful…"

Robin fired off his second thoron shot at Victor, eviscerating his skull with a precise hit to the back of the head. The grandmaster then evened out his breathing, his surprise having gotten the better of his judgement for a split second, though he knew that the results of his actions would have been the same either way.

He placed away his tome, deciding that he no longer had any use for it now that there were no visible enemies and the clamour of conflict had faded entirely. Staring at the bodies of the bandit leaders, he reasoned that he hadn't grown far stronger; rather, the two had been exceptionally weak to his magical attacks. Testing his theory, he carefully lowered his sword into Victor's exposed upper arm, and found that the toned skin and thick muscle on the man was as weak as he had believed, even when the man had died and stripped his body of its proper reactivity.

Oddly, knowing that he hadn't grown far stronger and that the bandits had instead not been resilient enough to shrug off his attacks didn't bother him. Robin placed away his sword within his cloak as well, staring at the body for a short time longer before he shook his head clear and decided to search for Kjelle. He jumped again when he turned to the direction he thought she would be approaching from, the knight having rapidly appeared only a few metres from him almost as silently as Kellam.

Kjelle stopped sprinting as she neared him, holding her knees and breathing hard in a vain attempt to calm her body and mind alike. After a few moments and various failed methods of soothing herself, Kjelle raised her head to take in the scene Robin had caused. She saw the two bodies lying in the snow and was instantly able to place them as Vincent and Victor, the bandit leaders that had intimidated her for good reason, and placed away her weapon when she accepted that they would present no more danger.

"You killed them both? Ha, of course you did… and that one even managed to cause me a little bit of trouble." she angled her head toward Victor, and only in doing so did she realise the absence of the man's full head. "Holy shit, you know what overkill means, right?"

"Honestly, that one didn't go down nearly as easily as I would've thought." Robin admitted, also angling his head toward Victor and ignoring her second question.

"Well, that's… good to know, I guess…" Kjelle said, pausing before proceeding on less certain ground. "Hey, did you ever think that these guys could be helped? Like reformed, or… something?"

Robin tilted his head, confounded by the question. "Well, yeah, obviously. Why wouldn't they have been reformable?"

"But we… we killed them." Kjelle recoiled, as surprised by his answer as her heart's refusal to let the concept of their salvation go. Would she have somehow been stronger if she had done something as difficult as saving the unsaved? "Why would we do that if they could've been reformed?"

"They were bandits, Kjelle. Slavers, pillagers, cutthroats, and whatever else. They weren't exactly worth saving." Robin replied calmly, understanding still maintaining its distance from him as he tried to decipher Kjelle's horror. "Like you said, it's a question of whether their life was worth the damage they had done. Their reformation wouldn't have been equal to it, so we have to stop them. It's as simple as that. We still shouldn't make a game of taking lives, but we need to know the value of one life opposed to another."

Kjelle grimaced, her eyes locking onto the berserker's fallen forms as her mind raced through images of the battle's dead. "These people… they had dreams, and ideals, and… and families, like you said. Why wouldn't that be worth trying to save? ...Do you seriously think that it wouldn't have been worth it, that their lives weren't worth it?"

"Everything that they've done, and everything that they have the potential to do… that can't be forgotten." Robin explained as serenely as before. "Sometimes, a few people have to die so that far more can live. This is one of those times. You said about as much yourself."

"Then what was all that stuff about earlier, when you were trying to convince me that their lives held value?" Kjelle asked, as aggrieved as she was annoyed. "Why would you bother giving me an emotional struggle like that and then take it away, and ignore it entirely?"

"It wasn't supposed to be an emotional struggle. Their lives have value, and we need to know that when we take it away we're also taking that value away. It's not a reason for struggle, though, since we're doing what's best."

"But how can we know that?" Kjelle refuted, her voice growing stronger as she found figurative ground to stand on. "How could taking the lives of people who could do good, or even merely not do evil, ever be better than letting them live?" She had been regarding Robin under such a lens recently, it felt wrong to accept anything else.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Robin asked with the same genuine incertitude as earlier.

"You-!" Kjelle raised her voice as if to shout him down, or refute him with even greater certainty, but cut herself off and narrowed her eyes as she grew suspicious. "Are you doing this on purpose?"

Robin blinked, his confusion giving way to a plan for an advantageous situation. "I don't know what you mean."

Kjelle stared at him with narrowed eyes for long enough to make him question his plan and grow wholly uneasy. Eventually, she turned around and started walking away from him, to the westward woods in which they had moored their horses. Robin flinched, her actions nullifying his entire plan before it could even properly begin.

He raised his hand and took one step forward to stop her, but was cut off when she stopped moving and spoke. "I'm going to go double-tap the bodies west of here and get the horses. If you can get the ones here and to the east, we can meet up at the village and talk to Anna. Flavia's reports mentioned that she may have an interest in joining the Shepherds, if you recall."

"Um… okay." Robin said weakly as he returned to a normal standing position, his mind focused entirely on how he could spin his situation into a means of proving his drive to her - or at least, what he wanted her to believe his drive was.

Before he could say anything, Kjelle spoke again. "You're not Grima, Robin."

"What?" Robin asked, closing his mouth as soon as he realised how horribly his voice had instantaneously begun to shake. His entire body was wracked with tremors, and he found that he was unable to prime a spell due to how tumultuous the movement in his hands had grown, his mind devolving into a haze as he tried to calm the intense heat that was burning through his frigid veins, numbing him and willing every aspect of his body to shut down.

He took in an incredibly sharp breath, the haze in his mind becoming borderline painful as he attempted to right himself. This was what he had wanted, to be himself and not Grima, but now that someone else was acknowledging it like this, it felt more wrong than anything he could remember. He wanted it, but didn't, and now he found himself fearing it more than anything else.

Thankful that Kjelle had kept her back to him, Robin ceased the futile movements of his hands as his mind took control over his actions once again. A tremor in his chest reminded him of how horrible he had been about to act, and how horribly he could act, and he found himself shaking with an even greater intensity.

"Whatever happens, you're you and not Grima." Kjelle explained, her back still facing him as she gazed at the forest on the distant edge of her vision. "Everything evil or twisted about you, that's Grima, not you. I now know that much. And I know that you'll be able to overcome it, no matter what, because that's who you are. You'll kill the fell dragon, because you're Robin, and Robin is powerful enough to manage that, no matter how dangerous or evil Grima may be."

Robin's shaking faded and his breathing slowed as he realised what she was talking about, feeling returning to his body equally as fast. Once he had calmed enough, he dared to open his mouth again, the tremors having faded almost entirely. "...Thanks, Kjelle. That means a lot. I'll meet you at the village." he paused, allowing her to resume moving as he lowered his register and muttered a few more words he hoped she would still be able to hear. "...Even if it is the most naive thing anyone's ever said…"

Kjelle tensed, clearly hearing him, but made no comment and soon began her walk back to the forest west of the snowfields. Robin watched her leave until he was certain that she was at a range where she wouldn't be able to see anything he did properly, then began to examine the two bandit leaders lying in the snow at his feet.

Nodding at his own work, he was easily able to place that the damage he had done was on par with or exceeding all that he had used for the past year and a half of his memory. His eyes neither widened nor narrowed, and he simply took the scene in as though it were the most common thing in the world for him.

He turned away from the bodies and vomited into the snow at his feet.

* * *

Kjelle was leaning against the village's eastern exterior wall, her arms crossed and one foot tapping into the snow impatiently. She was waiting for Robin, the grandmaster having taken far longer than anticipated to complete his designated cleanup, though she supposed that such a thing could be expected from someone who only a few days ago hadn't known that the risen were once human beings.

Her lance was propped up against the wall next to her, her own blood still dripping icily down its length as she neglected cleaning it until she had ended her vigilant watch. An odd, not entirely unwelcome concern was welling up within her, due in part to Robin's absence and his comments on her supposed naivete. She attributed it to the side of her that persisted in labelling him as Grima and all that was foul from her time, and in doing so effectively subdued it for a while longer.

Anna was waiting inside the village for her and Robin's arrival, her patience far out matching Kjelle's. The Shepherd horses were also at rest within the village's stables, undoubtedly lavishing in comfort that Kjelle almost resented them for as she cracked her third layer of frost off of her armour. She sneezed, and decided that if she fell ill, she would curse them for the rest of her days.

Later, after far longer than Kjelle would ever have preferred despite the time elapsed only consisting of less than an hour, Robin reappeared. He approached the village from the east, as she had known he would, and stopped a short distance from her.

"Took you long enough." Kjelle said, pushing herself off the wall and reaching for her lance in order to make her way to the village.

"Were you waiting for me? Sorry…" Robin apologised weakly, rubbing the back of his head timidly.

Kjelle furrowed her brow, the man's demeanor and expression having shifted into something entirely different from what she had known less than an hour ago. "Are you okay? You look… sick."

"I'm fine. Thanks for worrying, though." Robin reassured her, dismissing her concerns with a casual wave of his hand and an easy smile intended to prove his health, although even he knew that it came across as exceptionally weak and halted the action immediately.

"At least you're back to your normal self now… ish." Kjelle sighed, grabbing and holding her lance at her side and gesturing toward the village gates, urging Robin to follow her inside.

He didn't follow, instead remaining rooted in place as he cocked his head to one side. "What do you mean?"

"You know, the not-Grima side of you." Kjelle explained with what she considered an irrational amount of unease. "C'mon, let's get inside an inn. Anna's waiting on us, and I really need to clean my lance."

Robin nodded, only taking one step before he stopped again, much to Kjelle's chagrin. "Good gods, that thing's covered in blood! That… that's not all from double tapping, is it?"

"I, ah… I kinda… got stabbed by it, a little bit." Kjelle explained with more unease and additional embarrassment. Robin stared at her incredulously, willing her to explain herself further without saying anything. "I messed up a spell and accidently threw my lance at one of the bandit leaders, okay?"

"And they ran you through with it?" Robin guessed the end of her story, and she nodded, biting down her increasing embarrassment. "I guess you can't melt the blood if it's frozen, since your lance's fire magic will only heat its targets and not its base… well, damn. I guess you're way stronger than I thought of you managed to pull that out of yourself. ...Honestly, I'm kind of relieved." he advanced toward her to inspect the lance, but Kjelle refused to remove it from its position near her side.

"The hell do you mean by that?" she asked, her tone nothing short of accusatory.

"Well… I kind of thought for a second that you intentionally let the bandit leader come after me. Or that you had gotten yourself hurt. I didn't want either case to be true."

Kjelle recoiled, offended more than she had previously considered possible as she ignored everything before his first statement. "You think I would run and hide from a strong opponent!? That I would cower in fear, and let the people relying on me die like they were nothing!? That I would lock the doors and-!?"

Robin waved his hands in front of his body, disarming her before she could explode completely at him. "That's not what I meant! I thought that you might have wanted to use them as means of defeating me. You know, avert the whole ruined future thing?"

"Ah… right." Kjelle calmed almost immediately, becoming torn as to whether she should lock onto his face or hide from his gaze completely.

"...That was kind of specific." Robin stated evenly. "You okay? Want to talk about anything?"

Kjelle shook her head, deciding to avoid his gaze as she turned toward the village entrance. "You know… ruined future, and all that." she said dismissively.

"...Right." Robin dropped whatever was troubling her, not believing her for a second. "I guess we'll have to prevent that from ever happening, then."

Smiling, Kjelle risked a glance back to him and realised she had made the right call when a warmth spread through her at the very sight of his own undemanding smile. "If anyone can do it, it'll be us."

* * *

 **That ashen lance? Definitely not the flame lance from Path of Radiance. Also, ether? Definitely not ripped from Xenoblade. Not a chance.**

 **Status: As of 06-06-18, I'm on chapter 27, which is turning out to be one of the if not the longest I've made yet. It's kind of fitting, since it's used to wrap up so many plot threads, but there's still way more to go.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	12. Chapter 12

"What do you mean you aren't going to join the Shepherds?"

"I mean that I'm not joining the Shepherds. Simple as that." Anna shrugged, earning a wholeheartedly uncomprehending expression of shock from the tactician sat across from her.

The two were seated at a table in the first inn Anna had come across upon entering the Feroxi village, which by only pure coincidence also happened to be the cheapest. Their seats were central to the building's floor plan, with the fact that no other seats were occupied or showed any indication of recent occupation causing Robin to rest slightly on edge.

"But… they're the Shepherds." Robin said plainly, as if doing so would convince her to reconsider. "They're the most lovable, amazing people in the world… how could you not want to work with them?"

"I'm sure you're not biased in that estimation in the slightest." Anna deadpanned, her features becoming unassuming but marginally unwelcoming. Her eyes closed halfway, and her usual cheery smile replaced itself with a small frown.

Robin's face fell into its own deadpan expression that mimicked hers almost perfectly, and she couldn't resist the urge to break out into a smile. "Hey, you're pretty good at that! Wanna hold it for a little while so I can get some sketches of it? I'm sure there are people in one place of the world or another who'd love to have a picture of a disappointed grandmaster hanging on their wall!"

"It's really not worth trying to convince her to join." Kjelle spoke up from her position several metres to the side of their table. She was seated on the ground without a chair, her legs crossed as she went about meticulously cleaning her lance in a portable washbasin that had been provided to her by the innkeeper upon request. "She's an Anna, and they're all the same. Once she's made up her mind, on a sale or anything else, it'll be next to impossible to talk her into something different."

"Hey!" Anna cried out, using the table to push herself into a partial stand at Kjelle's insolence. "I'll have you know that each Anna is entirely unique and, by contract, is the only proprietor of their soul unless otherwise stated. To assume that we all act the same is derogatory, and I could very well sue you for… defamation, or something? Sorry, I'm kind of new to this. Regardless, I would only join if I knew that doing so would be of considerable benefit."

"So you're saying you would, in fact, consider joining the Shepherds if Robin were able to convince you that it would be a good venture? Like any other business-minded Anna?" Kjelle asked, taking a moment from her work on her lance to look over at Anna.

The merchant tensed before sinking down into her seat. "Well, that… shut up."

Kjelle returned to her lance, largely uninterested with their affairs, but not before giving a final piece of advice to Robin. "It's probably best that we get to our next destination soon, and don't dawdle for too long here. Besides, the Shepherds should be fine with the Anna they already have."

"There's no Anna in the Shepherds." Robin corrected her with a completely measured voice. "Remember how there's differences between what you thought was happening and what actually happened? That must be one of them."

"What? But-" Kjelle started, but caught herself before she could expose having read the entry in Robin's journal that expressly mentioned Anna in the Plegian war, although she instantly grew to suspect the grandmaster of miscommunication, if not outright dishonesty. "Right… my bad."

Anna leaned over the table toward Robin, flashing a coy smile as she brought her mouth close to his ear and whispered, cupping her hand so that Kjelle wouldn't be able to hear her. "Just so you're aware, I already know about all of her and her friends' time travel shenanigans." Kjelle's head whipped toward her, the knight clearly hearing Anna despite the merchant's attempt to remain quiet.

Robin found himself shocked yet again, his surprise barely outweighing his concern for how Anna had come across her information. "What!? How do you know that?"

"Whoopsies! Guess that was supposed to be insider info, huh?" Anna returned to her seat and smiled widely, clearly not reserving any care for the incredibly delicate information she possessed.

"Seriously, explain." Robin requested sternly, his voice cold. "That's a really, really delicate matter that a lot of people want to keep secret."

"Don't worry, I'm not about to extort you for my silence. After all, everyone knows that Chrom has ultimate say in matters in Ylisstol; I'd have to go extort him." Anna joked, Robin frowning throughout. "...Alright, sheesh. No need to be so harsh."

"Khan Flavia has been working with the Secret Sellers for a long, long time." she explained. "My sisters would all be sent out to find these really rare and legendary weapons, and then transfer them to a shop at Port Ferox for her to pick up. Apparently, she's planning something big for Ferox and Ylisse in Plegia, and wants a lot of weapons to handle whatever it is."

"So you're the ones who found those weapons…" Robin muttered, allowing her to continue after his brief interruption.

"Anyway, before we started working for her, Flavia made sure to explain pretty much everything that was happening. That includes all of the time travel stuff, and who the Shepherds are, and what you do, and blah blah blah."

"When did she tell you all of that?" Kjelle asked skeptically, though she knew that Flavia was realistically the only person who could have informed the Annas of her time.

Anna shrugged. "Me, personally? I heard about it a few weeks ago, when I first got called into this mess by my older sisters. Some of them have apparently been in talks with her for a few months, at the least. Most of them were the ones who carried the weapons - I'm just running out to the port to deliver a payment, and collect some dues while I'm there."

"Did your sisters ever run any of the recon for Flavia themselves?" Robin asked, already determined to pry as much information from the merchant as possible.

"Not that I know of." Anna answered honestly, easily seeing that he would be persistent with his line of questions but herself not exactly caring. "If I remember correctly, they were told that all of the recon work was done by a Shepherd named… 'Gaius', I think?"

Robin nodded and advanced onward to a new question. "Do you know what exactly Flavia was going to do in Plegia?"

Shrugging again, Anna smiled her more-than-likely trademarked smile at him. "Not really. I'm assuming something major involving some pretty big battles, but that's all conjecture."

"Technically, that's better than anything we were going off of…" Robin murmured. "And you're certain that you don't want to cooperate with the Shepherds at all?"

"Sorry, but I'm still on the job for Flavia. Maybe once things die down a little bit, since it would be nice to have a more stable operation - honestly, I'm not thinking I'm cut out for this line of work." her smile faded into a small frown, though it was still far more cheery than what either Robin or Kjelle would have mustered in her position. "This stuff's pretty stressful, y'know? Selling day in and day out, working with world leaders, selling stuff to them, finding more things to sell…"

Her face brightened and her smile returned all at once. "If you want, you could check with one of my cousins nearby. She's been pretty discontented with business lately, so she may be willing to join you guys for a while. There's a batch of ruins used by bandits up to the northeast, and she set out to rai- er, uh, 'liberate' them a little while ago. You should be able to meet her there if you hurry."

"Sure thing." Robin smiled and thanked her, Anna's smile growing all the brighter in return. "If you decide to join the Shepherds, you can wait at the port for Chrom or I to show up. There'd be some stuff for you to fill out, and Chrom would probably want to talk to you for a little while, but it's all really simple stuff."

"Aw, thanks for the offer!" Anna beamed. "I'll… think about it, and get back to you later, I guess."

Robin nodded with decidedly less cheer than her, but with cheer all the same. "I'd offer you a form to complete right now, but I would need to have your guarantee that you wouldn't… you know…"

Anna tilted her head, confused. "No, I don't. 'You know' what?"

"Sell it to the highest bidder?" Kjelle finished for him, her own mockingly satirical smile manifesting at Robin's burgeoning unease.

Glaring intensely at Kjelle, and then far more intensely at a cowering Robin, Anna scowled. "Stereotypes like that are what make me not want to be an Anna. We aren't all about money, you know?"

"Sorry, sorry… I shouldn't judge you like that." Robin quickly apologised. "If you want, I can give you one of the forms to look over right now. No hard feelings?"

Anna watched as he reached into his cloak and pulled out several pages of parchment that were clipped and folded together. She accepted them when he handed them over, scanning them quickly before slipping them into one of her absurdly deep multitudinous pockets. "No hard feelings. And… thanks, mister pushover."

She slowly pushed herself up from the table, stretching her legs and then arms as she rose. "Well, thanks for the help with those bandits. I've got a long road ahead of me, so I'll probably only see you two again if I decide to stay at the port. 'Till then." Giving a small and clearly unnatural bow, she said and accepted goodbyes to and from Robin and Kjelle, and then exited through the inn doors into the cold white beyond.

"Is she going to leave right now?" Kjelle asked in disbelief as the merchant disappeared into the cold afternoon sunlight that wandered in hough the open door. It shut and remained closed. "Oh. Okay, then."

"I guess she's eager to get to the port." Robin smiled in contentment, more to himself and for Anna than to Kjelle.

"Guess so." Kjelle sighed, returning to her lance in order to finish her cleaning work. "Was what you said about not having an Anna in the Shepherds true? I thought that you…" she hesitated, remaining wary about how much information she could reasonably expose to him. "...would still have had some help from them, like during the Plegian war or something?"

"Uh, well… yeah, they helped a bit?" Robin said hesitantly, not wanting to overstep his bounds and assume that the Annas had done too much or too little than they actually had. "We bought a lot of stuff from some of them, and I think they stuck around through some battles, but those were mostly the Shepherds trying to make sure that they didn't get their caravans torn apart by risen. There were never any permanent joiners."

"Ah… I guess that makes sense…" Kjelle lost herself to her recollection of his journal for a moment before remembering that she would need to cover her tracks enough for Robin not to suspect her. The fear for his prospective innocence or guilt remained present throughout her mind and body alike. "They were fairly influential in my time, actually." she partially lied before slipping back into honesty. "She was strong, too - she survived the Valmese war, and well into the conflict against Grima."

"Sounds like it made sense to invite her, then." Robin said casually, but with a gravity that always seemed to appear whenever either of them mentioned her future. "Let's hope her cousin joins, too."

"Yeah. Let's hope." Kjelle agreed quietly, her focus transferring almost solely over to cleaning her lance. Robin left his table to talk about vacancies with the innkeeper, their time dedicated to recuperating after the battle set to last until early tomorrow, when they would yet again have to take to the roads for a full day of travel.

He returned with two room keys, passing one along to Kjelle as she completed her caretaking on her lance. She sneezed loudly and effeminately into the crook of her arm upon accepting it, the only thing silencing Robin from breaking out into a fit of laughter at the unexpected absurdity of it being her harsh glare that followed soon after.

Before going to sleep, Kjelle showed Robin the way to where she had enclosed their horses in the inn's conjoined stable. She attempted to pass Robin his bags before she reached for hers, but he darted ahead of her and took each for himself before she could lay a finger on them.

"There's no way you're touching my bags if you're sick." Robin said, holding the pouches protectively in front of his chest. "I don't want to get infected with… whatever it is you have."

"I'm not sick, I-" contradicting herself perfectly, she sneezed in as loud and effeminate of a manner as in the inn. This time, Robin couldn't help but let out an almost inaudible airy laugh at her eroded composure.

"Is there a problem?" she glared at him again, to far less of her desired effect than than the first time.

"Not at all." Robin grinned. "It's just that you always put up this really tough front and talk about duels and getting stronger… but, when it comes to sneezing, you can't help but make the highest pitched and overall girly sound imaginable. It really reminds me that, after everything, you regrettably are only a woman."

"The hell is that supposed to mean!?" Kjelle asked, her glare remaining wholly present on her features.

"Based on your response, it means… congrats, you're definitely Sully's daughter." Robin smiled, this time with more genuine happiness than before. "That was kind of a dick move on my part, but I got the type of results I wanted. I'm guessing sexism is as big of a thing to you as her, huh?"

Kjelle blinked, taken aback by his shift away from mockery into what she could only understand as authentic commendation. "Yeah, I guess. Armies ruled by men don't tend to look too kindly on women, and both my mother and myself have always been pretty set on proving ourselves their betters."

"You don't need to tell me twice…" Robin muttered under his breath, maintaining his sense of levity in a hushed tone. "She's always been pretty good at wiping the floor with me whenever we trained together, and she was always pleased as hell to have it happen. Same goes for practically all of the male Shepherds fighting her."

"Really? She managed to beat you?" Kjelle asked incredulously. "Is she really that strong…?"

"My win to loss ratio with her is probably about… forty percent, I think?" Robin admitted with lesser cheer, though his smile remained intact. Kjelle's jaw dropped, causing him to quickly jump to his own defense. "I mean, to be fair, about half of our duels don't have any magic in them and she's practically granted to win those, but even when I use magic she's an incredible opponent. I've lost a few times despite using my strongest of spells."

"She's seriously that strong…?" Kjelle breathed in amazement before shaking her head clear and fixating on Robin. "I guess I have a lot of training ahead of me, then. I'll prove myself stronger than you, and Lucina, and Chrom… stronger than all the men in the Shepherds, and maybe even my mother, too."

"Why Lucina?" Robin asked, making idle conversation until she remembered to grab her bags.

"She's always managed to beat me, and always without a trace of magic." Kjelle confessed. "Speed, strength, skill, dexterity… she's always been my better in every field, provided that my armour as a knight didn't grant me any inherent advantages over her. If anyone is worth defeating in a duel without the utmost need to prove my superiority to them, it's her."

"That's some pretty high praise." Robin nodded at her, silently gesturing toward the bags on her horse in the hopes that he would noninvasively convince her to collect them.

"Yeah, well, if anyone's deserving of it, it's her." Kjelle beamed, clearly more pleased by the other woman's success than envious. She didn't catch Robin's hint toward her bags, and instead stepped toward him - away from her horse - to ask another question. "What are the other Shepherd's win to loss ratios against you like? Is anyone better than mother?"

Robin stepped backward, out of the direct line of fire for anything that may render him ill. "Uh… Cordelia, Chrom, and Frederick all have better ratios than her, in that order. Sully would be fourth, followed by Lon'qu, then… I think Tharja? Maybe? The physical records are still back in Ylisstol, so you should probably check them when you get back if you're still curious."

"I thought you said that all of the other Shepherd mages were better than you in a fair fight?"

"Lucky for me, I don't always play fair." Robin flashed another grin, though the action came off as self-deprecating rather than arrogant.

"I probably should have assumed that." Kjelle broke into a small smile of her own, and was relieved to see that Robin's only brightened. "What about my father? How does he compare?'

"Sorry, he's not very high up." Robin apologised, his remorse somehow genuine despite his urge to brag. "Probably in one of the lowest percentiles, to be honest - he's so middling, he doesn't really have the ability to shine in at least one way like the others and beat me in normal combat."

Kjelle furrowed her brow in confusion. "That doesn't sound like my father. He was always one of the stronger Shepherds, after he was able to grow during the Plegian war. ...Sully married Donnel, right?"

Now it was Robin's turn to furrow his brow. "What? No, she's heavily involved with Stahl."

"With Stahl?" Kjelle balked, an awkward burst of laughter escaping from her and overpowering her urge to grimace. "Oh gods, she'll break his heart. Are you sure they're even serious?"

"Trust me, they're serious." Robin said, his face more grim and stony than Kjelle had ever seen. "...I'll never be able to get away from those memories… ugh…" he shuddered in disgust.

"There's no way they're serious." Kjelle laughed awkwardly again. "She and my father, Donnel, were and are a perfect match. Stahl's relationship is merely an afterthought, compared to that."

"Alright, now you get to share in the scarring too." Robin said, his voice gravely serious

* * *

Hooves pounded into soft, muddied earth at a frantic pace, splashing grimy water high into the air. Frederick's lance tore through another footsoldier of the Plegian army, the water beneath his horse gaining a red lustre as it erupted into the sky from his hurried movements.

"Woo, that's another one down!" the tactician seated on the back of his horse shouted, raising high in triumph the one arm that wasn't clasped firmly around the great knight.

"This isn't something to celebrate, Robin." Frederick stated coldly. "We need to get back to Ferox before the brunt of the Plegian forces can confront us. Quite literally losing Shepherds in our escape is nothing to 'woo' at."

"Whatever. One more of theirs fallen means we're one step closer to finding them, and one stage further in avenging Emmeryn." Robin sank back into his seat, his mouth threatening to distort into a pout.

Sunlight had long since returned to prominence over the Midmire of western Plegia, with the rainfall of the previous night remaining steadfast and slick on the ground. The Shepherds had established a camp far to the north of Frederick and Robin's current position, near the border wall of Ferox, and were set to cross into allied territory as soon as they were able to retrieve Stahl, Libra, and Lon'qu, the three members of their rank that had been unable to reach the rendezvous point that had been established shortly before conflict had broken out in the wastes.

"Emmeryn wouldn't want that. This. More death and conflict… it's the last thing she would have desired." Frederick shook his head in distaste. "We as Shepherds should strive to uphold her ideals, and end this war swiftly, if not peacefully."

"Nobody would ever be content with that." Robin argued, albeit weakly as he swiftly came to realise that he was unwittingly playing the devil's advocate. "Didn't you hear Gangrel? How he wanted to end all Ylisseans as his greatest ambition? Do you honestly think that citizens of Plegia, or inversely those of Ylisse, think any differently?"

"Should they not, then it is our responsibility lead them on the path of peace, as lady Emmeryn would have desired. Shepherds to guide the sheep, and all that." he took a sharp turn on his horse, pulling himself and his companion onto a side path bordered by high natural walls that promised less interference from enemy forces than the more common roads.

"Fair enough." Robin acquiesced, ensuring that his voice didn't show his disappointment and instead came across as pleasant as possible.

They progressed on through the Midmire for several minutes, each person constantly checking their flanks and peripherals for any sign of both enemies and their missing friends, though neither appeared. Other Shepherds intermittently made appearances, Cordelia and Sumia swooping down from the sky to examine points of interest and subsets of unmounted Shepherds moving in groups to comb their designated areas while avoiding the mass of the Plegian army.

To Emmeryn's credit, the few soldiers Robin, Frederick, and all of the other Shepherds participating in the hunt had encountered were largely demoralised and showed no signs of putting up a proper fight. That didn't stop Frederick and the others from striking them down, even if it made them feel somewhat guilty - they were still at war, a fact both Robin and Chrom had vehemently restated before initiating the mission.

Cordelia touched down near the duo, both her and her search partner Olivia dismounting to approach them. Frederick slowed his pace considerably to accommodate for them, nodding curtly as they drew near his mount.

"Got anything to report?" Robin asked after his own curt nod, all too aware that their arrival could denote something horrible.

"The Plegian army is rallying to the east and south, and appear to be preparing to launch an assault against our forces." Cordelia spoke up, the timid dancer at her side fidgeting in place silently. "Sumia and I have already relayed this to Chrom, and he's ordered a retreat over the Feroxi border. He wants us to call the search here, at least for now."

Robin opened his mouth to defy her orders, his desire to protect the Shepherds shining through even when he was faced with a direct order from a superior, but was cut off when Olivia's voice burst into the Midmire's silence. "B-But… we can't do that! We have to find them!"

"That's exactly what I was going to say,and I bet Chrom is probably counting on the same." Robin smiled, his eyebrows rising when it faded. "Why do you care so much, though? You're fairly new and haven't exactly had time for Chrom's or Emm's friendship and hope spiel to worm into you. Why bother helping us?"

"W-Well… I-I…" Olivia stammered, shrinking under his unusually intense gaze. "I-It's just that… s-sir Lon'qu was hurt trying to help me fend off a group of wyvern riders. I don't want him to d-die because I wasn't able to return the favour…"

Cordelia winked at Frederick and Robin, the former cocking his head in confusion. Robin, also not understanding her subtle gesture, ignored it entirely.

The tactician lightened his gaze considerably, removing the unnecessarily scrutinising glare from his eyes. "Sounds good. Let's go find them."

Olivia blinked, taken aback by his sudden support. "R-Really? Just like that, you'll defy Chrom and keep looking for them?"

"Being completely honest here? I wasn't going to stop anyway." Robin shrugged, his form barely visible to the dancer from his position behind Frederick.

"Told you." Cordelia whispered to Olivia, a small smirk hiding in plain sight on her face.

"Lord Chrom has given us the order to retreat." Frederick stated coldly, not daring to move his horse either northward to Ferox or south further into Plegia. "Would you all truly act against the clear and direct orders of your new ruler?"

"I-I'm Feroxi…" Olivia quietly murmured, Frederick's subsequent glare forcing her to hide away behind Cordelia.

"Alright, Frederick: as your commanding officer and tactician to lord Chrom, I hereby order you to find and retrieve Lon'qu, Libra, and Stahl." Robin commanded with a stern tone to almost match that of Frederick's own. "Now, chop chop. We've got a lot of work to do."

"I am a knight commander, Robin. You are a tactician. I technically outrank you." Frederick reminded the not-yet-a-grandmaster, perhaps in even colder of a tone than usual. "If Chrom has ordered a retreat, then I say we obey."

"Frederick!" Cordelia gasped. "If we leave now, the friends we've left here will die. How could we ever abandon them knowing that?"

"We've already lost Emmeryn as well as Phila." Frederick said, his voice growing ever colder and intermingling flawlessly with the chilled evening air of the Midmire. "I say we cut our losses now and regroup. I would prefer to not lose the remainder of my lieges on a fool's errand."

Robin spoke, ignoring the distasteful expression working its way over Cordelia's features and the fear wreaking havoc on Olivia's. "It'd only be the four of us. Lissa and Chrom can have their retreat and be safe, but we still have people to bring home. Don't you think that losing them would be as bad for us, and your 'lieges', as anything imaginable?"

"That's why I must protect as many of your lives as possible, so that they don't become burdened with grief. That's why I won't allow four more people to rush to their deaths in the hopes that three would be saved." Frederick was grimacing now, his features having descended into a coldness Robin was afraid he could match all too easily.

"Hmph. Pragmatic. I can respect that." Robin stated in a measured tone, earning a rapid glare from Cordelia that was swiftly redirected onto Frederick.

"No matter what you say, I'm going, and I'll bring them back with or without your help." the pegasus rider turned from them and, with a graceful flourish befitting of her role as a to-be commander, remounted her steed with Olivia in tow and departed for the skies once again.

Frederick opened his mouth and reached out as if to stop her, but held silent and allowed them to leave. Without he or Robin saying another word for several moments, they watched as the silhouette of her pegasus slowly disappeared into the horizon before Frederick turned his horse around and set out for the northern border.

"Wait, you're actually going to leave them?" Robin asked once it became apparent that Frederick wasn't about to undergo a spontaneous change of heart.

"This is my duty. I act in the best interests of the halidom of Ylisse… no matter what." he didn't turn around to face Robin, instead keeping his gaze locked on the barren path before him.

"To hell with that! We have Shepherds to save! My orders are to turn around and find them - that's your duty, and that's what'll help Chrom and Lissa the most!"

"I outrank you, tactician. We're leaving." Frederick reiterated icily, then shuddered. "If… if Cordelia wishes to rush toward her death, then… there's nothing I can do. Duty always comes first."

Robin rolled his eyes even though Frederick would be incapable of seeing him. "I'll ask Chrom for a promotion when we get back to Ferox so you can say you were following orders. That we all were."

"My apologies, Robin, but this is what must be done." Frederick shuddered again, but continued on regardless.

"Well, then… this is goodbye." Robin pushed off the back of his horse, landing steadily on his feet with a splash of mud thay quickly ran off of his cloak, but stuck to his pants and boots. He smiled as the muck avoided spraying anywhere above his waistline, missing any of his little exposed skin entirely.

Frederick had his horse pirouette instantly, rearing it up and bringing it down in a puddle facing him, spraying mud all over the tactician's body. "Are you insane? We've yet to win the war - losing you would endanger far more, and would be certain to cause grief untold to my lieges!"

Robin recoiled, his legs weakening to the point that they threatened to give out entirely as he fearfully swiped mud off of himself. "W-What the hell did you do!? Oh gods, what if I die from this!?"

"You aren't going to die from a little mud." Frederick said plainly, his voice no longer frigid but in no way warm.

"Maybe there's… poison, or… evil mud monsters in this, or… something." Robin muttered sheepishly, realising only under Frederick's scrutinizing gaze how irrational he was acting.

"How on earth does Chrom trust you as a tactician if you can't handle a splash of mud?" Frederick questioned him as the man continued to wipe away the mud on his skin, albeit at a much more collected pace. "More importantly, how do you not lead us to our deaths in battle if that's all it takes for you to abandon your inhibitions?"

"I'm fine in battle, but not in… messes… grime, dirt…" Robin shuddered at the words, and reexamined himself to ensure that no mud remained on his skin or had pooled anywhere on his cloak. "Anyway, we're going after them. If not, then I'll become Cordelia's knight in shining armour all on my own and leave you in the dust."

Frederick tensed more than usual, his horse twitching once as the man's legs tightened around it to an even greater degree. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"Come on, you can't seriously think I'm that oblivious, can you?" Robin asked rhetorically, though Frederick's uncertain expression gave him reason to question the intended answer. "Also, you slipped some kind of love note thing in one of her troop reports from a few days before the execution. It's pretty obvious that you care for her when you call her a 'beauty to surpass Chr-'"

"I believe that's enough of that!" Frederick coughed loudly into his closed fist, a blush spreading over his face. He pushed his horse into a trot, holding one arm out toward Robin and using it to pull the tactician up behind him in one prompt movement.

"Are we going after them?" Robin asked after being abruptly hoisted up on top of the horse.

"I must see to it that no more Shepherds fall, in the best interests of my lieges, of course."

Robin smiled, wholly content with himself, and patted Frederick on the shoulder. "Nice. Onward, most noble of steeds; we've got Shepherds to rescue!"

Frederick reared his horse back, knocking Robin off into the mud beneath them once more. The tactician let loose a bold string of profanity as he was forced to yet again clean himself of the grime, the knight commander before him laughing quietly as he waited for him to finish before setting off in pursuit of Cordelia and Olivia.

* * *

Kjelle sneezed in her same loud and effeminate manner, her immune system courteous enough to wait until Robin had reached a lull in his story to operate. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"It's backstory - exposition so that the rest of this makes sense." Robin waved her question away, taking another cautionary step in the opposite direction of her as she sneezed again.

"Why the hell are you narrating this in the third person?" she asked as her voice slowly recovered from the effects of the sneeze. "You keep saying things like 'Robin did this' and 'Robin did that' instead of… well, you know, telling it like an actual story."

"You have to understand it somehow, right? This'll make all of that easier… probably." Robin shrugged, waiting for her to pass through another sneeze before speaking again. "Are you sure you're not dying or anything?"

"Shut up and finish the story." Kjelle ordered, covering her mouth and nose with one hand in an attempt to mitigate any further sneezes.

"Got it." Robin smiled, Kjelle's face falling when she realised how much worse and unnecessary the story was undoubtedly going to become based on the eagerness of his expression alone.

* * *

More mud than that from any of Robin's assisted falls and splashes sprayed into the air as Cordelia touched down roughly onto the downtrodden earth of the Midmire. An enemy squadron passed several hundred metres behind her, likely only visible to her highly trained eyes and from her position flying. They disappeared as she touched down, lost to the edge of the horizon as she and Olivia dismounted and made their way to the forts that dotted the small, regular hills of the landscape.

Cordelia drew her lance, Olivia doing the same with her sword as they neared the doors of the first fort. The dancer slowly opened the doors for several degrees before aggressively shoving them open, stepping back and to the side of the entryway so that Cordelia would have a clear line of sight on any potential opponents within.

Darkness and silence met them as they inched into the open space of the fort. Cordelia lowered her lance by a small amount when it became apparent that there were no soldiers within the fort, a quick scan easily telling her that neither friend nor foe was residing within the building's void. Olivia watched the knight paragon sweep the room and exit, closing the doors behind her as they advanced over to the next nearest fort, Cordelia's exceptionally well-trained pegasus trailing behind them at a respectable and inconspicuous distance.

The second fort proved as empty as the first, with the same being true for the one after that and all others in their vicinity. As they were preparing to take off again in search of another point of interest, a commotion broke out in front of the first of the forts they had approached.

Sounds of metal biting against metal rang clearly through the open air of their surroundings, and the duo found themselves rushing at as fast of a pace as they possibly could while remaining hidden. A bright blue light burst out of the thin windows of the fort, the world going dark again an instant later as the light faded.

Cordelia pressed herself close to the building's exterior walls, angling her head toward the doors in a silent gesture to Olivia to have her open them in a similar manner to before. The dancer complied, the door creaking open before being pushed dramatically out into the darkness of the room.

Another stream of light radiated out of the room, blinding Olivia and forcing her back a few steps into the relative safety of Cordelia's reach. A shout sounded within the fort, several masculine voices with thick accents calling out to one another in wordless cries of surprise. One yelled something about the door, and Olivia hurriedly rubbed the blue light from her eyes to prepare herself for an inevitable bout of fighting.

Steel flicked out of the dim fort interior, Cordelia masterfully catching the tip of a sword with the side of her lance and pushing the attacker back. She allowed her assailant to try attacking again, sidestepping as their sword swiped out of the darkness, and knocked the weapon out of their grip with a sidelong bash from her lance. Darting her hand deep into the building, she grabbed the attacker and yanked them out of the fort's safety.

In the dim light that remained outside, she was easily able to see that her attacker wasn't a confused Shepherd, but rather a member of the Plegian military. She rammed the butt of her lance into their head before they could rise, knocking them unconscious in a single strike.

Olivia cleared her sight and peered cautiously into the fort as Cordelia stood flush against the wall next to the doorway once more. The light within the fort was incredibly low, the entire structure being lit only with a few strands of dying orange light that barely covered a quarter of the dusty but otherwise spotless floor. She was able to discern several forms shifting around within, a surge of blue illuminating them and granting her enough time to screw her eyes shut before the true flash of light erupted. The flash was visible even through her eyelids, and she struggled upon opening them in another fit of disorientation that passed far faster than the first.

Cordelia nudged past her, her lance raised to deflect any oncoming attacks. One of the forms in the darkness fell to the ground, their head falling into a shaft of sunlight revealing them as a member of the Plegian army. The form that had cut them down took a hit from another shape, and a third flash of blue followed soon thereafter.

In the illumination of the early flash, Cordelia was able to clearly see four full forms, one being the the caster of the blue magic who appeared to be aiding one of the other silhouettes, with two other forms attacking the person being healed. They were both pushed back several metres in the time it took Cordelia to approach, and she quickly jabbed low with her lance to damage one of their legs, causing them to fall to the ground in shock as much as pain.

The healed form rushed forward, their sword glinting in a thin shaft of light as they bought it down on the body Cordelia hadn't attacked. Their target fell from the single blow, hitting the ground hard and unmoving. The swordsman swiped out to their side and felled the assailant she had attacked, their stance wavering as the last of the bodies hit the ground.

Olivia stepped out from behind the pegasus knight, having been too timid to attack and support her, but also having managed to come to the same conclusion as her regarding the remaining forms. "Lon'qu? Libra? ...I-Is that you?"

The further of the forms from her, the one that had been casting the blue flashes of healing magic, sighed audibly. "Heavens above, we hadn't thought that any of the Shepherds remained in our location. Yes, lady Olivia, it's us."

Cordelia smiled, lowering her lance and relaxing out of her combat stance. "It's a good thing we found you. Regiments of the Plegian army are planning a charge, soon - we need to leave immediately. Chrom's already issued a retreat set for the Feroxi border."

Olivia rushed forward, into the direct vicinity of Lon'qu. "Oh, gods, I-I'm so sorry… I-I didn't want to leave you after the wyverns, but then there was another squad that started to chase after us, a-and I thought that I could divert them, and then Cordelia and Sumia showed up… b-but they wanted to help! W-We went and found Chrom, then Robin and Frederick… w-we wanted them to help, and… and…"

"...It's nothing to worry about." Lon'qu calmed her dismissively, sheathing his sword while maintaining a considerable distance from her.

"Remember, Olivia, we're always willing to help with something so… adorable." Cordelia swooned, clasping her hands in front of her and swaying from side to side in an exaggerated display of emotion that only the dancer could make out in the incredibly low light. She didn't catch the wink that followed, but Cordelia's intended effect got across to her nonetheless.

"W-W-What!? N-No, i-it's n-n-not-! I-I-I-I-I…" Olivia stammered repeatedly, blushing profusely while covering her entire face with her hands. Cordelia winced, thinking for a second that she may have gone a little too far and had caused the smaller woman to have an aneurysm.

"Ahem." Libra pretended to clear his throat, drawing her attention back to him. "It's not your fault that we stayed behind, Olivia. Once you had diverted the squadron, Lon'qu found me and helped me with a small wound I had sustained in combat." he gestured to a wrap of bandages lining one of his legs, stepping into a shaft of dim light so that the others may see.

"We stayed behind afterward, having expended far more time than anticipated to set the bandages." Lon'qu finished for him. "Stahl's horse was killed in the same attacks that crippled Libra, and the man went missing soon after. Believing that we were likely the only Shepherds who hadn't made it clear of the Midmire yet, we elected to stay behind and search for him in the belief that we would all soon depart."

"And the fact that he isn't here right now means…?" Cordelia trailed off, not wanting to consider the eventuality of the man's death but knowing that it was always a possibility.

"It means that we've had no luck in finding him." Libra answered her calmly. "We've been progressing north, hoping that he had done the same, but to no avail. We were chased here by that group of soldiers and forced into a fight, and we had honestly considered either making a break for the north or spending the night here in this fort…"

"It'll take us a few hours at least to reach the border from here…" Cordelia muttered to herself, ignoring how bright the room was inexplicably becoming. "We may be able to get the two of you back to Ferox, but Stahl? That'll be considerably harder, even if we do manage to find him soon, given that he's down a mount…"

Libra focused intently on Cordelia, accepting her position as the impromptu commander of their new unit without hesitation. "I say we look for Stahl. There's a far better chance that five people survive the coming army than three or even one, even if it's still only a slim chance. Besides, we can't abandon one of our own. I've had enough of that for one lifetime."

Lon'qu shook his head in a morose but undeniably understandable fashion. "We can't. No one will survive against an entire army, Shepherd or not. If it comes down to it, and we aren't able to find or conceivably rescue Stahl… then we'll have to flee."

"Well… what if he's already made it to Ferox, and we didn't notice?" Olivia suggested. "I-It's possible that he got picked up by someone else, or managed to reach the border on his own while we were all caught up here…" she raised an arm to block the light that was obscuring her vision, forgetting how dark the room had been seconds ago as she studied her companions' responses.

"That sounds like more of an excuse to leave than a probability." Cordelia muttered unhappily, aware of how dire their situation could quickly become were it handled improperly. "I don't like it in the slightest, but we may need to leave this very instant. Stahl is likely still somewhere south of us, and if we can't get to him, then… we'll have to hope that he makes it out of this."

She finally noticed that her surroundings had become significantly brighter, with long shadows being cast in front of her and behind the other assembled Shepherds. Whipping around, her vision filled with red as a floating ball of fire neared her head, and she instinctively raised an arm to shield her eyes as soon as she recognised the attack. Lon'qu followed suit as soon as he, too, recognised it, with Libra and Olivia doing the same after them despite not knowing why.

The first set of fireballs that had drifted into the room exploded, releasing a blinding light that was blocked by each of the Shepherds within. A second set exploded shortly after the first, and Cordelia was able to hear the sounds of movement that heralded the approach of the new assailant she new could only be Robin.

"Ah, hell, that was you guys?" his voice sounded out from near the entrance, and Cordelia slowly opened her eyes and lowered her arm as the accidental threat he posed faded. "Sorry, I wanted to be sure that if you were Plegian soldiers we wouldn't be disadvantaged."

"I'm assuming that 'we' means you and Frederick?" Cordelia asked, smiling at the knowledge that she had helped convince him when the other man appeared in the doorway.

"Ta-da." Robin held his hand out to introduce the great knight before returning his attention to the others. "Now, what's happened here? Where's Stahl? The Plegian army is only a few minutes away at this point, so we're going to have to move out fast."

* * *

"How do you know what happened in and around the fort if you only showed up afterward?" Kjelle asked, breaking him from his flashback.

"Because Cordelia is Cordelia?" Robin answered as if it should have been easy to assume. "She makes insanely detailed reports on literally everything. It's kind of amazing, to be honest. At least from a tactical point of view."

"And, what, this is all supposed to be build up to Stahl and my mother starting a relationship?" she asked, the idea refusing to settle in her mind in the slightest.

"Exactly." Robin smiled, ignoring how derisively she was treating the concept. "So, anyway, Cordelia explained their circumstances to Frederick and I, and we set up a plan to handle everything."

"Cordelia would ferry Libra over to the border as Lon'qu and Olivia progressed on foot, then would return with Sumia to pick them up." he explained. "I had argued for Libra and Lon'qu to move on foot, since they had proven to be capable together and everything, but Cordelia convinced me with what I now realise was a desire to build their relationship that Olivia and Lon'qu should go together. Meanwhile, Frederick and I would head further south to try to locate Stahl, all the while skirting around the main forces of the Plegian military."

"Hey, you've learned how to tell a story normally!" Kjelle congratulated him, her voice laced heavily with scorn.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, let me get back to my proper routine." Robin grinned. Kjelle's face fell again, and she resolved to refrain from saying anything that would exacerbate his aggravating storytelling methods.

* * *

Cordelia took off into the sky with Libra at her back, Lon'qu and Olivia setting out to follow the dark paths that traced north through the midmire on foot. Robin and Frederick didn't wait to watch them leave, instead moving to mount the latter's horse and head south as soon as they were able.

Movement prevented Robin from mounting the horse. Beside him, lying on the cold damp ground as if it were perfectly natural, a Plegian soldier was beginning to stir.

As serene as always, Robin drove a spear of lightning through their chest. He accepted Frederick's proffered hand, using it to mount the man's horse, and the two departed for a string of forts far to their south, the last of the sun's light dying out over the hills at their sides and rear.

They travelled as far south as they could, stopping only when the telltale cacophonous murmur of hundreds of soldiers first reached their ears. Turning to sweep the territory that remained to their east, they searched tirelessly for Stahl.

Robin began to shoot out intermittent flares to guide their path, the only assurance that the Plegian army wouldn't see them being how dim and small he kept them. With time, each flare faded out, and the two constantly corrected their course to account for the paths revealed in their brief light and the sounds of their enemies.

Eventually, when the fledglings of exhaustion were beginning to manifest in both Shepherds, a commotion from behind them called for their attention.

"Come on, then! Let's go!" a heavy voice called out, barely audible at their distance but noticeably loud.

Cresting one of the hills the had passed around only a few minutes ago, Frederick and Robin were treated to the sight of a horde of bodies, all armoured and mounted on either wyverns or horses - the vanguard of the Plegian military.

"He needs to go north! Take him, and don't stop until you've hit the border!" the same voice shouted.

"Commander unimportant! Sir!" another voice yelled, as audible as the first from Robin and Frederick's distance. "He's… he's a Shepherd! An Ylissean! If king Gangrel learns that we've helped him…"

"Then he'll know that we've done the right thing!" the commander shouted. "Now follow your orders, soldier! Take the Shepherd north, and deliver him to the Ylissean-Feroxi forces!"

Robin and Frederick shared a wary but hopeful glance. Without saying anything to one another, Frederick knew to kick his horse into motion, leading them down the hill toward the army of their greatest opponents.

* * *

"'Commander unimportant'?" Kjelle interrupted, one of her eyebrows raised high.

"Do you think I bothered remembering his name?" Robin laughed lightly, but with an odd lilt that hid something deeper.

Kjelle narrowed her eyes on him, picking up on the shred of discomfort that radiated off of his voice. "Yeah, I think you did."

Robin stopped laughing, his face stuck in a grin. He sighed and his mouth fell into a small frown, his head lowering significantly. "His name was Leopold. He was a war orphan from the previous Exalt's crusades, and had joined the military as a kid to survive. His wife died of some illness or another during our war, but not before they managed to have children."

"He 'was'?" Kjelle asked cautiously.

Robin raised his head to face her, his expression far more grim than before, and nodded.

* * *

"Commander Leopold, sir!" one of the Plegian soldiers cried out. "Rider, approaching from the north!"

Leopold turned to face the direction the soldier was pointing and stood resolutely in wait for the rider's approach.

Frederick's horse skidded to a halt a few metres from the commander. Robin immediately hopped off of the mount, placing him on even ground with the enemy leader.

"'Leopold', eh?" he greeted. "I'm Robin. Nice to meet you." he held his hand out to the other man.

Leopold took Robin's hand in his own and shook it. "You… you're the Ylissean tactician, aren't you? And that means that you're both Shepherds?"

Frederick hardened his expression in a resilient silence, more on edge than ever before in the presence of so many enemies. His eyes scanned over the Plegian soldiers assembled before him, taking in their fearful yet oddly reverent expressions before settling on the stylised green armour that could only belong to Stahl. The man was lying on the ground amidst a swarm of soldiers, bloodied and wounded beyond proper recognition, his armour being the only thing that denoted his identity.

"That we are. I see you have one of our own." Robin angled his head in the same direction, toward Stahl.

"That we do." Leopold nodded, also turning to look at the broken Shepherd. "We had intended to return him to you. No use in giving him up to Gangrel anymore if it'll only cause more violence."

"How noble." Frederick said, hardly restraining his apprehension in trusting the Plegian forces.

"S-Sir!" one of the other soldiers, one who had yet to say anything, spoke up. "They're Ylissean… e-even if Gangrel's too far gone, we can't simply let them go…"

"We can, and we will." Leopold gestured for the soldiers surrounding Stahl to part, giving Frederick a clear line of access to the other Shepherd.

The great knight refused to move. "You have dissenters against the initiative for peace."

"Everyone wants peace, in their own way." Robin said calmly, watching Stahl carefully. "We can't fault them for holding onto their grudges - even Gangrel wants peace deep down, the problem is that he thinks he'll get it through revenge. ...And, to be fair, he might be a little insane."

Frederick glared at Robin with a mix of abhorrence and reluctance. Nevertheless, he began to move toward Stahl, and knelt at the man's side to examine him.

"That guy's in pretty bad shape." Leopold drew Robin's attention back to him. "We found him lying here a little while ago, a few of our own scattered about him, and all of our healers and medicines haven't been able to bring him back into consciousness. He may be dying."

"We need to get him back to the bulk of our forces as soon as possible." Frederick informed Robin, still kneeling by the man's side and running simple examinations of his condition.

"You weren't able to heal him at all?" Robin asked Leopold, temporarily ignoring Frederick.

"Not in the slightest. Our equipment hasn't been doing a damn thing." Leopold confirmed solemnly. "Is… is he going to be able to recover?"

Frederick ran a hand over Stahl's throat, stopping suddenly and tensing as his eyes widened. "His pulse… it's almost unnoticeable…" he quickly moved his other hand down to the man's wrist, and found that area to be equally as unresponsive.

"Good gods, he really is dying, isn't he?" Leopold breathed in horror.

"He can still be saved." Robin informed the commander quietly.

"But… how?"

Robin looked intently at him, his face hiding any trace of emotion in the moment their eyes met. "Do you have anything tying you to your life?"

"What?" Leopold reeled, his face contorting in confusion until the demand from Robin's own expression for an answer overtook him. "I… I have a beautiful wife, who fell sick several months ago, and a wonderful child that I've yet to properly meet…"

Robin nodded to himself, knowing that whatever happened next would be both crucial and despicable - though that last part conveniently fled from his mind for the time being. "I may be able to save him if you, and all of your men, surrender your lives."

Leopold recoiled again. "What!? No, we could never do that! I could never do that - abandon my family, or ask anyone else to do the same!"

Still nodding, Robin took a deep breath and pulled the glove off of his right hand. "I can save him, Leopold. But I need the magic you have inside of you… I need you to die for my own magic to be able to work."

He held up his hand for Leopold and the entirety of the enemy forces to see, the vast majority of the twenty-some soldiers gaping as they took in the Mark of Grima emblazoned on his skin.

"You… you're Grimleal? A Grimleal from Ylisse?" Leopold asked incredulously. "No, no, that's not right… you're Plegian, aren't you? One of the true Grimleal themselves…"

"And with Grima's power, and that of your lives, I can save my friend."

"Grima's… power?" Leopold questioned with as much amazement as before. "You're one with Grima? Gods, I never thought I'd live to see the day…"

Frederick raised his head to appraise the scene Robin was causing, his hands having moved to elevate Stahl's head in the hopes that doing so would somehow help the man. Well over half of Leopold's forces were staring at Robin in awe.

Leopold fell to his knees in the mud in front of the tactician. "You… Grima's chosen vessel … you're really here, right now, aren't you?"

Several more of the soldiers fell to their knees in reverence, some bowing low on the ground. The few remaining - seemingly not Grimleal - soldiers watched them in confusion, and made no move to mimic their actions.

"Uh… yes?" Robin affirmed tentatively before he had realised what was happening. "You're Grimleal. You're worshipping me right now."

"Yes, lord Grima." Leopold nodded, his head remaining bowed in respect. The commander couldn't see it from his position, but Robin jerked his head away from them as a frown flashed across his features before he was able to neutralise his expression.

"Commander, sir!" one of the soldiers who had not bowed called out. "We… we can't do this! Even if we don't stop them, we need to leave, now! If we stay here with them, and Gangrel's loyalists find us…"

Leopold stared at Robin for a moment longer before a glaze faded from his eyes and he turned to look at the other soldier. "You're right. I'm sorry, milord, but we must part for the time being. May we meet again… lord Grima."

"No, no, no…" Robin stopped him from moving with a raised hand. "I… I'm Robin, not Grima. Robin. If you have to bow to anyone, bow to Robin. Not Grima."

Leopold nodded and rose, though he was the only one to do so. The other kneeling soldiers remained in place on the ground.

"U-Um, guys? We need to go." another soldier said.

One of those kneeling gazed at Robin and spoke through incredibly shaken breaths. "What say you, lo-... Robin?"

Robin looked from the kneeling soldiers to their standing counterparts, taking in each Plegian with as much accuracy as his fogging mind would permit.

"Kill them."

The standing soldiers recoiled, their faces contorting in shocked confusion as their allies rose to face them. The Grimleal had their weapons in hand before the others could properly respond, the few other soldiers that stood falling quickly to their rapid strikes. Each of them perished, leaving only the Grimleal and a stunned Leopold standing.

"You… y-you…" the commander stuttered, utterly aghast.

"Kill yourselves." Robin commanded as steadily his first order.

The Grimleal accepted, many running themselves through instantly with their weapons of choice while others hesitated slightly, but followed through all the same. Soon, only Leopold was left standing, staring in nothing short of utter horror at the mess of corpses around him.

"This has to be done, Leopold." Robin said in a resoundingly less certain voice. "It's… it's to save my friend."

"I… I-I don't…" Leopold stammered, taking a tentative step toward Robin and stumbling over one of the fallen bodies. "I… I want to leave. I want to go home, to see my family…"

Robin fired a bolt of thunder directly at Leopold, striking him squarely in the chest and sending him careening backward. Much to Robin's surprise, one shot proved insufficient for eliminating the enemy commander, and so he fired another equivalent thunder spell that brought the man to the ground. Robin watched the body expectantly for a moment, something about what he had done striking some deep part of his mind as exceptionally unusual. He eventually shrugged and turned back toward his friends.

Frederick took in a sharp breath, watching as Robin staggered out of the pile of bodies as both he and the tactician shuddered. He lowered Stahl's head to the ground and stepped away from the wounded Shepherd, swallowing his terror and giving Robin space to operate.

The tactician set about healing him immediately, an ethereal light enveloping the bodies around him before feeding into his own, the light collecting on his hands before fading into his gloves and up his arms. He moved beside and knelt next to Stahl, running his hands over the man's armour before settling on an area near his throat with one hand, the other resting on his forehead.

After a few minutes of silence, Robin stood up. "Pass me some vulneraries and whatever other healing stuff they have on them."

Frederick stood in place for a second, transfixed by Stahl's completely unchanged complexion, before realising that Robin had addressed him. The great knight quickly looted the desecrated bodies nearest him, handing Robin several vulneraries and a concoction Leopold had been hiding away in his armour.

Robin took them, propped Stahl's head up with one hand, and emptied the vulneraries into his opened mouth. He massaged Stahl's throat to ensure that he had swallowed all of it, though he knew the healing potions would take effect anyway.

"He'll recover soon." Robin concluded, rising to find Frederick again in the darkness. "C'mon, we need to get back to Ferox. To everyone else."

* * *

"Wait…" Kjelle interrupted again. "When you were enchanting my lance yesterday, you said that the magic used in healing potions, people, everything, that it was all the same. Couldn't you have used only vulneraries and stuff from the Plegians, and not have to take their lives? You said that Frederick only looted those nearest him…"

"That's right." Robin confirmed, his voice as masked as his expression. "If they had kept trying to heal him with their potions and by using staves, they would have succeeded."

"Why didn't you tell them that?" Kjelle asked, a small trace of concern coursing through her, alongside the tiny hope that he may simply have not yet known the properties of magic.

"I didn't want to."

"Was it because of Grima's influence?" she immediately asked in follow-up.

Robin froze for a second, though Kjelle ignored it in anticipation of his answer. "Yeah. Of course."

* * *

"Something about all of that felt… wrong." Robin confessed to Frederick as they arrived at the northern Plegian border. Their journey had passed in silence up to that point, Stahl resting comfortably on the great knight's horse between the two other Shepherds, his breathing having long since returned to normal.

"Really?" Frederick asked with greater sarcasm than he had ever mustered before in his life. He raised one arm to his head to block a growing ray of sunlight, day having returned to them in the time they had taken to traverse out of the Midmire.

"It's… something about Grima, you know?" Robin admitted, ignoring the other man's unwarranted tone. "Everything that happened back there… I don't know, it all felt so wrong…"

"In the end, you did what was right." Frederick attempted to comfort him. "What you did to them… it was unsavoury, to say the least, but it was necessary to save Stahl's life. You did what was necessary to save him. Everyone in the Shepherds will appreciate that."

"I hope so." Robin said in a lowered tone, his eyes having fallen to watch Stahl's contented expression in an attempt to mimic its pleasantness.

The trio passed the border wall without issue, the heavy regiments of Feroxi soldiers lining the fortifications recognising them instantly and allowing them to pass after only a simple cursory check. Arriving at the camp the Shepherds had established at the nearest town within less than an hour more of travel, they were directed by Feroxi soldiers to the inn at which Chrom and many of the other Shepherds had elected to take residence.

Robin took lead as they approached the inn, Frederick carrying Stahl in his arms as soon as they dismounted his horse, the strain from their incredibly extensive night making itself known on all three of their faces. The tactician pushed the door to the inn open and stepped aside, giving Frederick space to enter with Stahl.

Only one Shepherd was awake at the time they arrived, but based on the amount of drinks piled at their table and and the sleepless bags under her eyes, Robin could only assume that was because she hadn't slept since yesterday. Even the innkeeper had seemingly retired for the night. The three Shepherds entered quietly, their exhaustion preventing them from making any major noise.

Frederick stood awkwardly with Stahl in his arms as he waited for something to happen, eventually coughing clumsily into one fist to gather Sully's attention away from the table her head was planted firmly against.

Her head popped up at Frederick's unexpected cough, her previously unfocused eyes locking in place on the great knight in an instant before translating down to the man in his arms. She sputtered and rose from her seat, stumbling as she attempted to make her way over to them.

"You found him?" she asked in disbelief when she had reached them. "You… you actually…"

"He's kinda out of it right now, but we healed him with some… uh, some potions, so he'll make a full recovery soon enough. Magical stuff is pretty amazing in that sense." Robin informed, stepping out from behind Frederick to wave at Sully.

The cavalier lowered her head onto Stahl's chest, closing her eyes to focus on the rhythm of his breathing. "How did you find him? When the retreat was issued, I thought that… that…" her voice devolved into a series of shaky breaths that caused Robin to raise an eyebrow.

"Cordelia and Olivia found us, and convinced us to continue the search for Stahl, Lon'qu, and Libra." Frederick explained.

"They're all back already." Sully said, her head remaining locked in place on Stahl's armour. "They said that he was down his horse, and probably wounded… what happened?"

"We found him under the care of a faction of the Plegian military." Frederick clarified for her before Robin could do the same. "Robin… er… pulled some… tactical nonsense, and we managed to heal him and bring him here."

"I guess I should be thanking you then, huh?" Sully smiled, finally opening her eyes only for them to crease in confusion. "Wait, you two faced down a faction of the Plegian military and managed to haul Stahl's sorry ass out behind you?"

"Um… yeah." Robin rubbed the back of his head, both out of some small shred of embarrassment and the desire that doing so would somehow urge her to not press any further. "Like Frederick said, it was some tactical nonsense."

"Won't they know where we are, then?" Sully asked, her voice strained with concern equivalent to that when she had worried over Stahl.

Robin shook his head, his eyes and voice both growing intensely cold. "No."

Sully raised an eyebrow in disbelief before his meaning struck her, her eyes then both shooting wide as her mouth fell open by a few centimetres. "Godsdamn, you actually…?"

Frederick nodded for the tactician, allowing the other man to remain in the silence he knew he desired.

"How the hell did you manage something like that? Against the brunt of the Plegian army, no less?"

"Like I said… tactical nonsense." Frederick gave his most pleasant, and therefore borderline terrifying, smile.

"Guess you'll have to teach me that sometime, eh?" Sully joked.

"No, I don't think that's necessary…" Robin waved his hands in front of him to deter her. "I-If I did that, then I'd be out of a job!" he laughed nervously.

"Nonsense, Robin! I'm certain that the Shepherds would stand by you, regardless of what you do." Frederick reassured him. "You've more than proven your willingness to aid them, after all."

Robin tilted his head, picking up on the somewhat subtle hint Frederick was giving him but choosing to ignore it entirely, effectively blotting it from his mind.

Stahl murmured in his rest, his head lolling to the side and disturbing Sully where she had rested against him. She recoiled, hurriedly moving to help him in any way possible, aiding Frederick in moving him to one of the inn's tables.

"Hey there, idiot." Sully greeted the cavalier more affectionately than Robin had ever seen from her before.

Frederick held Stahl down and ran a hand over his forehead when he attempted to rise. "Careful, Stahl, you've taken more hits today than I would ever like to see again. For now, you need to rest. Nothing else."

The cavalier opened his mouth to say something, but was silenced when Sully placed her forehead against his and spoke heavily into him. "Please, Stahl… rest. You can't go dying on us. On me."

Robin raised his eyebrows, finally understanding what was happening before him. He suppressed mixed urges, to make fun of them, or blush profusely and exit, or do anything other than stand in place dumbfounded. However, all he did was stand in place, and it took Frederick's appearance at his side and gentle push out of the inn to get him to move.

"I believe that was enough of that for our eyes…" Frederick muttered as they finally exited the inn, then sighed. "It would seem as though rest is intent on avoiding us for a short while longer. I'll wait to report to Chrom, so do try to get yourself some sleep, Robin."

Robin nodded dumbly, Frederick watching his expression for a moment longer before turning back toward his horse. The great knight mounted it and wandered further into the rows of buildings and tents in use by the Shepherds, leaving the tactician alone outside the inn.

He stood in place perfectly mute for longer than he kept track of before turning back toward the inn. Pushing open the door he had exited from, he didn't bother to consider what was even happening inside, his shock from learning that there were Shepherds essentially in a relationship with one another and that he had witnessed some form of their intimacy outweighing his sense of consideration for anything else, and smothering almost everything but his exhaustion out of his mind.

"Hey, uh, there are rooms available here, right?" he asked absentmindedly as he stepped into the main foyer, forgetting that the innkeeper had been absent when he had first entered.

Sully and Stahl were still seated at their table when Robin walked in, though they were positioned far closer to one another than anything that could be considered normal for two people who were simply friends. Robin blinked, only now remembering what they were doing, what was happening, and what he should have been doing.

Before he was able to spin away from them and exit the inn again, Sully leaned toward Stahl, cupped his head in her hands, and brought their lips together. Apparently, they hadn't noticed Robin, and if they had, they certainly didn't care about his presence.

"Oh, gods…" Robin muttered, a blush instantaneously manifesting on his cheeks as he rotated toward the door and took a few steps away from them.

He paused at only a few paces from the exit, the realisation that he had nowhere to go striking him and, in his mind, requiring him to scavenge more information. "Hey guys?" he asked, risking facing them again. "Do you know where- how the-!?"

In the few seconds he had turned away from them, Stahl had somehow lost all of his armour and his shirt, and was now lying atop the table he had been seated at a few seconds ago. Sully was in no better of a condition, her own appearance almost matching the other cavalier's save for her shirt, which had thankfully remained on her body up to this point.

She was atop the table as well, on top of Stahl, straddling his waist. As Robin recoiled from the sight, the lower cavalier began to lift Sully's shirt, his hands running underneath it along her body. Robin cringed in disgust, grimacing as their relationship progressed even further atop the table. He turned as soon as his terrified and frozen legs allowed, exiting the inn and resolving to never speak about what he had seen unless it was made absolutely necessary.

* * *

"Or to prove a point." the present Robin smiled cheekily, delighted in Kjelle's apparent distress over his story.

The knight was cringing in a manner similar to that of his memory-self, though to a considerably lesser degree. "Okay, disregarding everything unnecessary, that… their actions don't mean anything. They could've just… I-I don't know…"

"Seriously, Kjelle? They were literally in the middle of fu-"

"I know what was happening!" Kjelle shouted, interrupting him. "You don't know that anything… anything serious happened though, right?"

"Uh, well… I'm pretty sure they got married a little while ago." Robin shrugged, not knowing if that constituted serious for her.

"They what!?" Kjelle shouted even louder, causing Robin to wince from her sheer volume and their horses to almost startle.

"I'm pretty sure they got married recently." Robin restated, recovering from her unintentional vocal attack. "They might only be engaged, since the Shepherd marriages tend to be pretty small things most people don't know about due to dissent from Chrom and I, but they definitely happen. I don't really see the sense in stopping them, either, since those involved are always so happy…"

"Married… gods…" Kjelle breathed out slowly, her mind suddenly developing a haze all on its own. "I… I'm gonna kill him. I'm going to kill Stahl, and bring my mother and father together… then, they can be happy. To think he had the gall to try to desecrate her like that…"

"'Desecrate'? Really?" Robin gave a stunted laughed before bringing his hands up to his face in mock horror, the straps of his bags falling to his elbows. "Oh no! She won't be a virgin for the farm boy she's never going to be in a relationship with anyway! How awful!"

"For gods' sakes, Robin, this is my family!" Kjelle yelled, breaking him out of his derisive behaviour instantly. "How could they be happy if they aren't with their other halves…? How could anyone be happy?"

"Sully and Stahl are happy together." Robin said, his voice far more calm than before. "I don't know what she would be like with Donnel, but I know that she's happy with Stahl, and I don't think there's any reason to not support them."

"They're my family…!" Kjelle restated shakily. "If… if they're not together, how could anything ever be okay again!?"

"There's not much I can tell you other than that Sully and Stahl are happy together." Robin admitted, his tone remaining lowered and personal. "As far as I'm concerned, that's all that matters."

"That… that's not…" Kjelle seethed, her combination of rage and terror compounding with a newfound existential dread that urged her to reconsider her concept of family, though no resolution other than those with which she was already familiar came to mind. She sought to hit something, as if doing so would relieve her negative experiences and responses.

Robin stood as serenely as he possibly could across from her, his mood being as infuriating as the notions he had used to propose his blasphemies. Her fists instinctively balled when she looked at him, though she took great effort to avoid looking at his face.

"Sorry, that was all kind of… a dick move. Again." Robin apologised. "I really could have handled it better, and I didn't need to be so difficult with something that I should've known would be that sensitive for you. Are you doing okay?"

Kjelle's fists relaxed as she finally forced herself to look at his face, her anger fading as his genuinely remorseful expression overtook her own state. "I… I'll be fine. I have a lot of stuff to think about for now."

"Yeah… make sure you get some rest, okay?" Robin placed a hand gently on her shoulder, comforting her in one of the few ways he knew how.

Kjelle averted her gaze from his face, her eyes lingering on his hand for a moment before closing. "I will. Thanks for telling me all of this, Robin."

"Not a prob-" the grandmaster began to say before he was cut off by another sneeze from Kjelle. He whipped his hand away from her, holding it out from him as though it were horrifically contaminated, even though she had taken care to avoid sneezing in his direction. "Gods above, did you do that on purpose!?"

"How the hell would I do that on purpose?" Kjelle deadpanned, wholeheartedly eager to forget her troubles for the night and focus on his absurdity for a while longer.

"You… shut up." Robin choked out over significantly longer of a time than usual, his attention locked solely on his infected hand.

"Ditto." Kjelle smiled. "Goodnight, Robin."

"Goodnight." Robin said, bidding her goodbye and exiting the stables, finally allowing his hand to drop back to its regular position at his side as he went.

Kjelle stood in place in the stables for far longer than necessary, her mind returning to its mire of considerations and uncertainties that made her wish she had dueled Robin again for the night to put her thoughts at ease. She grabbed her bags, cast a sidelong glare at one of the horses which somehow mimicked her expression, and then left for her room.

* * *

Robin groggily rubbed the sleep from his eyes, resolving far too late to finally get up for the day. Even then, he laid in bed for far longer than what he knew was good for him, staring at nothing. His listless gaze scanned across the uninspired features of his room, taking everything in several times without ever truly registering anything.

He dragged himself out from under the warm shelter of his blankets, removing his cloak to change clothes and wash said cloak despite having enchantments that ensured it would always remain clean, alongside with his used clothes. In everything he did, he acted nothing short of lethargic, taking far too much time to complete each movement and advance to every new task.

Breathing deeply and slowly in front of his door, Robin prepared himself for the inevitable scolding he would receive from Kjelle for sleeping in yet again. The bags he had brought in before retiring for the night were already slung over his shoulder, fitted for the near immediate travel they would have to set out for to meet their designated goals.

Finally managing to dispel his lethargy, Robin wiped any trace of the morning from his face with a blatantly false smile. Nodding to himself as if to verify that the smile was authentic, he pushed open the door and stepped swiftly into the hall without a trace of his earlier torpor.

Enigmatic sunlight had breached the interior of the inn, giving Robin reason to pause as he estimated for how long he had slept in. Assuming that it had been for at the least several hours, and placing his new time frame into the late morning or midday, he closed the blinds on the hallway windows and set out to the main room of the inn.

He spoke with the innkeeper about Kjelle, uncovering that she had yet to make an appearance outside of her room the entire day. Thanking the innkeeper for her help, Robin moved back to the staircase he hadn't recalled descending in order to find Kjelle's room and check up on her.

A sense of uncertainty caused him to pause at the foot of the staircase, his eyes wandering back over to the innkeeper. Despite having just spoken to the man a matter of seconds ago, he couldn't even begin to remember what they had sounded like. Robin shook his head clear, dispelling his vestiges of concern as he moved upstairs.

Somehow, the world grew incredibly bright as he ascended the staircase, a vibrant gradient that he had considered unknowable being added to his surroundings with every step he took. After all, how could the world ever be grey again when so much happiness waited for him on the next floor?

Increasingly radiant light beamed down on Robin the further he went, to the point where he was no longer able to see where he was walking. His loss of vision didn't bother him, though, since he knew that everything would be okay.

A tiny, insignificant part of him screamed that something was horribly wrong, but it was silenced when Frederick's reassuring form appeared in the brightness of the upper floor. Granted, Robin didn't actually see him, but he knew that the knight commander was there.

Frederick greeted Robin without speaking, informing the grandmaster that he was going to awaken the other Shepherds staying at the inn so that they could hold their daily training sessions. The other Shepherds slowly began to feed out of their rooms, muttering wordless greetings that all ameliorated Robin's previously weak smile into one of pure, genuine happiness he had almost forgotten existed.

Robin reached Chrom's door, knocking lightly before pushing it open - it wasn't as if Chrom would ever turn him away. Of course, Chrom was waiting inside, and smiled to him in as radiant a manner as his surroundings, his entire body being entirely blinded from view by the light.

Chrom said something unknowable, and Robin replied in kind. They both laughed, the weight of the world abandoning them for their moment together.

Something shifted in the light, and Robin was soon able to know that Chrom had approached him without ever seeing the Exalt. They shook hands, a formal display that belied the closeness of their ties, with each of their arms lingering in place for longer than intended on their counterpart.

One of them pulled the other into a hug, or perhaps the other; in actuality, it didn't matter and wasn't knowable either way. The light somehow grew even more blindingly bright, the world itself fading from reality as Robin lost himself in its splendor.

"Hey, buddy!" a loud, hoarse voice called out from below and behind Robin. "What the hell are you hopin' to do out here?"

The light died instantly, with Robin forgetting about its existence equally as fast. "What?" he turned to face the source of the call, finding that the innkeeper had followed him to the inn roof, her face already reddening from the bite of the cold air.

"You said you wanted to find your friend, yeah?" she asked, and Robin nodded in response. "I told you, her room was across from yours - it's not like there's even a second floor to get to, anyway. What are you doing on the roof?"

"I… uh…" Robin stammered, failing to remember why and how he had walked to the inn's roof in the first place. He began to grasp for anything he knew in the sea of emptiness that pervaded his thoughts. "I'm… watching the sun? You know, taking time to… appreciate the little things in life?"

"You're either going to freeze to death or burn out your eyes." the innkeeper chided him angrily. "Get yourself off of my roof, and go do something else. I'm not gonna have some lout like you bust the whole thing up."

"Sorry, I'll come back inside right now." Robin quickly apologised, following her down the retractable staircase she - and apparently he himself - had used to reach the roof.

The innkeeper returned to some business in the main room, which Robin didn't bother to learn about as he retraced his steps back to his room to locate Kjelle.

 _Did I space out?_ he thought to himself on the short walk to her room, raising his right hand to inspect it as he went. _There was no tone, or anything from the Mark of Grima… what was that, then?_

Whatever it was, it had been unique from anything he had experienced before, and it began to frighten him. He steeled himself upon arriving at Kjelle's room, knowing that he would never want to appear shaken before her or anyone else he knew.

Robin tapped his fist against her door. "Hey, Kjelle, you in there?"

No response, and so he tried again. "Kjelle? Hello?"

Still no response. He knocked again. "Hello? You didn't leave already because I slept in or anything, right? ...Hello?"

Nothing. Robin sighed and knocked a final time. "Hello, Kjelle? If you're in there and can hear me, know that I'm coming in."

He opened the door to reveal a room coated in darkness, the blinds over her window having been drawn to prevent any sunlight from entering, similar to what he had done in his own room. There was a form lying under the covers of Kjelle's bed, though whether it was the knight herself or not Robin couldn't yet discern.

"See, that's what boundaries are like." Robin muttered as he walked to her window, yanking the blinds open and bathing the room in midday light.

The form in the bed groaned at his voice, Kjelle popping her head out from under the covers a second later. "Get out of my room, Robin."

Her voice was raspy, giving Robin justification enough to avoid nearing her bed in fear of her worsened illness. Instead, he remained at the window, plotting a course out of the room should she dare attempt to approach him and transmit her virus.

"We've got stuff to do today, Kjelle." Robin informed. "We need to reach the bandit hideout and the next Anna as soon as possible, so we needed to leave, like… a few hours ago, probably?"

Kjelle muttered something inaudible into her blankets, her voice failing to carry enough for Robin to be able to hear her. The grandmaster took a step toward her in order to hear her better, but she sneezed into her topmost blanket and he recoiled.

"I'm sick. I need… to get better." she groaned out upon finding her voice, looking expectantly at Robin.

"What, do you expect me to help you or something?" Robin asked when it became apparent that she was waiting for him to act.

"Get me a vulnerary." she ordered, albeit pathetically given her status.

"That's not going to work. Vulneraries can't heal illnesses." Robin replied nonchalantly, as though that was a simple concept she should have already understood.

"Why the hell not…?" Kjelle groaned even louder.

"Don't know. One of life's great mysteries, I guess."

"You didn't find an answer in all of your 'studying'?" Kjelle asked, treating the last word as though it were poisonous and so much as saying it would worsen her condition.

"It wasn't in the curriculum." Robin responded with a calm seriousness Kjelle couldn't help but think was out of place.

"Well, can't you do some… I don't know, magical something or other and heal me?" she asked.

"I don't have any staves on me, and even then, they act much the same as vulneraries." Robin said. "I could try enchanting you, maybe?"

"I don't think that's safe… is it?" Kjelle asked warily, her horrible memories of Noire once upon a time attempting to do something similar returning to the forefront of her mind. She shifted her covers to get a better line of sight on Robin as he moved to exit her room.

"No idea." he confessed honestly, pausing in front of her door. "If anything, we can treat this as a learning experience. What do you say?"

"I think I'll pass. Bring me something to help with the cold, and try to find a way that I won't want to die when I get out of bed, and then we can leave. But, as I am now, I'm not going anywhere; I'd just end up getting worse and slow us down even more…"

"Got it." Robin smiled, eager to move on for the day and express the superiority of his capabilities all at once.

He stepped away from her door, angling toward where Kjelle had placed her armour before climbing into bed last night, picking up one of her gauntlets when he reached the mass of steel. Holding it up to his own arm, he appraised it for a long moment, Kjelle watching his actions curiously.

The grandmaster tossed the gauntlet back down to its matching twin, disregarding the piece. He swiftly removed his cloak from his shoulders, folded it in so masterfully of a way that Kjelle knew he had spent an inane amount of time practicing his technique, and passed it to her.

"Here, take it." Robin held it out to her and she stared uncomprehendingly at it as though there was some trick to his offer. "It's enchanted in so many ways that you won't be able to contaminate it if you try, and it'll keep you warmer and cozier than your shit- er, not as amazing armour. Plus, some of the enchantments may very well be able to help you get better. Possibly. I don't actually know."

She still refused to reach out and take it, equally out of trepidation and fear that moving would exacerbate her situation. Robin waited for a few seconds with his arm outstretched, and when she didn't move to accept the cloak he dropped it at the foot of her bed.

"I'll be in the main room, trying to get something beneficial for you to eat." Robin said, quickly moving out of her proximity and toward the door of her room. "Meet me out there when you're ready. We can leave afterward."

He smiled a bright yet hollow smile to her, opened her door, left, and closed it behind him. She was left lying in her bed, much the same as she had when he had entered, the only difference in her state being the cloak at the ends of her blankets.

Groaning profusely, her head pounding furiously against all movement her upper body made, she slowly rose to a sitting position. She leaned forward to grab the cloak, and in doing so her blankets fell off of their loose wraps around her shoulders, exposing her lightly clothed skin to the cold of the inn air. Shuddering in borderline pain as her skin began to ache from the chill despite the inn's relative warmth, she quickly reached for the cloak, regretting it immediately when her head pulsed harder.

The cloak felt warm in her hands before she had even put it on. It soothed her as well, the thought that his mention of aiding enchantments may only be more placebos crossing her mind but not deterring the effects of the fabric against her skin.

She peeled away her blankets, rueing the flood of cold that greeted her, and slipped on the cloak. Her body instantly began to feel as though it was recovering wherever the cloth rested over her underclothes and skin alike, and she flipped up his hood in the hope that it would somehow clear her mind.

A flash of concern jolted through her at the new thought that his cloak may have been formed using sacrifices, like his magic boost from days prior - they felt remarkably similar despite their finer qualities, after all. She resolved that they were created and used differently, more for her own peace of mind than anything else, and rose from her bed.

Gone was the disorientation and pain from her sickness, and once she was standing, she felt as though she was in as positive of a state as ever before. She clenched and relaxed her hands, then tilted her head from side to side, the simple actions following through without issue and causing her no harm whatsoever.

Her reflection, shining slightly warped in the freshly polished plates of her armour, caught her attention when she started to move. Pausing to take her new appearance in, she found herself oddly fond of the aesthetic provided to her by the cloak. She turned to examine her figure in the small plates of painted steel, extending and retracting parts of the coat as she went to examine them in more detail.

Although she could never admit to having the best sense of fashion among her friends, she also knew she by no definition had the worst, and knew that the striking blacks, golds, and purples of the fabric complimented her nicely. Granted, she realised that they were encompassing enough to compliment next to everyone adequately, but she liked to think that she looked better than most would in the garment.

She spun once, the cloak flapping around her before settling into place as she watched her reflection intently. Mimicking some of the flourishes Robin had shown her when bragging about his clothing at Port Ferox, she allowed herself to relax into a longer period of narcissistic appreciation.

A sneeze snapped her from her vanity, heralding the return of her illness in greater force than she could ever have wished upon even Grima himse- no, itself. Grima itself. There was no guarantee Grima would be Robin, or that they would resemble him in the slightest. She shook her head to clear herself of the conceited behaviour she admittedly despised yet relished in, regretting it immediately when her sickness pounded brutally in resistance.

Groaning again, she brought a hand slowly to her temples and gently massaged them as she exited her room. She wrapped the cloak tightly around herself, pulling the hood as close as she could to her head, obscuring much of her face. The enchanted cloth still provided her with the same comfort as Robin had described, but now its initial surge of warmth and consolation was reduced to an ongoing battle between her cold and the cloak's magic.

True to his word, Robin was waiting for her in the main foyer of the inn. She slowly and painfully approached the table he was seated at and sat across from him, taking care to ease into her seat rather than sit down abruptly for fear that she would somehow become even weaker.

"Being sick is godsdamn awful…" she grumbled, pulling the hood of the cloak closer to her face to ward away the tangible world.

"Looks like it." Robin smiled to her in greeting before swivelling his head over his shoulder to check on a room behind him. He turned back toward Kjelle to address her. "The innkeeper here was nice enough to let me use her kitchen to prepare something, so I'm boiling some water to make a soup. We can have some of that, which will hopefully help you out a little bit, and then we can be on our way. Sound good?"

"Do you even know how to cook?" Kjelle asked skeptically.

"Of course!" Robin scoffed. "I prepared those meals in the capital, didn't I? How would it be possible for me to not know how to cook?"

Kjelle took in the fierce orange glow radiating from the kitchen, the light flickering to an unnatural rhythmic tune. "I'm pretty sure your water's burning."

"What? That's not even-" Robin turned to look back at the kitchen as he spoke, shock flashing across his face as he bore witness to a chemical marvel. He did nothing for a second as he stared, stupefied by the fire, before he leapt into action and dashed into the kitchen to tend to his burning water.

After an unreasonably bright flash of light and a few moments of him rummaging through the kitchen, he returned to their table with some simple bowls of grains and some fruit, his idea for soup apparently abandoned. Kjelle smirked at his surge of despondency, earning herself a scowl from him and another rift in her head from her cold.

"In my defense, Flavia has a far better setup for her kitchen." Robin explained, protecting his little remaining pride. "When I don't have enough stuff to properly work with, I try to use magic to help me…"

"And that leads to you burning water?" Kjelle concluded.

"Actually, it was the metal pot I was using that caught on fire first." Robin clarified, his face breaking into a frown when Kjelle's raised eyebrows made him realise how much worse the truth of the situation sounded.

"Come to think of it, you still don't really know how magic fires and stuff work, do you?" Robin asked as he picked lightly at his food.

Kjelle shook her head in a single digit range of degrees, evaluating her food hesitantly, fearful that any single morsel would prove to be her undoing. "Is there anything that's different between them and combat magic?"

"No, they're the same." Robin said. "When you use your ashen lance, you've noticed how even when on fire it and your hands stay cold, right?"

Nodding, Kjelle allowed him to continue without interruption. "Well then, consider this your next set of lessons in magic - user effects and, once we're done eating, I can explain what I know about healing magic."

"I'm not exactly hungry." Kjelle said, dropping a fruit she had lifted back onto the table. "If you think the lessons are important enough, go ahead with them, but keep in mind that I'm ready to leave whenever."

"I take it the cloak is working well for you?" Robin inquired, beaming at the prospect of someone else appreciating the enchanted garment.

"It's… actually pretty good, yeah." Kjelle admitted with an unintentionally shy blush that was partially hidden by her raised hood. "Not as great as armour, but good. Is this what all enchanted clothing is like to wear?"

"My cloak is way more comfy than most armour could ever hope to be, but yeah." Robin smiled. "So, anyway, back to magic."

"Your lance and hands don't heat up when you cast fire magic due to some weird properties of ether - namely, that the user is typically incapable of feeling the effects of their own magic unless they cast it purposefully against themselves or have it redirected at them." he explained. "This means that when you cast fire magic, your hands and conduit will remain the same temperature as before while the space around them and where the spell collides will heat up considerably."

"Thunder and wind magic work the same way - you won't get cold from casting wind, and won't get shocked from casting thunder. I'm fairly certain that's due to dissonance and resonance, in that the subject casting automatically repels the effects of their own magic, but I can't recall ever confirming that part."

Kjelle shuddered in a nonexistent gust of cold air, barely managing to remember everything he was saying as her mind filled with nothing but chills. "Yesterday, when we were fighting the bandits, I didn't shoot fire out of my lance at one point and I launched it out of my grip a little while later. Is that another dissonance thing?"

"Now you're getting the hang of it!" Robin said, nodding eagerly to confirm her suspicion. "Since you apparently already know how to prepare and transmit your magic, you should be able to learn how to cast normal combat spells easily!"

He caught Kjelle's blank stare, partially cut off under the cover of his hood, and blinked. "It was all accidental, wasn't it?"

"Yep." Kjelle confirmed with a forced amount of cheeriness. "Do you know what would have caused it?"

Robin rubbed his chin and hummed to himself, closing his eyes to more accurately appraise her situation. "It might be what I said about preparing and transmitting magic, only unintentional? Maybe?"

"Okay, then… what does that mean?"

"I think it means that you're close to casting normal magic, but… not quite there yet?" Robin said, still decidedly uncertain. "If you unintentionally launched your lance, I think that means you used a fire spell that relied partially on the lance as a transmitter and partially on yourself."

"By 'transmitter' you mean what I use to actually cast the spell, right?" Kjelle asked, more focused on his lessons than their earlier counterparts despite her handicap of sickness.

Robin nodded. "It's what draws the power from your tome or enchantments to finalise your cast. If you had charged up enough power beforehand, then it would be reasonable to assume that you were accidentally storing energy that then became part of a normal cast which shot off your lance. Did anything happen that you think might be you unknowingly storing energy before it was launched?"

"There was a point where I tried to use the enchantments, but nothing happened." Kjelle replied, resolving to share as much on her failure at magic as she thought would help with him, regardless of the damage it may deal to her pride. "Is that what you mean?"

"That would work, yeah." Robin nodded to both himself and her, and rolled a fruit in her general direction. "Eat that - you can't get better and not eat at the same time."

Kjelle rolled her eyes, an action that was nigh impossible to see under her hood, but accepted the fruit all the same. "So, what does it mean for me to charge up magic like that? Am I that much closer to using magic without the enchantments, or am I still practically a novice?"

"Both, really." Robin answered, his face morphing into an aggravating smile that Kjelle found oddly soothing; it mean that he was his normal, not-Grima, moderately more likable self, after all. "You're still a novice, but you've started to cast magic normally, albeit without the intent do so. Maybe you have an affinity for magic?"

"Or, maybe I'm far worse than you had ever anticipated." Kjelle said gloomily, though not without an edge of humour. She tentatively picked at her fruit, not wanting to eat but knowing how necessary the action would be for her healing process.

"I was trying to be motivational, okay?" Robin frowned for a second before returning to an easy smile. "But, yeah, you aren't very used to magic if you're messing up your method of casting. It's actually a pretty bad mistake, and a difficult one to have happen."

"Just tell me how to fix it." Kjelle demanded through halfhearted mouthfuls of food.

"Alright, um… hm…" Robin began to drum his fingers on their table as he thought, snapping them up to point at her when he came up with an idea. "I've got it: you should try not failing."

"Oh, thanks, I hadn't considered that." Kjelle said dryly. "Got ideas that aren't a waste of my time?"

"Seriously, that's probably the best advice I can give you. I'm still dumbfounded by how you to managed to mess up so badly as to cast part of a spell on accident."

Kjelle sighed in dismay, both due to his demeanor and her inability to prove herself his equal. "Would it kill you to be a little more helpful?"

"Hopefully." Robin chuckled. Kjelle narrowed her eyes on him, his carefree nature clearly hiding something deeper, but when she attempted to uncover what exactly it was from a glance she found that it was something she couldn't quite discern. It was as though his entire attitude had shifted in an instant, and then had disappeared equally as fast.

Her brief analysis was broken when Robin decided to speak again. "Anyway, if you really want to improve, you're going to have to practice a lot more. If I can see you mess up, I might be able to tell what went wrong, but as of right now I have no idea. You'd be better off asking Miriel, Ricken, and maybe even Tharja about it; odds are they all know more than me about magic principles like this."

Kjelle narrowed her eyes on him again, though for entirely different reasons this time around. "What are the lessons today going to be on, then?"

"Well, I guess I could expand on charging and transmitting before we move on to healing." he shrugged, and after a small nod from Kjelle, began his exposition. "In order to cast any magic beyond the first level, you need to charge power. The greater the spell, the more power is required, so naturally it'll be more difficult for people to cast high-quality spells even if they have the proper tomes."

He rolled a second fruit her way, which she began to eat as hesitantly as the first, before continuing. "Gauging and charging power becomes easier the more competent of a mage you are. Also, the charge times for all types of magic are pretty fast, but can be slowed a bit when necessary. They're also faster when you have access to more ether, like from a tome or special enchantment."

"It's also worth noting that ether doesn't disappear. If you try to cancel an attack you've charged, the ether has to go somewhere, based on natural laws of conservation and all that. I don't actually know if it's even possible to stop a spell you've charged without firing it, since the reflux of ether might be impossible to control, but that's yet another thing I'm not certain about."

"I'm assuming transmitting is sending that power, or ether, or whatever, to some kind of conduit, right?" Kjelle interjected when he paused, finishing off the second fruit as she went.

Robin nodded. "Usually, the transmitter is one of the caster's hands or their weapon, be it a tome or an enchanted whatever. It's pretty much the same thing as the conduits I was telling you about a while ago, but you don't necessarily have to draw ether from a transmitter, just transfer it through."

Seeing that she had finished the fruit he had passed her, Robin rose from his seat. "That's pretty much everything you need to know in terms of transmitting and charging. We can start healing now, but we're going to have to go to the stables for that. I've got an active experiment I want to show you."

Kjelle, too, rose from her seat, slowing when a bout of lightheadedness crashed into her. She brought a hand to her forehead to calm the mild surge of disorienting pain, Robin waiting on his side of the table for her to recover.

"What's in the stables?" she asked after her mind had finally returned to a less harmful state, and was able to follow him out of the inn.

Robin opened the door to the inn and allowed her to pass through, closing it behind him and then moving to walk beside her on the way to their destination. "You know the two horses we've been riding since the port, right? One tanned, which I've been riding all this time, and one black, which you've been riding?"

"What about them?"

"Before I met you, when I had left Ylisstol to come to Ferox about… what, about a week and a half ago, the tanned horse began to exhibit symptoms of the early stages of some type of sickness. I gave it my cloak to mitigate it, but it still hadn't recovered completely by the time we reached the port, so I fed it a vulnerary."

Kjelle reached the entryway to the stables first, and allowed Robin to enter before her. Her brow knitted together in confusion as she followed him inside. "Wouldn't that make them worse off, though, since vulneraries don't heal illnesses?"

"That's the thing: despite having the sickness at the time of taking the vulnerary, now it's perfectly fine." he found and held a hand out toward the horse in question, lighting a small flame over it to better illuminate the dim room. "Look at it and try to find any trace of sickness - right now, it's in flawless health."

As instructed, Kjelle appraised the horse, and found that it was in as good of health as he had claimed, at least to her untrained eyes. "Does this mean that the person or book or whatever you learned from was wrong about sickness and magical healing? If so, why the hell did you not give me a vulnerary!?"

"No; actually, the inability of potions and magic to heal critical injuries, illnesses, age, and everything and anything major is well known and well documented." Robin patted the horse's nose, and the beast raised their head in response to meet him.

He turned to face Kjelle, the serene smile in place on his face comforting her despite the unnerving shadows it cast in his magical firelight. "The conventional understanding of healing magic is that it heals any and all wounds, with its efficiency being based on the user's ability and the strength of their stave or potion. In that understanding, people are simply not powerful enough to heal certain ailments, like any kind of sickness, or chronic illness, or grievous wounds."

Kjelle glanced over to the horse again before returning to Robin, silently cursing it for recovering while leaving her to her sickness. "Yet you managed to heal the horse. You also brought Stahl back in the Plegian war, even though Leopold said he was dying. I'm guessing you have some kind of… unconventional method of healing?"

"You're catching on to these lessons faster and faster." Robin said, his smile intensifying. "I have a theory about how healing with magic works, but it's entirely unverified, so take it with a grain of salt."

"Is this going to make me stronger, or be worth anything to me?" Kjelle asked before he could start his explanation.

"If I'm right, then probably. If not, then… eh. There's no real harm." he shrugged, his expression clearly denoting that he was prepared to explain his theory in full.

"The way I think that healing magic works is that it doesn't actually heal at all - rather, it replicates. Magic doesn't know the difference between healthy and sick or dead, so it multiplies everything it comes across, be it healthy, sick, damaged, cut, burned, or whatever."

He took a deep breath before continuing. "That means that healing potions would amplify illnesses, since they don't know what an illness is and increase the amount of all cells and all tissues and everything, regardless of our understanding of healthy. Since an infection needs less cells to do damage than its healthy counterparts, using vulneraries and healing magic on illnesses won't heal them, but worsen them, since there'll be more infection to counter the similar but less effective increase in healthy cells and tissue. Healing magic doesn't erase damage, it merely replicates our cells, if not modify our very genomes themselves."

"Quick question?" Kjelle cut in. "I think I've understood everything up to this point, but to be absolutely sure… what's a 'cell'? Or a 'genome', for that matter?"

"Seriously?" Robin asked, raising one eyebrow before sighing. "A cell is the smallest known unit that composes a living being, and a genome is effectively deterministic ordinance for a cell, and therefore a person's very being. You're made up of a countless amount of cells, as am I, and the horses here, and plants, and everything that lives. It's also what my theory of healing magic revolves heavily around - ether as some kind of force that can be manipulated into replicating cells or DNA, or into energy that damages things in spells, or into enchantments…"

"Are these 'genomes' and 'cells' another thing that you came across in your research?" Kjelle followed up, her desire for answers leading her to the same unfulfilling conclusion as most of his other explanations; that being that everything he knew came down to extensive research.

"Yeah." Robin confirmed with a nod. "The book I studied was- uh… I… uh… I-I can't tell you what book it was."

Kjelle sighed, her hand finding its way to her forehead again out of frustration more than anger. "Why the hell not?"

Robin opened his mouth to say something, but hesitated before he could unveil either the truth or another excuse. He considered whether or not he could tell her, and whether or not she would even take him seriously, but found that he couldn't decide on anything at all.

"Do you know how aggravating it is to be told all of this stuff without a source?" Kjelle asked when it became apparent that he would be doing nothing. "To have to take your word for it, not knowing how accurate or honest you're being… I want to trust you, or at least the part of you that I've come to know, but I can't do that unless you're completely honest with me. Tell me about the book, Robin."

"To have to take my word for it… yeah. I know how awful that can be." Robin replied, his voice nothing short of despondent. "I… I'll tell you when we get to our final duel. When… when I know that I can."

Kjelle sighed again and her face visibly fell below her hood, though she didn't bother pressing him any further. For a second, Robin thought that he saw the same solace in her features that she had found in his, and he felt above all else that she could be trusted - that she should be trusted, and that if he were to confide in her, that everything would be okay.

"Someone from your time made them."

Snapping her head up, regretting it when her head surged with pain again, Kjelle focused solely on him. "Someone from my time? Like… one of my friends?"

"Well, you're the only ones who travelled through time. It's not like anyone else could've…" Robin said, his voice descending into a murmur as his eyes lost their focus for the smallest of instances.

He returned his attention to her before she could tell whether or not anything was wrong. "They know things… things that they shouldn't. Things that don't make sense. Things like cells, and genomes, and enchantments, and magic, and everything that happened in Plegia, and… and a lot."

"Whoever it was, when they came back in time, they decided to leave me some of their books. Some they had written, some had been chosen from the royal library in Ylisse… they answered practically everything I could have thought to ask up to the end of the Plegian war."

Kjelle's head was swimming with as much pain as confusion, and she did her best to massage away her illness without ever removing her protective hood. Her pain prevented her from realising that he was referencing his secretive journal. "Nothing after Plegia? Nothing that mattered, like saving people in Valm?"

"Nothing at all." Robin said grimly as he shook his head to further accentuate his point. "Also, Kjelle… whoever wrote those things was in no way your friend. The strategies they made, and the things they wrote about… they were all centred around what I've come to know as failures. The death of Emmeryn, the invasion of Ylisse, the fall of Gangrel… they even mentioned that there would be wars after that. They said they would prevent them, but… I have no reason to trust them."

"One of my friends… wanted Emmeryn to die?" Kjelle asked in disbelief. "I… maybe they wanted to make sure that the future changed, no matter what… to make more wars, to ensure that the Shepherds would be stronger?"

Robin shook his head again. "There were some things that they knew that showed how they could have averted everything from the start… but for whatever reason, they didn't want to. I'm sorry, but this is something you'll have to trust me on - I… I can't express how much I want some of what they know to never see the light of day. I promise you, though, I'll tell you everything in time for our final duel."

A bile was rising through Kjelle's throat, but whether it was due to her cold or what Robin was saying, she wasn't certain. "Do… do you have any idea who it was? Who among my friends would allow the world to march toward its death?"

"The only people I know it can't be so far are you - provided that your story about never leaving Ferox is true, which I trust that it is - and Lucina, who I know arrived after the first instances of this person altering things." he confessed, his right hand instinctively tapping against his hip, though for what reason Kjelle had no idea.

Kjelle narrowed her eyes on him, her natural desire to protect her friends outweighing her moment of insecure doubt. "You… you're lying to me, aren't you?"

"What?" Robin recoiled, looking genuinely offended and outright hurt that she would suggest such a thing.

She winced at his discomfort toward her disbelief, but continued on all the same. "This is all some tactician bullshit to play me, isn't it? Turn me against my friends, train me to kill them, to rely on you, to ruin this world… you really are a monster."

Her voice had grown as icy and accusatory as she had ever known. Part of her saw a strife in Robin's eyes, in his very being, and noticed that he was on the brink of vehemently defending himself, but another stronger part pushed her ever further. "If you think I'll turn on my friends for any reason, you're wrong. I'll never, ever try to hurt them… and if you do, if you try to kill any of them to further your lie that any of them are evil, then I'll do everything in my power to stop you, no matter if I think you can be saved or not."

"You don't believe me?" Robin asked, stunned. His voice was shaking horribly, to the point that he wasn't sure he could contain it if he were to open his mouth again. "I'll admit, I haven't been wholly honest in the past, but now…"

"Why the hell would I ever believe the lies of some traitor to the Shepherds? No, Robin; I'll stop you, and I'll do it with my friends at my side. All of them."

Robin's mouth fell open at her mention of him being a traitor, and against his better judgement he spoke again. "No, you're wrong! I'm going to save the Shepherds - save them from your traitorous friend!"

Kjelle opened her mouth to counter him again, but he darted out of the stables before she could say a word. He disappeared in the direction of the inn, and Kjelle made no attempt at following him.

Instead, she mounted her horse, tearing off his cloak as she went. Disregarding her own health, the belongings she had left in the inn, and the tiny part of her that begged her to believe him, she rode out of the stables at as fast of a pace possible.

She no longer cared for the horrible surges of pain that shot through her with every passing moment, and focused solely upon distancing herself from Robin. Soon, she began to make her way in the direction of where Noire, her geographically closest friend and time travel companion, was located. After all, she would need to reach them all before Robin, to make sure that she could save them.

Then, when they were all together again and finally capable of doing it, they would kill him. They would save the world.

* * *

 **In case this chapter wasn't a good enough indication, things are going to start getting kind of weird. I initially wasn't certain of how far I wanted to go with a certain factor of the story that's going to now be popping up more and more, but I think it's safe for me to do some pretty odd stuff. Everything up to this point was originally written in a way that I could remove or edit things to be less weird, but this chapter solidifies the path of the story, which is the path I most wanted to write even though it ends up being a lot more work for me. At least I'm going to have fun at the same time.**

 **Status: As of 26-06-18, I'm on chapter 28. Chapter 27 ended up being about as massive as I assumed, meaning that the size is ridiculous, even by this story's standards.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	13. Chapter 13

Robin dashed through the inn door, leaving it to swing aimlessly as he sprinted to his room. The innkeeper stared at his sudden rushed return in shock, then glared when he left the door open, and grumbled something about him as they moved to clean up after his inconsiderate behaviour.

Inside his room, Robin tore open one of his bags and frantically searched through it for his desired possession. He found it, then clutched the thin, worn spine of the journal that had been left for him in Ylisstol in years past, and dashed back out of his room as quickly as he had entered.

He brushed past the innkeeper as brusquely as he had entered, leaving the door open again and earning a groan of discomfort for his actions.

Admittedly, he was excited. He had revealed far more than he had intended, and Kjelle hadn't hesitated to discredit him, but he couldn't blame her for that. After all, what other response could anyone reasonably have to being told that one of their lifelong friends was evil?

Clutching the journal close to his chest as if to protect it from the climate of Ferox, he hardly felt his feet as he ran to the stables. He could show her the journal, the very thing that her traitorous friend had written, and prove not only their guilt but also his own innocence. Granted, he would have to ensure that she only read the parts that revealed the other person's treachery, since he was still in no way ready to reveal his own misdeeds, but he preferred to not register that part of the journal's revelations in his mind.

In considering how he should reveal the partial truth to her, he thought about those revelations all the same. When he came to the door to the stables, he froze in an unexpected tidal wave of grey numbness.

Kjelle would want to know more than what he was willing to show, wouldn't she? She would press for as much information as possible, and he couldn't fault her for that. He would do nothing short of the same in her situation.

The grey pressed in against him, violating every pore of his body and willing him to do absolutely nothing. If she found out the whole truth while believing that there were no guilty parties other than himself in this time, she would be dooming the world to the vile will of one of her friends.

She would want to kill him, and if she still didn't believe him by then, she would allow her friends to do as they please regardless of how detrimental it may be to the world. Robin resolved anew to tell her the truth eventually, at the time of their final duel, when only she would live beyond the day to tell her chosen truths, exactly as he had resolved long ago.

Once she knew the entire truth, she would be forced to address it, no matter what. He would ensure that she only knew the part of reality that he chose for her to see - after all, he had destroyed the pages containing the secrets of this world, and he was currently the only one capable of restoring the book. Provided that those who already knew the necessary enchantment didn't happen across him while his guard was down, of course.

Kjelle was learning magic, but her progress was in no way satisfactory, and he had no doubt that she would be incapable of casting the enchantment in time for their last duel. He would be able to control what she saw, and to a certain degree, how she responded. He would be able to manipulate her.

The notion caused his chest to ache, and while he instantly knew that he despised having to do it, he knew that some form of manipulation would be necessary for him to reach his goals. He may not know whether or not that was for the best, or what the best outcome was anymore, but he knew that she would be satisfied in the end, and hopefully happy.

He knew that it was wrong, that he shouldn't manipulate or keep manipulating anyone any longer, as he had been doing with Frederick and some of the Shepherd relationships and however much else since the dawn of his memory. At the same time, he also knew that if he were to remain the manipulative, contemptible person he had been for so long, he would soon be able to unveil all that he knew. He could help to save everyone.

In finally permitting the hope that he could have some type of positive effect on the world around him, something other than the wars and death he was seemingly destined for, Robin began to steel himself. The hope began to push against the grey, and while he acknowledged that it was still in part fabricated and would never play out as he intended - everything Kjelle was doing was already more than enough proof of that - he allowed it to strengthen him.

At the very least, he would be able to face Kjelle here and now. He could explain as much as he could, and then hope that she accepted it and continued to work alongside him. She would be able to grow stronger, to become the power that was needed to save everything, the power that he wished he was but knew he could never be.

In an ultimate act of resistance, Robin forcefully dispelled the grey, and he felt the hope begin to outweigh all else. He pushed the door to the stables open, a calm smile on his face, fully prepared to face Kjelle and further their operation to as much greatness as possible.

Kjelle wasn't in the stables. Neither was her horse, and when he walked cautiously toward his own, he noticed the cloak that had been thrown unceremoniously to the ground. His cloak.

Robin kneeled to appraise and reclaim the cloak, then rushed back outside the stables to search for some sign of Kjelle. She had disappeared, likely in the direction of Noire, the nearest of her friends. Kjelle hoped to reach her fellow time traveller before he could.

Robin donned his cloak as he searched the snow for an indication of the route she had begun to travel. He found none among the trampled frost of the town's common roads, and so began to panic.

She needed to grow stronger, and she needed to learn from him. He could impart everything he had, he could mold her into the warrior that was needed to save the world. Perhaps it was selfish for him to think that he was necessary for her to attain such greatness, but at the same time, he was afraid of what would happen if he wasn't there. He feared for himself, for his knowledge and research both current and prospective, and somehow, for her.

Again, he made the mistake of thinking of eventualities the arrival of which he was nothing short of terrified, and took a long breath to calm his nerves before they could get the better of him. Failing to locate Kjelle's tracks, he set out in the general direction he believed she would take, preparing his wind tome for as rapid of bouts of flight as he was capable.

* * *

Hooves pounded frantically into snow as Kjelle pushed her horse to its limit, forcing the beast through greater a distance than what was likely healthy for it in so short a span of time. A spray of snow occasionally shot up at her exposed face, and she regretted not returning to the inn to reclaim her armour and belongings with every burst, but accepted her immediate departure as wholly required to avoid any further contact with Robin.

For whatever reason, she hadn't wanted to abandon him at the village. She had wanted him to offer some form of proper explanation, one that didn't implicate any of her closest friends in anything whatsoever unsavoury, but he was all too intent on proclaiming the contrary. So, despite the small part of her that wanted to stay and demand a less jarring explanation and resolution, she pressed on.

Kjelle knew Robin would try to find her, to stop her from reaching and informing her friends. In honesty, she was unsure if she could outrun him; she had already seen how he could propel himself through the air, and he remained in possession of his horse. She would have been interested in learning his brand of wind movement magic, had he not gone too far and had instead continued to help her.

However, he had gone too far. He had slandered her friends, accused them of treachery of which only he, only Grima, would be capable. While she respected that he had been willing to reveal so much of his intentions to her, she both relished and dismayed in knowing that it would prove to be his downfall.

Kicking her horse into even faster of a gait, she set her sight solely on the path in front of her, resolving to run and not dare look back in fear of what she would see. She froze, the only action coming from her for a long time being the yank on her horse's reins that brought the beast to a halt equivalent hers.

 _I… I'm running, aren't I? I'm… afraid…_ The thought made her sick more than she already was, and then gave way to a fire burning inside of her.

She turned her horse around, her tracks leading from the village coming back into focus as she retraced them. Never again would she run like a coward, and never again would she doom anyone to ruin. She would kill Robin, and save everyone - she had been a fool to have not taken so simple a course of action already.

Even if she was sick, and had no armour or weapons, she did have the advantage of her indomitable will. She could never stop trying to kill him. She would save the world. She would save her friends.

It was less than a minute before Robin landed in front of her, snow shooting up around him in large clouds as his wind magic faded. He bent down to place his hands on his knees, breathing deeply yet rapidly as Kjelle slowed her horse to a stop and dismounted. Each breath raked through him, his body shuddering with every exhalation as he brought a hand to his chest and coughed.

He took a longer, slower breath than the rest, and stood back up to full height, his right hand glowing a soft green as he prepared more wind magic. His cloak had returned to his shoulders, as Kjelle should have expected, but he seemed so exhausted that she doubted the added protection would matter.

There was a book other than his wind tome in his his left hand, and Kjelle was able to place it as the journal she had read at Port Ferox, the one about which he had later lied to her. The book's presence was certainly odd, but she didn't allow it to distract her from her fixation on her target. She didn't breathe for fear that doing so would expel her rapidly spiking adrenaline.

Robin sighed as his fist glowed even brighter, then jumped when he finally realised Kjelle's presence and close proximity to him. The light on his hand dissipated, and he clutched the books in his other close to his body.

"I hadn't expected you to turn back." he breathed out, his voice both startled and exhausted. "Thank the gods you did… I don't know if I could've kept-"

Kjelle's fist collided with his stomach and he bent over again, winded. He attempted to sputter out something, but failed, and was silenced completely when Kjelle's other fist crashed down on the back of his head, sending it down into the thin snow below them.

She knelt down in the snow and brought her hands to his head in one swift movement, applying as much pressure to his skull as she could while lifting it into the air. Slamming his head back into the ground, she caught sight of his eyes, of the wounded spark of incredulous fear that glinted in their depths. Below that, something darker had ignited, and she almost hesitated when she found that whatever it was awoke some primeval fear within her, but she forced her raging hope to possess herself entirely. His head was raised and slammed into the ground once more before he managed to worm one of his hands into position underneath her torso.

A scream, born of more hatred and fury than she had known she had, was coming to a boil inside of Kjelle, but before she could release it she was sent flying skyward.

Robin coughed violently as he sat up, Kjelle landing hard in the soft snow several metres from him. He cleared his wounded throat and finally accomplished the feat of forming proper words. "What the hell are you doing!?"

"Facing you!" Kjelle shouted as she scrambled to return to her feet. "I'm not going to run away anymore! I'm going to stop you from hurting my friends, and from damning the future! I won't listen to your lies and platitudes any longer - I'll stop you, here and now, no matter what!"

"You've gotta be kidding me…" Robin muttered, though by all means loud enough for her to hear. "I'm trying to help you save the world, to save your time! If whoever among your friends wrote this-" he held the journal up for her to see, but held it close enough that she wouldn't be able to charge him and take it, "-lives to reach their ambitions, everything will have been pointless!"

"Liar!" Kjelle screamed out at an even greater volume. "I know who my friends are, and none of them would ever betray our goals! I won't allow you to try to manipulate me any longer!"

Her voice fell in register to become far more grave. "Gods, you already know their locations, and some of their personal information… you've prepared for this, for so long. You've spent this entire time we've known each other trying to root out your fictional traitor so you could kill an innocent person!"

"Yeah, I have been. But they're not innocent." Robin admitted, matching the gravity of her tone. "I need to save my friends, the same as you. Now, I may finally have a lead on who's threatening them, and I have the chance to save them all! I'm not going to pass that up!"

His voice grew stronger as he rose to a stand, his stature coming off as borderline threatening when paired with the confidence found in his certainty. "Our goals are one and the same - we both want the best for our friends, and our futures! We can work together to reach our ends, to grow strong enough to be able to reach them!"

"We could save everyone." Kjelle stated flatly, not asking him a question but having him nod in acknowledgment all the same. "Except, of course, for one of my unlucky friends, because you need the convenient little lie that they're evil for your bullshit to make sense!"

"No, that's not the point!" Robin replied, his voice shaking away all of its confidence in only a few words. "The villains need to die for good people to live happy, peaceful lives. That's the way the world works, and that's what needs to happen for you, your friends, and the Shepherds to so much as live! The villains need to die!"

"For once, I think you're actually right about something." Kjelle said, preparing herself both for any attacks he may send her way and to charge him, depending on what opportunity was presented to her. She knew that she couldn't take any major spells from him, especially not without her armour, and so she tensed her legs in anticipation of having to dodge.

"Please, let me explain." Robin pleaded with her. "Let me show you what they wrote. I promise that I'll show you as much as I can, so let me explain, okay?"

"Are you still going to try to implicate one of my friends?"

Robin nodded, and Kjelle scoffed in response. "Then I don't want to hear it."

"It's the truth!" Robin argued vainly, reaching discreetly for another tome when he realised how dedicated she was to her view.

"It's your truth. That means it's no different than a lie."

"I can prove everything, Kjelle." Robin continued to argue despite how fruitless it had already proven to be. "Hear me out, okay? Give me time."

"You can do whatever the hell you want, but I'm not going to bother listening." Kjelle said. "I'll protect my friends, and you aren't going to change that."

"Stop being so stubborn about this!" Robin groaned, aggravated more by how much he understood and respected her nature and desire to protect her friends rather than how obstinate it was all proving.

Seeing that he had stalled for long enough to draw his thunder tome, Kjelle cursed and sprang at the grandmaster in the hope of somehow disarming him. She failed almost immediately when a prison of yellow electric spears shot down into the ground around her, entrapping her in a small circle of magic pylons webbed together with more electricity.

"...I didn't know you could cast that without a lance." Kjelle admitted from within the prison, tentatively reaching a hand out to touch the wall, only to recoil when it sent out a painful shock.

"I'm nowhere near as pathetic as you." Robin replied coldly, though with a completely even voice, as though he hadn't intended to offend her. "You've still got a long ways to go."

She glared at him with rage surpassing what her adrenaline had provided her, the brutal reminder of her weakness kindling even greater fires than before within her. Her hands instinctively balled into fists, and she struck out rapidly at one of the spears that enclosed her.

An explosion of lightning met her strike, and she was launched back to the opposite side of the cage, where her back collided with the web again and sent her crashing to the ground in an even greater surge of magical electricity. She struggled to rise to a kneel, her muscles twitching and refusing to respond as they fended off the effects of the prison. The walls around her remained perfectly intact.

"Apparently, I'm also significantly smarter than you, too." Robin laughed without any trace of humour. "Don't punch magic. It's a good way to get yourself hurt."

Kjelle slowly pushed herself to a stand as her muscles regained their functionality. "Why are you doing this? I'm not going to stop trying to kill you, so why won't you do the same?"

"I'm going to tell you the truth." Robin said, flashing the journal for her to see again as he opened it to the last available pages it held. "After that, I'll get rid of the magic prison, and you can do as you please. If you choose to go after your friends and warn them, then so be it, but I'll still be trying to uncover and kill whoever wrote this thing. If you want to stay with me, even if we end up operating toward different ends, I know we can cooperate for at least a little while longer. I won't try to kill you."

Kjelle gave no reply, and merely watched as he recited an enchantment she couldn't hope to understand over the burned scraps that had once contained the books' final pages. After several long moments of no developments, three pages appeared. He tore out the first two in one group, and the third on its own. He burned the two into nothingness and left the one unmarked.

"You're not going to tell me everything you've hidden, even now?" Kjelle asked with an obvious tinge of disdain.

Robin shook his head as he tore the top section of the remaining page away and destroyed it, leaving only a small jagged rectangle in one of his hands. "There's stuff that isn't relevant, and stuff that would only complicate things far more if I were to show them to you. This - only revealing certain parts of what they wrote - it's for the best."

Kjelle frowned and crossed her arms, as annoyed as she was infuriated that she was more or less at his mercy for the time being. Robin lit a miniscule flame over his forefinger, running one side of the paper over it until the entire parchment was yellow and crumpled, with the side he had brought to the flame being almost entirely blackened. Due to what Kjelle could only assume were more idiotic properties of magic, the paper didn't catch fire.

"Like I said, someone from your time wrote this book." Robin explained, the journal in question still in one of his hands despite how often it was getting in the way of his other movements. He was waving the book around as he spoke. "They gave strategies, enchantments, information, suggestions… and a lot of horrible answers to equally as horrible questions."

Realising that his movements had grown exceptionally sluggish, Kjelle watched Robin with newfound attentiveness as he continued his exposition. "What's worse is that they gave a condition. This condition, what I'm about to show you, is nothing short of a threat. I've taken everything written here seriously, and it's proven to be accurate every step of the way."

He placed away his journal, fumbling clumsily with the folds of his cloak for a second as he pulled out his wind tome once more. Flipping the book open to an unnecessarily specific page, he held the burned and torn scrap of paper out in his right hand as he recited something she couldn't hear but could discern was uncomplicated and brief. He truly was incredibly weak at the moment, but even so his magic remained as potent as ever.

A small ball of green wind enveloped the scrap of paper and gently blew in Kjelle's direction. It approached a point on the web that was at the approximate midpoint between two pylons, an area of little resistance that with urging from Robin was easily bypassed without issue. Kjelle held one hand out, and the paper lazily floated into her palm as its casing of wind dissipated.

"Read that… please…" Robin wheezed breathlessly, his voice informing her of his exhaustion had she not picked up on it earlier. "Do it quickly - fly-jumping here, making that cage, and keeping the enchantment up under such poor conditions takes a lot out of me."

Kjelle returned her attention to him before she could begin to analyse what little text he had provided. "Maybe I'll wait for you to collapse, then."

"Then… the enchantment will end, and the page… will return to nothingness. It's already… h-hard enough to bring back something turned to… to ash a year and a half ago, so please… hurry."

She glared at him a moment longer, redirecting her focus to the slip of paper only when his eyes closed and sweat broke out on his forehead from his concentration. The paper didn't crumble or warp in her hands as she had expected from something partially burned to what was essentially ash, and she had a surprisingly easy time reading the few lines still present.

'By the way, if you mess anything up and get anyone in the Shepherds killed or fail to follow the strategies I've written here, I'll kill every single person you have and will come to love. Every person in the Shepherds, and probably some outside of them; I'll slaughter every single person one by one simply to get back at you for the slightest of failures. Trust me, I'm more than petty enough to do it.

See ya, Robin.'

Kjelle blinked. The note was surprisingly threatening, that she could admit, but the fact that its words held no weight and had no form in a physical writer to defend them was strikingly obvious to her. In addition, there was no guarantee beyond misguided trust that it wasn't fabricated, and she was certain that Robin would be one to stoop so low as to falsify evidence like this.

She opened her mouth to question and refute him, but paused when streams of soot fell from the rear of the paper. Moving her fingers, she realised that she was wiping away the ashes on the back of the parchment, and a quick, discreet flip of the page revealed more text hidden beneath the layer of black. Her hands had been too cold to feel the superficial mask of ash, but she was still by all means able to wipe it away, regardless of how it had been formed.

Normally, magic fires produced little ash and had little in terms of emissions, but his fire had coated one of the paper's sides in soot. He hadn't actually burned it - he had only used what little ashes were created by his fire to create the illusion it was burned, hoping that she wouldn't be able to see through it, but she was now able to discern how unusual it was for one side of a page to burn while the other remained largely unscathed.

She risked a quick and practically unnoticeable glance up to Robin, and saw that he was still focused solely on concentrating, and that he would be incapable of seeing her read the other side of the paper should he keep his eyes closed. She hurriedly wiped away the rest of the false ash from the paper and read the partially torn text underneath.

'-finally be here with them all, I can't begin to describe it. You have no idea how long I've wanted this, for everything to be made right. I'll do everything I can to ensure that this world reaches the fullest of its potential, but I need your cooperation for this all to work. Please, work with me on this - though, to be fair, you don't exactly have a choice. Sorry about that, by the way. I wish we could have worked on better terms, but here we are, and honestly I think this is for the best, despite how cold or deceitful it may all seem.'

Kjelle frowned, the additional side of the note doing nothing to quell or raise her suspicions, and instead causing her to question more than anything why Robin hadn't wanted it revealed. She wasn't even certain if he had intended for her to read the second passage or not, as pretending to unintentionally feed her information would certainly be something he was devious enough to do, but she preferred to think that the difficulty of maintaining his magic had weakened him to the point where he couldn't hide from her. Then again, that too could be more manipulation.

"I'm done." she announced, deciding that questioning Robin would be the more direct route to answers than uncertain conjecture. The note in her hands immediately crumpled into nothingness, and the grandmaster let out a long sighing breath as his enchantment faded.

"Are you going to let me out yet?" Kjelle asked in continuation when he made no move to do anything but inhale ragged breaths.

"Do… do you… believe me?" he replied through a series of halting words.

"I see no reason you couldn't have made this all up recently, or planned it out months ago."

Robin gave a large sigh and kept his barriers of magic in operation. "Will you try to attack me again?"

"Not if you answer my questions honestly, and reveal everything to me." Kjelle responded slowly, not wanting to violate any notion of honour while still wanting to divulge the truth from him. She really wanted to attack him again.

Robin watched her for a moment before dispelling his magic, each spear of lightning disintegrating into a spray of sparks as the webbing that bound them to one another faded. "I'll tell you as much as I know is safe. If you attack me, though, I'll still fight back. Not kill you, but fight."

Waving her arm out cautiously before her, as though she feared that the wall of magic would suddenly reappear, Kjelle appraised her surroundings and took a few tentative steps toward Robin. "You don't seem like you're in proper condition to fight."

"Magic can be draining, at times." Robin admitted as he ran a hand over his forehead, wiping the last traces of his now-freezing sweat away from his body. "I'm still more than ready to take you on, though. In case you've forgotten, you still don't have any weapons, and I have mine."

"Sounds like a fair fight, then." Kjelle smiled smugly, earning her an eye roll from Robin. She knew she was likely incapable of defeating him, even now when he was impaired, but she held onto the hope that she could prevail nonetheless.

"What are your questions?" Robin asked impatiently, his voice already returning to a less weakened tone as the drain from his magic recuperated, though he remained significantly more fatigued than usual.

"Right, right…" Kjelle muttered to herself before raising her voice for him to hear. "Is everything in that book written by someone other than you? And was made for a purpose other than having me believe a lie?"

"All of it was written by someone from your time. I found it in Ylisstol a few days after I woke up with no memories, in the royal library, where they had apparently left it for me to find. It was written to me, and as far as I can tell was never made to convince anyone but me of anything."

Kjelle nodded, having expected no different of an answer from him. "How do you know someone from my time made it?"

"I didn't, at least not at first." he confessed. "I thought that someone with insane predictive abilities or some amazing foresight made it, but now that I know people have travelled through time…" he trailed off, leaving her to fill in the rest on her own.

"Except that my time was different from yours. The Plegian war happened and ended in completely different ways, and went far better in my time." Kjelle finished for him.

Robin nodded. "That's because someone from your time, a traitor to everything good in your Shepherds, urged me to do things differently than I probably did in your time. They wanted Emmeryn to die, and Gangrel, and for the Plegian war to be bloody."

"And you followed their commands blindly, knowing that doing so would lead to Emmeryn's death and so much more?"

"I didn't know there was any better alternative!" Robin said, dismayed by how accusatory her tone had rapidly become. "I tried to change things as I got closer to Emmeryn's death… I tried to accelerate fights, to go through battles as fast as possible, thinking that doing so would somehow mess up their plan enough that she would be saved. I never wanted for Emmeryn to die."

"Yet you didn't save her. Or Gangrel, or Phila, or anyone." Kjelle continued in the same accusatory tone. "You knew what might happen, and you had all the time and resources needed to change it, yet you did nothing… and you call me pathetic? Look at yourself."

"I'm not-!" Robin began to shout before he narrowed his eyes on her. "Wait, this isn't about what I've done. You think you're a coward for not already killing me, don't you?"

"What?" Kjelle laughed with an unintended shakiness. "Don't be absurd. I know I've been wrong to not confront you, but I'm not cowardly in the slightest."

"You have confronted me." Robin reminded her. "You lost in the Ruins of Time, you lost at Port Ferox, you've lost in every duel we've had. You may not be a coward, sure, but you're still weak."

Kjelle seethed in an almost silent, furious indignation at his insults. "I'm not weak. I'll prove that I'm more than strong enough to kill you, and save everyone!"

"If that were the case, I wouldn't have any problem with sharing everything with you right now." Robin said. "You're not strong enough yet. You still can't pose a real threat to me, and you need far more training until you hit that point."

"Do you still intend to teach me how to get stronger?" Kjelle asked. "You know, teach me how to kill you?"

"That's the perfect way for the both of us to get stronger." Robin answered, shrugging as if it were obvious.

"And you're fine with that, knowing that you'll have to reveal everything once I reach the point where I can pose a threat?"

"By then, it…" he paused, searching for a way to end his sentence, "...it'll be for the best, no matter what I think should be kept hidden or not."

Kjelle narrowed her gaze on him, appraising his statements as much as his character and finding both to be unsatisfactory. "I'm still not about to believe you, or put all of my trust in you. Show me everything in that book, everything you've kept hidden, and I'll consider it a step in the right direction."

Robin shook his head rapidly from side to side, as though he was afraid of the suggestion. "I can't do that."

"Because you still need to manipulate the truth, right?" Kjelle said in complete contempt.

"Yes, Kjelle. I do." Robin replied with a more level, grave tone. "There are things in it that if I show you… you really would stop at nothing to kill me."

Kjelle's gaze narrowed further. "What kind of things?"

"I'm not about to tell you." Robin scoffed before his voice descended back into a low seriousness. "And besides… I don't remember."

"What do you mean you don't remember?"

Robin looked at her, then quickly averted his gaze to fixate on random points of the ground. "You've seen the closest thing anyone has to any kind of hell, right? Thanks to Grima and… well, me?"

She nodded, allowing him to continue.

"There were things you saw, maybe things you did, that you never wanted to think about or do ever again, right?"

Kjelle paused for a second in uncertainty, then shook her head, but he pressed on regardless and she found herself wondering if he had even seen the action. She did have things she would prefer to never think about or do again, but Robin didn't have to know that.

"Well, all I know is that something in this book was bad enough that I burned and cut out pages." Robin said. "Whatever it was is hidden under some kind of… sea of grey, and even if I could get through it, I doubt I would want to. I can tell you about it when the time is right, and show you the passages, but I don't think I'll ever be able to truly face what it is."

Kjelle took a second to process his information and found herself shaking her head in derisive confusion. "The hell does that mean? You know what it is and can talk about it, but you still don't know what it is? Is that supposed to convince me that I can't learn about it except from you?"

"It means that I kind of know what it's generally about, but everything about it is always…" he stopped to search for a proper word, "...hollow."

"Hollow." Kjelle echoed him with a far less serious and less believing tone. "You can't tell me what the evil thing is in that book a supposed traitor wrote, which would prove your villainy… because it would sound 'hollow'." she brought a hand to her forehead and muttered nothing to herself before speaking to him again. "And you seriously want me to trust you?"

"I don't know what I can say or do to make you believe me, but yes. I do." Robin asserted, his faltering confidence having returned.

"You can show me everything." Kjelle persisted, Robin shaking his head again, causing her to sigh. "At least show me the entire page you took out of context, okay? That can be the first incredibly small step toward earning anything that even remotely resembles trust."

"That page…" Robin said, his voice fading as he retreated to the depths of his memory in order to recall whether it held anything incriminating. "Yeah, okay, I can do that. I'll need a little time or some resources to get my power back to the point where I can maintain it, though."

"Alright." Kjelle agreed. She didn't need to say anything more to convey that he would need to be fast, her impatience and disbelief clear throughout everything. "Also, you aren't allowed to kill or even attack any of my friends, got it? Unless you manage to somehow prove to me, and everyone else in the world, that they're evil." _Which you never will._ she added silently to herself.

"Fine by me." Robin accepted immediately. "I have no intention to kill an innocent person, but I will kill whoever I know to be evil."

Kjelle eyed him warily. "And your definition of evil is…?"

"...Somebody who does evil things?" Robin answered without much thought. "It's not that hard of a concept to understand. Bad people do bad things."

"Let's pretend for a minute that one of my friends did write that book, and what they wrote - not what you did, but purely what they wrote - is what led to death and tragedy during the Plegian war. If what they had you do was necessary to avoid something worse, if it was all for the greater good, would they still be evil and need to die?"

"Killing people is never good, meaning that they're evil. Simple as that." Robin shrugged, and Kjelle's gaze became colder.

"You were more than ready to kill people yesterday. Doesn't that mean you're evil?" she asked.

"Those people were evil, though." Robin countered. "They had to die for others to live. Killing them doesn't count."

"Then who does count?" Kjelle asked, her tone equally inquisitive as it was critical. "Or do you get to decide that whenever you want?"

"The Shepherds are good people. That's all I know for sure."

"Only the Shepherds?" Kjelle asked, surprised yet somehow unsurprised. "Not innocent people, or children, or civilians, or something, but only the Shepherds?"

"Everybody has the propensity for evil." Robin explained, though it came off as weak to her. "I know that the Shepherds are good, so they're my basis. If someone wants to defy or harm them, then they're almost certainly evil."

Kjelle simply looked at him for an extended period of time, to the point where he was made uncomfortable before she finally spoke. "Your morals are messed up. What if a Shepherd does something bad, or harms another Shepherd? Are they still good, or are they evil? And what about people who could be Shepherds, or people who were like Gangrel, or people who don't want to be Shepherds in the first place like Anna? Are they good?"

"I don't know." Robin replied honestly, though Kjelle saw it as nothing more than yet another unsatisfying answer. "Shepherds are good, so I doubt they would hurt one another, but if they did… then I guess they would be good, but with a moment of evil? Potential Shepherds might have the same goodness as existing Shepherds, but they might not. Gangrel was evil, and I doubt it was easy for me or Chrom to work with him in your time. And… I think Anna is a good person, deep down."

"What about me, then?" Kjelle asked in continuation, though his answers were still little more than aggravating. She didn't know entirely why, but she was still looking for excuses to believe in Robin. "If there really is this mythical traitor among my friends, I would still believe in them and try to protect them. That may harm Shepherds. What am I, then?"

"Actually… I think you're exceptional." Robin answered with the same genuine honesty as before, this time catching her slightly off guard. "You have the ambition to become more powerful, to be stronger, but it doesn't corrupt you. You want to help and protect people, like you said, even if they might be evil, like your friend. Or me. People can be warped by desire and strength, but you want to use it for the best, and I honestly think that you will. It's kind of amazing."

"Uh…" Kjelle stammered, having wanted to press him further and catch him in his nonsensical morality, but not knowing how to respond to such heartfelt praise.

"Sure, you may be a bit of a hothead and are way too eager to prove yourself it's really not necessary." Robin continued. "Still, I think that you're capable of wonderful things. I want to help with that in any way I can, to help you reach your greatest potential."

Kjelle struggled to form words, realising that under far less hostile circumstances, she may have blushed under his praise. "Uh… thanks, I think? Even if you don't know that I'm great enough to tell me the truth, it's… a nice sentiment?"

"I aim to please." Robin said, flashing a cheery smile that struck Kjelle as being remarkably similar to the carefree grin of Inigo. "Seriously, though, I think you're capable of better things than what I could probably hope for, so I want to help you get to the point where you're able to realise that kind of stuff. You may not know everything yet, and you might still be a little naive in regards to your friends, but I promise to help you out as much as I reasonably can. Sound good?"

"Good enough for now, I guess." Kjelle muttered, her voice bordering on distaste as Robin's smile brightened. "I still want that full page as soon as possible, though. And you can't hurt my friends."

"Got it." Robin's smile remained, though it weakened considerably. "Also… I want to bump up your training as much as possible. You've still got a long way to go, as far as I'm concerned, so I want to spend all the time we can from here on out for training. Provided that we aren't resting or travelling, of course."

Kjelle released a short and oddly pleasant laugh. "You're making this sound better and better. Let's get going, then. Noire's probably waiting for someone to find her."

She walked back to and climbed onto her patiently waiting horse, turning it to face toward the village they had arrived from in order to retrieve her equipment. Robin's smile persisted on his face as she rode past him, fading only a few moments later as she began to gradually disappear in the direction of the town without offering him any aid.

"Hey, can you-!" he called after her, but she had already left by the time he realised what was happening. Taking his wind tome out of his cloak with a heavy sigh, he weighed flying and walking the distance to the inn, both options causing him to curse under his breath.

"Yeah, this is a great start to a positive relationship…" he muttered to himself as he started walking, saving his wind magic for when he was nearer to civilisation and less likely to pass out from overexertion. "Leave me behind in the snow after we talk about trust and cooperation… godsdammit, I didn't mean to impart my pettiness, too…"

* * *

Robin breathed in and out deeply several times, preparing for his coming feat of spellcasting. He would be reversing time on an object for over a year's worth of damage and destruction.

He and Kjelle were atop their respective horses again, having departed the inn with all of their belongings less than an hour ago. The day was nearing its midpoint already after their earlier excursions, but Robin had assured Kjelle and himself that they would still be able to reach the next Anna's location by nightfall if they moved at an accelerated pace.

Kjelle had elected to not wear her armour for fear of how cold it would become, and how it could exacerbate her illness. In truth, she desperately wanted to wear the armour, as she knew it would provide her with a sense of security and hope from the memories of her mother's great triumphs, but she wanted to act practical all the same. She hated being sick.

She sneezed loudly from her position to Robin's left, thankfully directing it away from his personage. Her cold had returned in the absence of her adrenaline, and Robin found himself wondering how she had managed to move around so much in her condition, though he would admit through his irrational fear of illness that she was already recovering.

"Do you want my cloak again?" he offered when she went through the motions of another sneeze that never fully manifested. "It can help out a bit, like before."

"I don't need your help." Kjelle scoffed, not noticing when Robin rolled his eyes. "I'm proving that I'm strong, right? That means that I'll get by on m-"

She was cut off when Robin's bundled cloak collided with her head. Having not noticed him as he had removed it, she was caught unaware by his action, and jerked her head to the side as she reached for whatever had assaulted her. She realised that it was the cloak a moment after he had begun to conceal a small laugh, and glared at him in an attempt to unsuccessfully silence the noise.

Robin shivered in the absence of his cloak, and conjured several special small fires to orbit around him and provide a modicum of warmth. He also sent a few in Kjelle's direction to do the same, though she initially swatted at them.

"You can rely on other people once in a while, especially if you're not doing well." Robin advised her sagely, and it was then her turn to roll her eyes.

"Yeah, I know. I've had that lesson beaten into my head enough." she said. "It's not as easy to rely on you as it is a normal person. I'd like to think you're good, but after everything this morning, and everything I should've accepted by now…"

"That set us back a bit, huh?" Robin murmured, his gaze tracing unfocused over the trail ahead of them. "Sorry about all of that. About… everything, really. The ruined future, the traitor stuff, the lies and manipulations, everything… I wish it could all be better, but I don't think it can. For now, at least."

Kjelle locked her eyes on the road ahead of them rather than Robin or anything related to him. "You can make things better by telling me the truth. Keep working on that page, okay?"

"Don't need to tell me twice." Robin said, smiling warmly as she slipped on the cloak before returning his attention to the journal in his hands. "Sorry about the wait - the more I have to keep in existence, the more difficult already complicated magic becomes. Anyway, you're sure you don't want to read through this entire thing first - What remains right now, I mean? There might be some stuff in it that you would find interesting."

"I've already read the entire thing, back when I was in your room at the port." Kjelle informed him nonchalantly.

"You-!" Robin restrained himself from shouting at her reveal, more from the casual nature of it than anything else. "Of course you did. It's not like you to ask to read a personal journal or anything, right?"

"I'm so sorry that I thought the harbinger of death and ruin didn't deserve my utmost respect." Kjelle apologised, her voice laced with nearly tangible sarcasm.

"It's not like you've gotten any better since." Robin quipped back, the majority of his attention remaining locked on his book.

"You still haven't proven that you're completely innocent." Kjelle said.

"Then why didn't you kill me when you had the chance, if I'm not innocent?"

Kjelle tensed for a second, the question coming off as unexpected despite how she already knew - and had previously given - the answer. "I want to think that you're good, on some level. That some part of you doesn't want to doom the world."

Robin hummed to himself, offering no verbal response, something Kjelle found herself grateful for as she knew that one would only exacerbate the awkwardness of her situation. She returned her attention in full to their path, and Robin fixated solely on the journal, each leaving the other be.

Robin closed his eyes to help him concentrate, and began to channel the magic necessary for the enchantment into his right hand. The Mark of Grima thrummed in response, and he snapped his eyes open. It had never done that before.

The thrumming persisted when Robin stopped his flow of magic, and he closed his eyes in order to concentrate again and fix whatever he had messed up. When he opened them, the mark had quieted, but the world was so bright that he could barely see the book in his hands.

He looked around frantically, hoping that the brightness was fixated on a point and that he could simply direct his attention elsewhere to dispel it, but it was enveloping him. Even Kjelle was wrapped in the brightness, her face barely visible through its embrace. A chord of absolute terror struck through him.

"Kjelle? Hey, Kjelle?" he called out, though his voice was already fading. For a moment, he thought that his fear could be curtailed, that he had some hope of overcoming the undefeatable, and in that moment he sought the selfsame comfort she had supposedly found in him. "Can… can you look at me?"

"Hm? Why?" Kjelle turned to face him, not noticing the frailty in his voice.

His face was as serene as ever, and he looked almost pleased with whatever state he was in. She scanned her eyes over his features, and she found that she had to avert her gaze from his own, though she took care to have her face remain locked in the direction of his.

Kjelle cursed under her breath when she realised that she wouldn't have been wholeheartedly able to kill him even if the chance had presented itself to her. She would always falter, as she had done in his tent days ago, when she had the opportunity to kill Robin. There would always be the small part of her that wished for something unattainable, an ideal where he wasn't evil and could be helped, regardless of how naïve that was.

She wanted to believe that he was good, like the rest of his world, and that part of her would always pull against the rest, resisting the call to kill someone who wasn't definitively evil. For an instant, she wondered what if anything would constitute 'definitively evil', but silenced that query when she realised that she was uncertain of the answer.

When she returned her gaze to him, Robin's face still held the same calm warmth as before. A small contented smile had worked its way onto his features. She finally risked a glance up toward his eyes, and found that they held the same warm light as the rest of his face. She quickly shifted her gaze when a blush threatened to break out over her cheeks, Robin's expression seeming oddly personal and sensitive.

"Hey… uh… why am I doing this?" Kjelle asked through her blush, hoping he somehow wouldn't notice the colour overcoming her features.

"Robin? Hello? Are you the-e?" she asked when he didn't respond, and when he refused to move or speak whatsoever she leaned toward him and snapped her fingers in front of his face. He didn't flinch.

"Hey, a- y-u o-ay? Ro-i-? Ro-?"

"-ting, tes- o-e, two, thr-! He-o, Rob-n, you there?"

Kjelle's face had faded completely from Robin's view alongside her voice. Now, a new voice had appeared, stemming from nowhere within the impenetrable brightness.

"And we're back!" the new voice announced. It was feminine, and peppy without being overly happy. Something Robin knew from memory, but had only ever forgotten, and had no face to which it could be placed. He enjoyed hearing it speak.

"Sorry about earlier, I was messing around with some stuff and may have tapped into the whole amnesia thing a little bit. But, good news: the white noise is gone! Remember the stuff about tones that we heard each time we did this? Well, at least that I heard? Those should be completely gone now!"

The voice commanded silence. Maybe, if he really wanted to, he could have shouted out and told Kjelle that something was wrong, or convey the experiences that were rushing back into his mind to her. However, he never had said a word of this before to Chrom or anyone else when it happened, and he didn't wish to tell anyone now. The voice mattered more. It mattered the most of everything imaginable.

"Alright, Robin, first things first… let's see, where are my notes…" there was silence for a second before the voice chimed back in. "Ah! Found them! Okay, can you say 'hi' for me?"

No response from Robin.

"Yeah, didn't think so. Let me write this down real quick… it's a shame I didn't think to do this the first time, since then we would've had a bigger sample size for you."

There was a moment of silence again.

"Okay, got it. Now, please raise your right hand in front of your eyes."

Robin did as ordered, with Kjelle furrowing her brow in confusion and calling out to him. Both of her actions passed by unknown to Robin.

"Kjelle's asking if you're okay." the voice said. "Do you want to tell her anything?"

Robin nodded.

"Will you?"

He shook his head.

"Do you trust her?"

He nodded.

"Then why wouldn't you tell her anything?"

Robin did nothing.

"Right, right, stick to the routine, 'yes' and 'no' only…" the voice sighed, muttering something under their breath that Robin wasn't able to hear despite their connection. "We can talk things over when we finally meet. Shouldn't be too long now, relatively speaking."

"Anyway, some big stuff is going to be happening soon, provided that Flavia doesn't take longer than intended to find Henry. So, this is a checkup, of sorts. I want to see if anything changes between now and then, so I'm going to be looking into certain vital things. You good with that?"

Robin nodded.

"Awesome. You can lower your hand now."

Robin lowered his hand to the bottom of his view.

"...To a resting position, should you would prefer it."

Robin moved his hand to his lap, allowing it to rest. He never looked away from Kjelle in the process, and though he couldn't see it, her eyes were widened slightly in uncomprehending concern.

"Okay, now, please survey around you in a full circle. Flat, about your x-axis, and slow enough for me to take everything in through your eyes."

Robin rotated his head as far as he could left and right, turning his torso slightly in order to see directly behind his horse. He returned it to its first position, facing Kjelle, when he had finished. Kjelle, too, scanned their surroundings, knowing that something was incredibly off but not knowing what.

"Aw, she's confused. And… she's… wearing your cloak? Ah, well, whatever, not like it matters that much. Nice fireballs, by the way. Very quaint. So, if you were to remember what happens between us, would you tell Kjelle?"

Robin shook his head.

"Damn, that's kinda cold. But hey, if you're not going to tell Chrom, I guess you're not about to tell her either, huh?"

Robin nodded.

"Thanks for not telling anyone about me, by the way. I know I haven't really given you anything personal you would be able to identify me by, but it's nice to know you've been so supportive, and have kept this a secret. You know you could tell everyone everything if you wanted to, right? That you could work through stuff without exposing me?"

He nodded twice.

"Thought so. Thanks again, Robin, but make sure to take care of yourself, alright? Anyway, let's get back to your here and now. Are you only with Kjelle?"

He again nodded twice.

"Have you not reached Noire yet?"

He shook his head.

"So did Flavia take you to the port, then send you on your way? And you've headed east, only meeting Kjelle so far from those designated?"

Two nods.

"You're slightly behind schedule, but that's okay. Do your best, alright?"

He nodded.

"Good. Now, please lean toward Kjelle."

He leaned. Kjelle leaned away by an equivalent amount.

"She's kinda cute. Determined and confident, probably capable of killing you if she really wanted to, but she won't because she's really a sweetheart deep down. Or a cowardly, pathetic, egotistical- er, ha, but that's a little more subjective. Anyway, give her a kiss."

Robin did nothing, remaining in place leaning awkwardly off of his horse toward her. Kjelle darted her eyes away from his face, studying anything and everything other than his odd behaviour.

"Oh? Still not fond of kissing people, are you… you haven't acted like that since I asked you to kiss Chrom. And Frederick. And Lon'qu. And Cordelia, and Tharja, and Virion, and Lucina… do you think I have a problem?"

Robin nodded.

"Shut up." Another moment of silence. "Okay, now… hit her."

He did nothing.

"Good, didn't think so. Please return to your seat."

Robin stopped leaning.

"Please measure your heart rate, both from your neck and wrist. Show me… what was the last one… okay, yeah, average beats per twenty seconds, using your fingers to show the number."

He did as instructed, all the while never averting his unblinking stare from Kjelle. The knight had stopped leaning as well, and she was curiously studying him while trying to not allow her gaze to linger anywhere for too long. She tried to communicate with him again, though he remained unresponsive.

"Okay, I got it. That's a little higher than the last time we checked, though to be fair, that was over a year ago. You feeling a little stressed from everything?"

Robin nodded.

"Aw, I'm sorry. I wish I could be there to help, but… well, Walhart isn't home, so I'm needed in Valm for now. Anyway, we- wait, wait, Kjelle just mentioned something about an enchantment; did I interrupt something? A… page? What page?"

Robin looked over and down at his left hand, which still held the journal.

"Holy shit, is that the book I wrote for you? You still have that? I thought that you would've gotten rid of it after the war, when you didn't really need it anymore. I guess it did have those enchantments… wait, you answered a question. A non-'yes' or 'no' question. That's… new."

Robin nodded.

"That one wasn't a question, Robin. You also ignored two before that." the voice sighed again, then was silent for a few seconds. The world remained bright all the while, and the voice soon returned. "Sorry, had to grab some more paper. Is this enchantment something I should know about?"

Robin nodded.

The voice hummed to itself, presumably writing something down. "Is it going to be detrimental to saving everyone?"

Robin did nothing.

"Uh, Robin? Hello? Do you know if it'll be detrimental or not?"

He shook his head.

"Hm. Well, that complicates things a little. Less-informed you can be a real pain sometimes, you know that?"

He nodded.

"Okay, how to get to the bottom of this…" the voice said, then muttered something unintelligible. "Why don't you open the book to the page in question?"

Robin opened the journal to the section where he had burned away pages, and with a flick of his right wrist, brought one of the pages back into existence.

"Did you burn my book?"

Robin nodded.

"Dick. I'm guessing this is one of the things you wanted to forget, then?"

He nodded.

"You know that you can tell anyone everything at any time, right? That you should talk about it to some degree, in order to work through it all?"

Two nods.

"Good. My book, huh… were you trying to tell Kjelle about me?"

He shook his head.

"Was the you who chooses to forget trying to tell her?"

A nod.

"Would you stop yourself if you knew everything, and talked it all over with someone?"

He shook his head.

"I… see. So… you want this, but also don't?"

He nodded.

"Uh… okay. We're going to have a lot to talk about once we meet. Anyway, like I was saying before, we're going to do a few more basic tests before I move on to some deeper stuff. Now, Robin, please close your left eye."

He did as instructed.

"Okay, now please open your left eye and close your right."

He did. His sight was now locked on his journal, which Kjelle watched cautiously, not knowing whether the enchantment was yet complete.

"Excellent. Please open both eyes, and stand as tall as you are able."

He stood up to his full height atop the horse, his feet sliding precariously in his saddle's stirrups. The voice noticed his sway.

"Don't risk your safety for this, Robin. Sit back down."

He did, partially disturbed by the hint of fear in the other person's voice but equally pleased that they cared.

"Alright, your balance seems good. Have you gotten sick since we last spoke?"

He shook his head.

"Nothing at all, right? Not even the smallest of sniffles?"

Robin nodded then shook his head.

"Wonderful. Any problems that I should know about?"

He shook his head.

"Any I shouldn't know about?"

He nodded.

"These are physiological problems, yeah?"

He shook his head.

"Psychological?"

He nodded.

The voice cursed softly. "Why won't you tell anyone, then? You know that you should, that these kinds of issues need to be worked through while they still can be, so why won't you try?"

Robin gave no answer.

"...Sorry, I shouldn't pester you. I trust that whatever you're doing is for the best. Take care of yourself, okay?"

He nodded.

"Good. Thanks, Robin. Your health means a lot to me, as I'm sure it does to everyone else. Now, where were we… ah, right, do you miss Flavia?"

Robin nodded.

"Do you like her?"

Nod.

"Do you love her?"

Robin shook his head.

"Oh. I see. That's… a thing, I guess? I don't know how much I was expecting at this point, but… oh well. Next up: please show me the Mark of Grima."

Robin removed his right glove and held the back of his hand in his line of sight. The mark thrashed about, and in the brightness surrounding him appeared to glow. He believed that if it were to have a voice, it would be screaming.

"Still freaking out, huh? You have any hypotheses on why it's doing that yet?"

Robin nodded to the first question and shook his head at the second.

"Okay, you can put the glove back on now. We'll have to wait and see if Flavia manages to fix anything in Plegia, and I'll get back into contact with you a few days after she does her thing. Thanks for everything, Robin."

There was silence for a moment, and Robin saddened at the knowledge the voice was leaving, but then it suddenly returned. He was happy to hear it again, and he hoped they felt the same though he himself never spoke.

"Hey, uh, Robin… you're playing along right now, aren't you? You could say and do anything, but you choose to keep doing this, right? You could remember everything if you really wanted to, but it's a choice that you constantly make to refuse to do so, or at least to pretend that you don't know anything when around other people?"

Affirmative nods.

"Sorry to bother you with another question that isn't 'yes' or 'no', but… why is that?"

Robin angled his thumbs downward and curled the rest of his fingers in on themselves, bringing his hands together in front of his vision. Together, they formed the crude shape of a heart.

"Because… heart?"

Shaking his head, Robin separated his hands in order to point directly at himself in the centre of his field of view.

"Uh… because you're a heart? No, no, wait… it's not a heart, but love?"

Robin shook his head at the first question, then nodded for the second.

"You pretend like this… because you love yourself?"

Robin shook his head.

"Because… you love me?"

He nodded emphatically.

"I… I love you too. Stay safe. See ya, Robin."

The brightness faded, and while Robin felt sad that the voice was leaving, he felt a greater warmth than ever before at their parting words. This voice was one who could be trusted, the one who wanted to help and heal above all else, the one who was definitely good and could do no wrong.

As the light faded, so too did Robin's memories of what had happened, or rather his willingness to recall them. He blinked, his faculties having returned wholly to himself, though they had never truly disappeared.

"Is it done?" Kjelle spoke up from her position beside him, startling him slightly.

"I… what?" Robin stammered, his mind lagging behind in the mixture of bliss and foreign, artificial fear that haunted him.

"The page? From the journal? Are you done restoring it yet?" Kjelle leaned toward him, seeing that the page appeared to have been wholly recovered, though she didn't know if it was yet safe to take.

"Uh… yes?" Robin said in uncertainty, his eyes scanning over the journal that he couldn't remember restoring and his similar yet shifted Feroxi surroundings to what he could recall seeing before his one sided conversation. He held the book out to her, allowing her to rip out the page in question.

She did, and held it tentatively as though it were at risk of deforming at the drop of a hat. Robin watched her read it, his mind scrambling for an answer to whatever had happened between him preparing the enchantment and now. He failed to find one, and came to a realisation he detested and yet of which he was fond. He knew the true answer, even if he didn't want to face such a reality.

"There wasn't a tone this time…" he muttered mostly to himself, but Kjelle picked up on it anyway.

"A tone? What tone?" she asked, though her attention remained largely on the page in her hands.

"It's something under the grey. The tones under the grey, and the grey under the tones, and vice versa over and over…"

Kjelle looked over to him, her brow furrowed in equal parts concern and confusion.

Robin shook his head clear. "Sorry, sorry; it's nothing, really. Just some… magical stuff you wouldn't really get."

Kjelle shrugged and returned her full attention to the note, though she wasn't making much progress in reading. Her mind was too fixated elsewhere to make any headway. "Hey, what was that stuff you were doing? You didn't do anything like it last time."

"What was I doing?" Robin asked, his trepidation evident in his voice.

"You know, the jerky movements, standing up on your horse, staring and looking around, not to mention all the nodding." Kjelle shrugged, expecting him to know exactly what she was talking about. "Weird, unnatural stuff. Stuff I haven't seen before."

"Ah, right, that was… for the enchantment." Robin lied, hoping that she hadn't done the same to lure him into a trap.

Kjelle glanced away from the page for another moment to look at him in the corner of her eye. "Are you lying to me?"

Tensing fully before deciding to swallow his fear, pride, and whatever else was holding him at bay - at least in part - Robin decided to confide somewhat in her. "There's these tones I hear once in a while, that precede me… well, blacking out. I don't know what happens during them, but apparently I do good things while it's happening. It hasn't happened since the war, but I guess it happened again. Only this time, there was no tone signifying the blackout."

"You blacked out while you were doing those things? And you have no idea what happens during these… 'blackouts'?" Kjelle asked skeptically.

Robin looked directly at her, the cold expression set on his face causing her to avert her gaze and pretend as though she hadn't glanced at him in the first place. "Not a clue." he said.

Kjelle realised she was afraid, though she didn't know why. Perhaps his oddities in demeanor were far more unsettling than she had first considered, since she knew her fear wasn't caused by concern. Not in the slightest, even if she had to keep reminding herself of that.

She cleared her throat unnecessarily before speaking again. "Hey, out of curiosity, when I was reading your journal before at the port I saw a bunch of markings over strategy parts. What was that all about?"

"You mean the checkmarks, parts I crossed out, and stuff like that?" Robin asked, and she nodded in confirmation. "Those signified whether or not strategies worked as they had been detailed by the traitor."

"And question marks?" Kjelle asked, recalling the uncertainty that surrounded her parents thanks to the question mark she had found by their names. Sully's supposed relationship with Stahl was already enough to answer that query for her.

"Those mean that I wasn't sure how to address the strategy they wrote." Robin answered, and she sensed no attempts at deception in his tone. He paused for a second, mulling over a matter in his mind before deciding to propose it to her. "Do you think that 'traitor' is too strong of a word?"

Kjelle tilted her head in muted confusion, part of her resenting how frequently she was encountering the emotion. "Weren't you the one who wanted to use it in the first place? Whatever, I'm fine with not using it. Not like there actually is a traitor, anyway."

"No, no, it's fitting for someone so… vile." Robin said, silencing the part of him that argued the contrary. He devoted his attention solely to that path ahead of them, leaving Kjelle in silence to read the page from his book.

She watched him for a moment after he had stopped looking at her before she, too, turned her attention elsewhere. Bringing her focus entirely to the page, she combed it for any details that would work to expose anything at all to her.

'-in Valm. There's not much to talk about post-war, really, since that should hopefully end up all being speculation and idealism, but I want some of that for now. There's always the chance that things in Valm or afterward could go horribly wrong, but I doubt that any of that will happen provided that we can all work together. I know, more idealism, but I'm hoping that it's more than merely a dream.

There's another thing you should probably know about, but I don't know how much exactly to tell you right now, so here's the basics: don't trust Naga. The Shepherds trust her, and the masses love her, but in reality she's no better than Grima. She's no god, only a dragon, and she's prone to the same degeneration as every other dragon. The same disgusting nothingness that awaits everything else in existence. Mind you, she's not exactly evil, she's just not exactly good, either. It isn't wrong for the people in Ylisse to believe in her, in the same way it's not wrong for anyone to worship Grima, and they both have had major influences on the world around them, but at the same time neither are deserving of perfection. Nobody as vile as them ever deserves the greatness that awaits.

Now, here is the far more important part of what I have to say: they can still be helped. Naga is twisted, and views of her have distorted so greatly that people choose to worship her, but she's not evil and she can be brought back to the same loving world everyone wishes for, deep down. Even Grima isn't wholly evil; nothing is. Grima is simply sick, nothing more. They're far closer to Naga than you may think, by the way. Far, far closer. Neither can be trusted, but they can both be healed. They've forgotten the perfection we all need to strive for, and have replaced it with their own ideals, but they can be returned to the proper path. Everyone can.

This world has the potential to be so wonderful that I can't even tell you in writing how magnificent it can be. There's so much beauty, so much love and wonder, and I know that there'll always be so much more than you or I could ever understand alone. Progress needs to be made before everything can be good, or possibly even perfect, but as it stands now everything I can see is already at a match with or exceeding my expectations. You have and will do amazing work, Robin, and I need you to know that there will always be those who stand beside you, as long as you keep that ideal world of love and peace close in your heart.

Honestly, I can't really believe how amazing everything is now, or at least how amazing it could be. That's what's so great about this world, that it has so much potential for so much greatness. I may have messed up a bit in the past, but my heart was in the right place, and I know everyone would forgive me my mistakes. After all, they're the Shepherds, the most wonderful people in existence. You must know how amazing it is to be with them, but for me, to finally be here with them all, I can't begin to describe it. You have no idea how long I've wanted this, for everything to be made right. I'll do everything I can to ensure that this world reaches the fullest of its potential, but I need your cooperation for this all to work. Please, work with me on this - though, to be fair, you don't exactly have a choice. Sorry about that, by the way. I wish we could have worked on better terms, but here we are, and honestly I think this is for the best, despite how cold or deceitful it may all seem.

Your interests in your free time are probably all going to bring you around to a similar base topic, so allow me to regale you with a little tale and some info that'll help you along: once, a long, long time ago, there was a beloved sorcerer in the lands of Elibe. His name was Nergal, and he was

the most wonderful man history had ever known. Mentally speaking, he became ill after some mishaps with his research into life and magic. Rather than help him, or try to save him, or do anything that would have been worthwhile, the royals of the kingdoms around him banded together to form a band of monsters and cutthroats who ultimately claimed his life.

However, before his passing, Nergal managed to save some of the research texts he had formed over his life. While they were labelled as 'evil' and 'heresy' and 'criminal' by the people of his time, humanity as a collective has since been able to move on from those dark ages and has grown to recognise the progress he had made. Copies of his research should be available to you in the Ylissean royal library, should you desire it, though it wasn't included in what I left you. If you want to, I would recommend reading them; they'll be a great help in dealing with the risen and whatever else may catch your interest.

There were others like Nergal, and other books and texts you would undoubtedly be interested in reading. People with wonderful and glorious ambitions, who were vilified in their times despite how amazing those visions truly were. These people, too, can be researched, and I recommend that you do so in order to understand them.

More than anything, I want you to understand why they failed: they didn't communicate. Nergal wouldn't have been slaughtered had he communicated with his friends and family about his research and ambitions and sought their advice and aid, and had they done the same. The ancient emperor Arvis wanted to create a beautiful world for all people, but he was manipulated, made to break, and wasn't able to reach any form of understanding with Sigurd, who could have been his friend. Prince Lyon of Magvel could possibly have avoided untold death and destruction if he had negotiated with his friends and other national leaders. It may all sound corny and unrealistic to you, but it's the truth. It's happened in the past, it'll happen again, and the only thing we can do is try to stop this cycle of miscommunication and wrongful retribution.

I know that I'm probably coming off as not the best person throughout my strategies and this stuff, and if you don't think that yet you will in time. Everything I'm doing is for the best, though, and while I know that some people will disagree with me, sometimes all I can hold close to my heart are my ideals. So, here we are, in this situation, where we're both not in the best of positions, but I know how much better we can make everything. Let's hope everything works out for the best.

By the way, if you mess anything up and get anyone in the Shepherds killed or fail to follow the strategies I've written here, I'll kill every single person you have and will come to love. Every person in the Shepherds, and probably some outside of them; I'll slaughter every single person one by one simply to get back at you for the slightest of failures. Trust me, I'm more than petty enough to do it.

See ya, Robin.'

Kjelle scanned over the entire page, front and back, several times before handing it back to Robin. He accepted it, but rather than immediately destroy it as she had expected, he too began to read over its contents.

She waited until he had reached what she surmised to be most of the way through the first side of the page before speaking to him. "Is this book where you got your views on gods, and Naga, and… well, pretty much everything?"

"It's possible." Robin replied slowly as he continued to read. "I honestly can't remember one way or the other, though. This stuff is vaguely familiar, but… I chose to forget it for a reason, I'm sure."

"Chose to forget, huh…" Kjelle muttered as much to herself as to him. "Are you sure that none of the stuff in your manifesto… I don't know, leaked over into your normal memory?"

"Maybe, but I- wait, my what?" Robin answered calmly before spinning to face her with a look of pure disconcertment. "My 'manifesto'? You honestly still believe that I wrote this?"

"You're as good of a candidate as any." Kjelle replied with an indifference that proved as strong as his unsettled expressions. "What's with everything you-slash-they wrote about people like Nergal and Lyon? Weren't they some of history's greatest villains, not whatever you wanted them to be made out as?"

Robin quickly finished reading the paragraph he was on, the last to deal with the villains. "I don't know. Maybe she really thought that they were good, and could have been helped. That's wrong, though… they were undeniably monsters."

Kjelle glanced over to him, her eyes narrowed. "She?"

Robin diverted his attention from the page's final paragraph to face her. "What she?"

Kjelle's narrowed glance morphed into a full glare, though there was still the annoying part of her deep down that was more curious about his confusion than anything else. "I swear to Naga, Robin, if I find out that you're already trying to frame this on someone…" she trailed off when she realised that any threat would be largely empty.

"I'm not trying to do anything like that, Kjelle. I'm…" he, too, trailed off before sighing. "I don't know anymore. I don't even know why I agreed to show you all of this. Is there anything else you want from the note, or are we done here?"

Kjelle allowed her glare to linger for a moment longer as she considered a new line of questioning. "What's this 'ideal world' junk about? The crap on peace and love?"

"It's not 'crap'!" Robin immediately cried out defensively. Kjelle raised an eyebrow as he collected himself. "I… sorry, it's… I don't know. They probably think that a world where everyone works together and communicates would be like that, possessed entire by love and peace."

"They're a fool, then." Kjelle said, intentionally aggressive toward Robin yet uncertain of what end she was hoping to achieve. "A world without evil, simply because the worst people in all of history, and literal monstrosity dragons, bothered to get together and talk things through? Nothing has or will ever be that simple."

Robin's face fell a little, and Kjelle watched him carefully to ensure that she didn't miss anything critical and that she hadn't pushed too far. She didn't want to hurt anyone too badly, after all, even if they were naïve and probably evil. Pausing when she realised that she shouldn't be pitying evil, or be trying to work through anything with anyone evil, she had to shake her head almost violently in order to refocus on Robin.

"I think it's still a nice ideal, though." he said. "You know, hoping for people to at least try to get along… hoping they won't jump on any and every opportunity to fight… it's nice to have that kind of hope."

Kjelle found her gaze narrowing on him yet again. "You say that, but yesterday you didn't even try to reason with those bandits. All you did was kill them, and move on. No peace, no love, no communication, and no holding hands as you prance around a field of flowers like schoolchildren."

Robin visibly winced. "Yeah, I know. I said it was an ideal, not reality. It's simply a good ideal to have."

"Sure. Whatever you say." Kjelle agreed halfheartedly, more eager to move on to a new topic than waste her time with more presumptuous false excellence. "So, anyway… you're not dying yet."

Robin looked up at her from his second reading of the note in moderate confusion. "What are you talking about?"

She angled her head toward the page that still rested in his hands, not bothering to point it out. "Last time you used that enchantment to reverse time, you looked like you were about to collapse at any second. This time seems to have gone better for you. By a lot, especially considering that you've done more work for longer."

"Huh… you're right." Robin said, flipping the page around in his hands as though it held an answer for which he hadn't known to look. "That's weird."

"Wasn't all of that stuff you were doing supposed to help with the enchantment?" Kjelle said, providing him with an easy answer to her own inquiry. "Isn't that why you were doing it?"

"Um… yes?" Robin replied as he called an orb of fire that was orbiting him back into his open hand. "None of these fires ever faded or blinked out, did they?"

Kjelle, too, moved her hands to cup one of the fires orbiting her, retracting it quickly when it singed her gauntlets. "Not that I noticed. Why? Were they supposed to?"

"Considering that I had to divert my magic into the enchantment… yeah. They should have done something." Robin answered, transfixed by the fire in his hands until he let it fly off around him again.

Kjelle shrugged and returned her attention to their path before yet another topic breached her mind. "Hey, didn't you say a while ago that your golden rule was to not be manipulative and scummy like this? What the hell ever happened to that? Or was it a convenient lie you told me to try to get me to believe you?"

"Oh, convenient lie, all the way." Robin replied without any trace of hesitation. "Honestly, I'm surprised that you ever started to believe it."

Kjelle blinked, her expression developing into nothing short of complete surprise. She had anticipated some form of excuse or lie, not an honest admission of guilt and wrongdoing, especially considering how nonchalantly he had made the admission.

Robin noticed her confused surprise and tilted his head toward her, straining to see her face past the edges of her hood. "Did you think I was being honest? That I've never manipulated anyone or anything before and that I'm actually the pinnacle of humanity? Some wonderful, wholesome, honest, loving, paragon of goodness?" he gave a short, jagged laugh that came across as unsettling as his confession.

"I assumed that you were being at least a little honest, yeah." Kjelle admitted. "You seemed pretty adamant about how you hadn't manipulated people, and how you were an upstanding tactician."

"And somehow, you believed that." Robin laughed again. "Couldn't you already tell that things were different from your time? I'll admit, I do try to be as 'upstanding' as possible, but I've never been above manipulation. Tharja and Virion, Cordelia and Frederick, practically all of the Shepherd relationships… I'm behind each and every one. Even Sully and Stahl."

"You were the one behind everything getting messed up!?" Kjelle said, not quite shouting despite the rising anger within her - though that began to fade. "Wait, no… something's wrong here."

"Nothing's wrong, Kjelle." Robin reassured her with a calm, almost overly serene smile. "Their relationships are as I want them to be. What could ever be wrong with that?"

"You knew they would be happy together." Kjelle said, and Robin's smile wavered for an instant before shining in even greater force. "You didn't force or manipulate anything, you only nurtured what was already there. Saving Stahl wasn't what made my mother love him, there was already some spark they shared beforehand."

"Oh, please, a spark?" Robin laughed yet again, but this time Kjelle was able to hear the hollow part of its ring. "I placed them together in battles knowing that they would grow close. I let them all develop relationships as I wanted, knowing that they would contradict what was suggested to me, because I wanted to mess things up. There was no 'spark' until I decided that there should be one."

Kjelle's gaze grew wistful, causing Robin to frown as she dived into a story of her own. "When I was young, my father would tell me stories about the other Shepherds. Stories about Stahl and my mother always made them sound so close, and sometimes I would forget that they weren't somehow involved. They would train and fight together, and they would spend so much time off the battlefield with one another."

Robin scoffed, partially breaking her from her trace of memories. "Please, you could say that about practically anyone within the Shepherds. Cordelia loves Chrom, but I didn't put them together. Same with Frederick, literally. Sumia's love for baking would make any relationship she had with Gaius a happy one, but she's with Chrom and he's with Panne because those pairs were more beneficial on the battlefield. Stahl and Sully, Miriel and Ricken, Maribelle and Libra… they're all based around combat, not compatibility."

"In my time, Chrom was in a relationship with Sumia after the tournament in Ferox, before they had met Gaius or had been joined by Cordelia." Kjelle said, already well on her way to rationalising his out of place statements. "Cordelia and Frederick were both obsessed with duty and Chrom, so it makes sense to assume they would work well together. Gaius and Panne are both loners, Virion could bring Tharja out of her shell and would be conscious of any damage he could cause… you even made an effort yesterday to explain how Sully and Stahl made one another happy."

Robin's smile had distorted fully into a frown. "Why the hell are you trying to make excuses for the shitty things I've done? Even I'm willing to admit that they were wrong and bad, why wouldn't you, of all people, do the same?" he asked. His tone had grown accusatory, as if she should have been doubting and decrying him as she had been so eager to do in the past.

"Why are you trying to vilify yourself?" she answered with her own question. "All I know is that something here isn't sitting right with me, and as far as I'm concerned, you're lying about not having their best interests at heart."

"Or maybe this is all still part of the manipulation, and that's what I want you to think." Robin said without missing a beat.

"Then you wouldn't have suggested that." Kjelle kept up the pace, replying equally as fast. "You would have let me think that I was right, that I had won whatever this conversation is."

Robin's frown returned, deeper than before. "You're overthinking this. I made a clear admission of wrongdoing, accept it as that and nothing more."

He returned his attention to the page and journal in his hands, leaving Kjelle to her thoughts. She smiled, content that she had claimed what she could only see as an actual victory over his attempts to confound her, even if his clearing of guilt in the matter did complicate any formative theories she had on his evil doings. Then again, that also led her to think that maybe this was still part of his plotting, and that it continued down a rabbit hole that journeyed so far it hurt her head to think about. She dispelled those thoughts from her mind and reveled in her success for a little while longer.

She was pulled back into reality when Robin cursed, causing her to angle her head toward him again. The grandmaster had placed away the journal that was his and/or the traitors since she had last checked, and was now focused on the page he had conjured into existence. As she watched him, he stared at the page doing nothing for a short time, then waved his hands around, did more nothing, and cursed all the while.

He glanced up to her and saw that she was watching him, and she in turn saw the concerned confusion written plainly across his face. "I don't know what's happening. I can't get rid of it."

Kjelle leaned over toward him in the misguided thought that she may somehow be able to correct his mistake. "What's the problem?"

Robin held the page up to her, also thinking that she may somehow be able to help. "Normally, when you want to stop an enchantment like this that's constantly upheld, you only have to stop supplying ether to the thing that's being enchanted. I can't do that, for some reason."

"You mean that to keep the page here, you need to constantly feed magic into it?" Kjelle asked, and he nodded. "And you're saying you don't know how to stop feeding it?"

"I know how, but I can't. I've tried and it hasn't gone away. Usually, I would only have to stop concentrating on it, but that's not working right now." he explained.

"Okay, so… why don't you try getting rid of it with more magic, like you did to those pages last time?" Kjelle suggested. "It's not like the power for it could be coming from me or anything but yourself, so maybe you should try overloading it?"

"That'll either work, or go horribly, horribly wrong."

Kjelle shrugged. "Try it. Consider it… I don't know, research, or whatever the hell it is you do for this kind of stuff."

Robin stared at her for a moment before breaking into a wide, genuine smile. "Alright, I've never been one to doubt the scientific method. This can be an experiment!"

A faint smile grew on Kjelle's expression as she watched Robin, overcome with a newfound eagerness, theatrically raise the page above him with his left hand as he prepared a spell with his right. He shot a rapid burst of flame at the page, which was immediately snuffed out of existence without ever catching fire.

"Uh oh." Robin paled, an intense note of worry clear in his voice that caused Kjelle to lean away from him in fear of what was to come. "They're dissonant!"

Rather than lean further away and adopt the same level of panicked concern Robin was expressing, Kjelle merely quirked an eyebrow. "So? It's not like-" she was cut off when her horse reared back and whinnied violently, forcing her to redirect all of her attention into unsuccessfully calming the beast.

Robin's horse buckled beneath him, falling into the snow underneath it as its head swayed from side to side. The grandmaster himself was already in the process of removing the nothingness that had once been a page from his vicinity, dozens of spirals of wind magic curling around an empty point in space as they all curved up and away from the two riders, into the sky above the forest at their side.

From Robin's weak flame and nothing more, the page had collapsed in on itself, creating not only a vacuum of space but a void. As it was carried away from them by wind magic, it began to consume, with air, magic, and light all spiralling into its centre in distinct, overly large clusters of particles that in turn began to glow, in a manner not dissimilar to motes of dust in a sunbeam. The sky around it turned black, colour draining before it flashed white and then settled on a monotonous tone of grey. The flames that had once surrounded Robin and Kjelle both were snuffed out.

Robin gawked at the sky, his horse still shaking beneath him. "That's… it's…"

"It's like the portal I came through…" Kjelle finished for him. "I… how is this…?"

"Something's wrong." Robin said, his voice retaining his sense of awe that his mind had already dropped. "There's no crystal eye thing. Isn't there supposed t-"

The world immediately grew silent, as though it too were in awe of the broken portal opening in the sky. Robin finished his statement, but heard none of it, everything becoming quiet in respect for the magic at play, the closest thing he heard to sound being the vibrations coursing through his own flesh stemming from his throat. He opened his mouth to take in a shaky breath, but failed, with any air that may have once been able to greet him having been sucked into the path of the portal's consumption.

Choking on nothing, Robin began to cough, falling close to his horse then off of its left side completely and onto his hands and knees as his need for air grew vicious. He could feel the lack of anything within him, as though the air in his lungs had been ripped out, and that feeling began to flourish across his entire body.

There was the feeling of tearing around him, though his clothes did nothing more than lazily float in the direction of the portal, as though he were submerged underwater and they were drawn to the surface. Then, the feeling of tearing was inside of him, as if the walls of his throat and linings of his stomach and blood in his veins were all struggling to join the portal, and when he coughed again weightless blood was expelled from his mouth. It too began to float toward the distortion.

Kjelle hit the ground on her back a few metres from him, the snow she kicked up floating toward the portal in the same gravity defying trance. She coughed as violently as he had, her horse collapsing to the ground next to her as she struggled to contain what little air remained in her body. Her horse had fallen on its side, its back to her, legs flailing in the snow as it knocked both of her bags off of itself. Managing to cover her mouth with one hand, she fumbled with her spilled items, hoping that a vulnerary would somehow help her. She was stopped when another fit of airless coughing overtook her, forcing her already weak arms to claw at her throat as her skin began to ripple against her flesh.

Ground cracked in the forest beneath the portal, though it too made no sound. Trees ripped out of the earth to fly up and meet the distortion, their needles and bark being warped and consumed without restraint as they curved into nothingness. Circles of snow were orbiting the portal, curving into the same silent void as the rest of the Feroxi landscape.

The portal decayed into spirals of black, white, and grey, the few remaining trees and clumps of snow that had once sat directly under it hanging limply in space as the tearing paused. Then, the portal shrank in on itself before blinking out of existence entirely, leaving all that had once been floating to crash down to the ground in sprays of snow and dirt. Air from the surrounding landscape rushed in to fill the emptiness left in the portal's wake.

Light, colour, and sensation returned to the world. Waves of pain immediately wracked over Kjelle's body, forcing her to lie still on her back and enabling her to do no more than silently plea for the horrific sensations to leave. Robin choked now on the presence of air, sputtering out more blood as he struggled to take in ragged breaths before he collapsed onto his face in the snow.

Kjelle opened her eyes. Then she opened them again, and again, and again. She knew that there was supposed to be something to greet her when she did so, that she should see the portal, or snow, or blue skies, or something, but nothing came. Pain wracked through her again as she blinked, so simple of an action managing to force her to the brink of tears, which in turn heralded more pain.

She took in a small, searing breath, expecting to be met with the telltale sound of air whispering through the tiny distance she was able to open her mouth, but heard none. The pain was still there, telling her that she had in fact taken a breath, but there was no sound. She opened her mouth further, knowing that it would cause new fits of agony to stab through her, but accepting it as necessary in order to talk, or cry, or scream, or make any noise at all.

Nothing came out. Maybe it did, but she wasn't able to hear it, and she found that she couldn't hear anything. No ringing, no suppressed noise, no sensation of blockage; there was simply nothing. No sound, no sight, and as she lay there, she realised that the only reason she knew she was on her back was due to the memory of falling. Pain was pressing in at every angle, crushing her in its grip and refusing to allow her any of her usual senses, even the ones that hadn't been ripped apart by the portal.

Robin lurched in place on the ground, willing his body to stop its violent responses to the return of air as each gasp and shake shot more pain throughout his body. His vision and hearing had abandoned him as well, leaving him face down on the ground in the wrappings of agony that refused to fade. He attempted to move his hand, thinking that if he could point it at a potion or even his horse that he may be able to drain vitality and survive, but failed when greater pain coursed through him.

He considered for a moment that he might die. Promises of wellbeing, like those he had given his friends and the forgotten voice, were already hollow; he knew and accepted that, but he didn't know if he was able to die yet. Walhart was still a threat, and while he knew deep down that he didn't hate the traitor, they remained a possible opposition to the Shepherds that may have to be disposed.

If the two threats were left alive and came to defeat the Shepherds, without anyone capable of opposing them, he knew he would regret every step he had ever taken that hadn't acted to prevent the Shepherds' deaths. His regrets propelled him, and he realised that he couldn't leave them unattended as long as he had any trace of strength left within him. At the very least, Kjelle would have to live in order to face the threats to come.

Maybe, if he healed her, she would simply leave him to die. It's possible that she was already strong enough to tackle whatever awaited the Shepherds in the future, but Robin highly doubted that. He accepted that he, too, would need to live, knowing that he was necessary to train her and find her friends and handle everything that she couldn't.

A part of him said that she would never be able to handle things, that he would have to be around all the time, that he would never be ready to die and that he would always be too afraid to fulfill his greatest purpose. He silenced it in order to focus wholly on his here and now, leaving those darker thoughts for their own time that he wished would both never come and would arrive soon.

Without the need for the theatrics and showmanship he stressed himself over, Robin was easily able to cast his nosferatu spells. Thankfully, unlike anima magic, the spell didn't require much of a sacrifice on his part, having been specially made to transmit and drain without great cost by whoever was the original caster. His left hand was pointed in the general direction of where he believed Kjelle had fallen, and by curling the fingers of his right hand into his palm, he was able to cast the spell on both himself and transfer his energy to her.

Purple light enveloped him, a green counterpart flowing from his left hand toward Kjelle and enveloping her in turn. They both took in sharp breaths, Robin's pain intensifying to the point that his consciousness abandoned him as Kjelle's damage slightly lessened. The lights faded. Robin's body grew still in the snow, matching the lack of movement made by both of their horses.

Kjelle coughed, and while the action still caused her immense pain, this time she was able to hear it. She heard another cough, then the sobbing and whimpering that followed, and when she opened her eyes again she was able to see. Colour had drained in parts of her view, and as she forced out a few agonising blinks she came to accept that there a was an immovable film over her eyes, disabling proper vision and colour sensitivity.

She tested a few of her muscles, finding that with the slight fading of her pain and accompanied return of sight she was able to move slightly without the pain becoming insurmountable. She moved her eyes toward Robin, which caused another surge of pain all on its own, and saw that the man was coated in a layer of blood that had somehow emerged from underneath his clothing to encase him. She watched him for a while longer, realising from the position of his outstretched hand that he had likely casted one of his spells on her to alleviate her pain.

Silently and begrudgingly thanking him, she came to the further realisation that he was unconscious. Given her luck, he was likely still alive, though she found that she wasn't yet able to determine whether such a thing was good or bad. She shifted her gaze over to her other side, where her horse had fallen and dropped her bags toward her, and she saw that the hand she had held out was also covered in blood. So too was the horse, with the only thing she could see on her or the horse not being covered in the substance being her arm, which was somehow protected by Robin's cloak.

In actuality, she had no idea if her partial protection was due to the cloak or not, as she had absolutely no idea what had transpired to result with her in this state, but she thought that it was as good of an explanation as any. She feebly moved her bloody hand a few centimetres above the ground, ensuring that it wouldn't rub against the snow and dirt piled about her, and slowly moved it toward her bags.

Each movement, each constriction and release of a muscle and stretch of her skin, caused more discomfort to the point where she had to stop moving and simply rest in place several times before she could reach her bags. She knew which one held her vulneraries and opened it, the exact moment she touched the flap causing such pain that she audibly gasped and accidently hurt herself further.

The pain faded in time, and she grabbed a vulnerary, the action proving equally as harmful. She had anticipated it this time, though, and so she was able to maintain her grip on it as she brought the potion to her face. Managing to remove the resealable cap with only one hand, she poured the entirety of the substance into her mouth, her hand shaking profusely and spilling the liquid over her face. Thankfully, potions could also be applied topically, though the effect wasn't quite as prolific as ingestion.

Gradually, and in expending far more time than she would ever have liked, the pain began to fade entirely from within her. It remained on the outermost layers of her body, and she reached for another vulnerary to combat the remainder of her damage, more waves of pain coursing through her as she did so despite the sensations being noticeably weaker.

She glanced over to Robin again, her eyes no longer giving her issue as the film over them began to diminish. She took in the grandmaster's completely still body before bringing the vulnerary to her lips. An odd sensation on the side of her face gave her reason to pause, and once she had drained the second vulnerary into her mouth and dryly swallowed it down she reached up to feel her cheeks, where she surmised the sensation had originated.

Skin had begun to peel off of her face in small chunks and rise into the air, severing itself from other areas of her skin that were somehow unaffected by the peeling. She breathed deeply, and while it caused her enough distress to temporarily reconsider her actions, she nonetheless attempted to rip away the tag of skin she had grabbed.

The skin tore down her face easily for a short time, then met with resistance and shot a searing pain through her that made her gasp again. She touched beneath the partially severed skin to find warm, wet blood, and she stopped attempting to tear it away.

A thought struck her, and she reached for another vulnerary, the pain from her previous movements coursing through her body yet again at equal measure to before - the second vulnerary had done nothing to dampen it. She opened the third potion, but rather than drink it as she had the others, she poured a portion of it over her cheek, on and around the torn skin.

Her skin peeled away as soon as the vulnerary contacted it, a new layer of fresh skin appearing underneath thanks to the potion's healing properties, and she attempted to remove it from her face entirely again. She succeed to a degree, more skin coming off of her cheek before she met resistance at the rest of her face and throat. She poured more of the vulnerary on those areas, and resumed the process of removing her afflicted skin, pouring some of the vulnerary over her hands to cleanse them.

She paused when she realised she had no idea what she was afflicted with. Something was obviously wrong, the persistent pain reminded her of that, but she had no concept of what had actually happened after the loss of her vision. She tapped various areas of her exposed skin, each responding with more pain that got her nowhere.

Then, she struggled to a sitting position and moved down to tap her legs, thinking that each part of her body may have somehow been affected in as odd of ways as the distortion had affected her face. Her leggings were hugging her body incredibly close. When she attempted to pinch and pull them away, more pain shot through her.

There was no longer a distinction between what had been clothing and what had been skin. The two had melded together, becoming a single uniform mesh under the draw of the failed portal. Now she knew why her exposed skin was covered in blood. It had been torn apart by the portal, and had meshed with the layers of flesh below itself to form whatever amalgamate the vulnerary was currently removing from her body and healing.

She reached up to her head to feel her scalp, only to find that the skin underneath her hair was relatively unbloodied and untouched from the distortion's effects. The ends of each strand of hair were frayed and torn, and she reasoned that the portal must have been incapable of deep damage, meaning that it had worked from the outside in and hadn't managed to bypass her hair or too many layers of flesh. The hood of Robin's enchanted cloak had also provided significant protection against the portal.

The vulneraries had healed whatever minor internal damage had resulted from the distortion, though they were apparently incapable of healing the damage to her outer body when applied internally for some inexplicable reason. She decided to not wonder too much about it as she applied more vulneraries to her exposed skin.

Robin's cloak had protected her torso and arms in addition to much of her head from damage, and when she removed it to examine her chest and stomach she found that the thick long sleeved shirt she usually wore underneath her armour, but rather now the cloak in her sickness, was unpartnered with her body and remained intact. She pulled at the fabric of the cloak, and found that it too hadn't been distorted at all.

Glancing over to Robin, she saw that he was still unconscious, and she healed her legs before grabbing her remaining vulneraries and awkwardly shuffling over to him. His cloak extended down to the midway point of her thighs, and so too did its protection, so she splashed all of a third and much of a fourth vulnerary on the skin a short distance above her knees and downward. Her boots and socks were ruined, having not been enchanted in the same manner as Robin's cloak, though her feet remained undamaged and as she felt no pain from them she left them be.

Robin lay unmoving in the mixture of snow and dirt that now pervaded everywhere that had been in the portal's range, and he was covered almost entirely in his own mess of blood and skin. His hair was in a similar state to what Kjelle's was in, frayed and torn but otherwise undamaged. In addition, his gloves had remained intact, and she could only assume that they were enchanted as well, though with what that would be capable of resisting the portal she didn't yet know.

She grew more hesitant as she neared Robin, the thought that he may be some great evil recurring in her mind. He could still be the demonic dragon that destroyed her time, an unknowable evil that dooms all of reality to its heinous will.

It would be so simple to leave him here, in the aftereffects of his own mishap, to die.

She shook the thought from her head and began to splash the first of her vulneraries over his exposed shirt and back. He could still possibly be good; she had realised and accepted this already, and she knew that she would have to constantly remember it if she were to ever be able to work alongside him. She needed the excuse of him being good. She didn't want to have to kill him.

It took two full vulneraries to heal the outer wounds on his back, rear of his legs, arms, head, and neck. Kjelle didn't dare to actually touch him, instead pouring the vulneraries out overtop of him, and also didn't bother to pull off his excess skin, both out of disgust and respect for his personal space. He would be certain to freak out over what had happened to his skin and she didn't want to have to undergo some lecture about personal space again.

She tapped his side before attempting to move him, trying to rouse him from his unconsciousness despite knowing that he likely wouldn't awaken until she had healed him further. He remained comatose, and she easily flipped him over onto his stomach, the grandmaster being surprisingly light as deadweight - she had expected someone tempered by war and rigorous training to be heavier.

It took another full vulnerary to heal Robin internally, or at least that was as much as she expended before she sat back and waited for him to awaken. He coughed into wakefulness within a few seconds, instantly attempting to sit up and regretting the action equally as fast when untreated parts of his skin-clothing ripped from the strenuous movement.

"What the-!?" he shouted out as soon as he realised he was able to speak. His eyes danced across his surroundings, falling on his horse, his own fused skin and bloodied clothing, Kjelle, and then finally on the layers of molted skin that sat behind her. "What… what?"

"We nearly died." Kjelle informed him casually, taking care to not emphasise her reaction in the hopes that he wouldn't react violently again.

Thankfully, more for his sake than hers, Robin's eyes remained locked on the pile of skin behind her. "Uh… what… are you?"

Kjelle blinked, then furrowed her brow in confusion, then finally traced his gaze back to where she had removed her damaged skin. She rolled her eyes. "You're about to do the same. That portal fused and tore at… everything. I think it was working on us from the outside in, so we should be fine internally with only a little healing, but it messed up our skin and clothing pretty bad. Our potions can still heal it, though, if you pour it over yourself."

Robin stared at her blankly for a moment before his gaze transferred down to his body, then over to hers, where he looked at the folds of her remaining clothing intently. "Is… is my cloak okay?"

"Yeah, it's okay, asshole. So am I, by the way." Kjelle glared at him, but held out a vulnerary for him nonetheless.

He accepted it, but refrained from applying it immediately. "Oh, thank the gods… I… I thought that I may have lost it…"

His voice was wavering, and Kjelle narrowed her eyes at how oddly insecure he sounded over something so trivial. "The horses got hit hard, too. They'll probably need treatment soon, if we want them to survive. Everything inside of containers, bags, and the things you've enchanted seem to be fine."

"Thanks, Kjelle." Robin smiled weakly before taking a sip from the vulnerary, which he then began to pour over his arms. "I'll look after myself. Thanks for getting me up, and for not leaving me here."

Kjelle felt the unusual, yet somehow increasingly familiar need to avert her gaze from him, and so she returned her attention to their horses. "I'll tend to things here, then. You have any more vulneraries to use for the horses? I'm almost out after looking after myself, and I'll definitely be out if you use more."

He angled his head toward one of his bags, both of which were still clinging to his horse. Kjelle removed the one he had indicated, revealing an elixir, two concoctions, and several vulneraries for her use. She passed a few to Robin, then set about trying to heal his horse.

"If you give me a minute to look after myself, I can tend to the horses' excess skin." Robin offered as he gradually rose to a stand. "It'd probably be easier to use wind magic for all of this - float the potions onto them, then whisk the skin away, all without actually having to touch anything."

"Sounds good." Kjelle said. "I'll give them some to drink. Y'know, keep them alive while you do your mage crap."

Robin gave as appreciative of a nod as he could muster under his circumstances, then grabbed his other bag and made his way into the woods that hadn't been ripped apart by the portal, away from her and the horses. His clothing was entirely ruined, and while it had retained much of its original shape and didn't reveal anything unsavoury or explicit, he knew that removing it would likely destroy his undergarments as well and leave him completely exposed.

The woods outside of the portal's reach were remarkably cold, though that was to be expected of Ferox at practically any time of year. Robin soon came to realise that the distortion's area of effect was notably warm, as though the tearing and consumption had heated everything in its radius. There was also a sharp cutoff between what the portal had reached and what it hadn't. If he and Kjelle were a few dozen metres further away from it they would have been safe.

Peeling away the damaged skin-clothing from his front and finding that his back had already in part been tended to, Robin paused in order to simply stare at one of the vulneraries he was holding. If his theory on replication of cells were to be correct, then there existed no reasonable explanation as to why the potions were able to remove his damaged layer of skin and replace it with a new one. Then again, there was also still no explanation as to how the vulneraries were able to determine healthy from unhealthy, yet were incapable of healing illnesses or mortal wounds.

He pushed his theories and concerns from his mind until he had fully cleared away his old skin and redressed, and had begun to make his way back to Kjelle and the horses. As he went, he noticed the crater that had been gouged into the land by the portal, and saw that some snow had been liquified and now sat in a murky combination of defrosted dirt and tree remnants in which he would never dare to swim.

Kjelle had force-fed the horses vulneraries by the time he returned, and she was seated on the ground next to hers rummaging through her bags when she and Robin reconvened. Her lances and armour had fared better than she had, her enchanted lance in particular having no discernable damage on it, while her armour had fused together in a few easily rectifiable locations. The silver lance, too, was largely unscathed, though it would certainly need to be polished and likely sharpened anew.

She noticed his reappearance, her head turning slightly in order to acknowledge him before she returned to her bag. "I think everything in our bags is mostly untouched. I've already run out of vulneraries, though."

"Did you tap into mine?" Robin asked as he checked the status of his horse. The beast's torso was rising and falling with its breathing, though it was incredibly shallow. He was surprised that it was handling the pain from the portal so well, though he supposed it should be expected from a warhorse trained to operate even on the brink of death.

"I left you enough to look after their skin… I think." Kjelle confirmed as she rose to a stand. "There's only three vulneraries left, as well as a concoction and elixir, provided you don't have any left on you."

"Not a one. I used all the ones I took with me to clear off my skin." He shuddered. "Gods, that was one of the most disgusting things I've ever done…"

"It was… yeah, it was something, to say the least." Kjelle agreed passively, her attention tuned more to the cloak covering her than anything else. "What's this enchanted with, anyway? What could resist whatever that portal was - and what actually was it?"

"The enchantments were nothing special, merely protection and a lot of miscellaneous stuff." Robin answered, then shrugged. "As for what actually happened, your guess is probably about as good as mine. If I had to say, though… I think that was a failed version of the portal you came through to get to this time. The page I brought back with my enchantment must have somehow held enough power that using other dissonant magic on it caused it to… react."

"Also, based on our surroundings and what happened to our bodies, I think it was literally pulling us apart." he continued. "Like, a cell-by-cell kind of thing. That would explain how our skin fused with our clothes, and how our surroundings are so warm now; the friction from it all probably generated an absurd amount of heat. Though that doesn't necessarily explain why it worked from the outside in…"

"Wouldn't it not be able to penetrate very far?" Kjelle suggested. "It was failed, after all. It's not like it would have the power to rip us apart fully, right?"

"It fully ripped apart the ground a little ways beneath it." Robin said. "Maybe its distance meant it couldn't hurt us that much, but it managed to tear up and melt Feroxi permafrost. That's quite a feat."

"True enough." Kjelle said, watching as he took in the state of his horse for a little while longer before he knelt beside it, took one of the vulneraries from his pouch that she had replaced, took out his tome, and set about healing the beast.

He finished laying the potion with his magic and shearing off the the horse's skin before he spoke again, Kjelle watching on in easily contained intrigue and disgust as he went.

"There was a really sharp cutoff between where the portal hit and where it didn't, by the way. It seemed… limited, despite how strong it was." Robin said.

"Hm. Is that supposed to mean something?"

Robin mibed to and knelt next to her horse and began the same process he'd undergone for his. "What it means is that I don't fully know what happened here or why, and I want to replicate it." he paused his work and looked over to her, his eyes gleaming in an alluring danger. "Do you have any kind of idea how amazing this could be if it were weaponised? It could ruin armies, win battles before they get underway…"

Kjelle blinked in surprise before adopting a wary expression. "Are you serious? Did you not feel the same thing as me? I would never will what happened to us on anyone, even my enemies."

"Not the risen?" Robin asked, his eyes faltering slightly yet retaining their shine. "Not the Grimleal, or me? This could annihilate any opponent, and you wouldn't want to at least learn about it? What if someone else managed to use this against Ylisse, against the Shepherds? Shouldn't we try to understand it?"

"Yeah, but we shouldn't go too far with it." Kjelle agreed, her hesitation causing him to frown. "You seem like you would go too far, then go further than that. I'm all for understanding something that's potentially threatening, but considering that magic has been around for thousands of years and this is the first I've ever heard of something like this, I think we'll be fine with not bothering to learn anything."

"Not bothering to learn?" Robin gasped in horror, and while it was clearly exaggerated, Kjelle could tell that it was borne entirely in genuine shock. "No wonder you don't have an aptitude for magic if that's your attitude toward study and research. Besides, there's no guarantee that anyone would be able to replicate what happened here, even in the vaguest of senses."

"You're saying you couldn't pull that off again, even if you tried?" Kjelle asked. "I guess that's for the best, if you really would end up taking it too far…"

Robin returned his attention to her horse as he continued to speak. "Have you already forgotten what I said? Only someone with the powers of a god could pull that off. I don't know how it happened here, but I'm not at the point where I could get anywhere near replicating it. I only want to study it when I can."

"Are you saying you're not the one who did that stuff to the page, to make the portal?" Kjelle asked.

"Do I look like a dragon to you?" Robin followed up without diverting his attention, wrapping up the first phase of the horse's treatment. He didn't need to see or hear Kjelle's answer before he pressed further. "I don't have the kind of power that'd be necessary to make a portal like that, even a failed one. I don't know how it appeared, but it wasn't me."

Kjelle narrowed her gaze on his right hand. While it was currently glowing green under the effects of his wind magic and was shielded by his glove, she was certain that the Mark of Grima was writhing as violently as ever underneath it all. "Yeah. I guess it could've been a random occurrence, huh?"

"Anything's possible." Robin shrugged, not connecting or possibly refusing to connect the same dots as her. "Say, do you remember what the portal's closing looked like? My vision kinda… stopped at some point."

"Same here." Kjelle said, and the grandmaster gave a discontented hum in response. "Why does it matter?"

"You don't think it actually worked, do you? That we may be in a different time than before right now?"

Kjelle stared at him for a second before turning her head to survey their surroundings. Everything seemed out of place, though that was due to the distortion rather than their time period. "I don't think so. We were standing pretty far from the centre, so it was pretty weak and shouldn't have pulled us through anything. Besides, that didn't feel, look, or sound anything like what I remember."

"Which was…?" Robin pried tentatively, giving her ample time to refuse his inquiry despite his pressing personal need for information.

"Way more comforting." Kjelle replied after a considerable length of time. "Everything about it was so serene… it felt like nothing could go wrong, and at the time I didn't know anything could."

"Did you actually meet Naga herself?" Robin asked, glancing away from his work to catch her wistful expression.

"No." Kjelle shook her head, though her wistful tone and features remained. "I heard her speak, though. She told us all how we would be the ones to save our future, and that we would be able to lead the lives that were stolen from us…" her voice grew more sombre as she continued, "...and… she said that she would see us again soon, after we had made the journey to the past. I haven't seen her, though. I haven't seen anything vaguely related to her since my time. Maybe my friends have?"

Robin tilted his head at the odd wavering insecurity that had attached itself to her voice, and in his best means of comforting her, shrugged. "Maybe. We could always stop at Mount Prism if you wanted. Naga lives there, and since one of our destinations is the desert south of there and we'd be coming from the north, we could make a little detour to climb to the temple."

"If we have enough time, and none of my friends have heard anything, then sure. I'd appreciate it." Kjelle smiled, and Robin quickly returned to his almost complete task, thinking that the expression was somehow something he wasn't meant to see. "You're not as bad as you try to make yourself out to be, you know that?"

Robin whipped his head around to face her and blinked. "What?"

"You've been helping me all this time, and even with the Grima and ambition stuff you seem to genuinely want what's best for everyone." Kjelle said. "We might to go to Mount Prism, the home of a divine dragon that would want you to die as much as anyone else, and you don't object because you know it would help me, and everyone else. You can be pretty alright at times."

"Maybe this is all part of my master plan to kill Naga." Robin suggested, a frown prevalent on his face. "I get you to trust me, pretend to be working for the best, and then boom, I reach Naga and kill her."

"Except that only someone who shares their blood can kill a divine dragon." Kjelle smirked, glad that she was on the course to win another verbal confrontation with him. "You have relations to Grima, but not Naga. Only Chrom and his family could kill Naga, and they sure as hell won't."

Robin's frown deepened much further. "Maybe Naga and Grima are related."

Kjelle's smug smile widened. "But you don't know that, do you? I know that, since you're you, the version of you from my time would try to kill Naga as soon as possible since they were irrevocably evil and would've wanted to at least find out if such a thing were possible. Naga was still alive when I came back in time, meaning you hadn't managed to kill her in at least about twenty years, meaning that you probably couldn't."

"Or, it could all have been more manipulation. A long con." Robin argued. "That's more characteristic of me. Maybe I did somehow kill Naga, and was manipulating everything from behind the scenes, and wanted you to come back in time to do… stuff…?"

"Right, because that would help you in any way imaginable." Kjelle said. "Face it, you aren't as bad as you want to be. Do you think that I should have more reasons to hate you? Or that having that edge of 'maybe I'm evil' makes you somehow more noteworthy? I can tell that that's not who you are, not really, and the fact that you want to pretend like it is probably has to be the weirdest thing I've seen you do yet."

She turned her head to look at his horse, then back to him. He was finishing tending to her own steed as she spoke. "You could've killed your horse, drained it with your magic and used it to save yourself. Yet it's now fine, but you did drain something, unless instant renewal from being torn apart is some kind of skill I never realised I had. You used your spell on yourself to heal me, didn't you? That's why you were passed out?"

Robin hesitated for a long moment and then nodded, his back to her as he finished his treatment. "For selfish reasons, though. My horse was an experiment, and I wasn't about to try to outright kill you, so I healed you a little in the hopes you would do the same for me. If you were someone else, someone less Shepherd-y, or if the smallest of things and my experiment were to have changed… then I probably wouldn't have hesitated to kill you, or it, or both."

"Why are you so intent on proving how evil you are to me?" Kjelle asked, the part of her that didn't believe him for a second winning out over the part that doubted his character.

He spun around on his knees to face her, not yet bothering to rise. "One of us is going to die soon, Kjelle. I'd rather that happen with us as enemies or acquaintances than… friends." he said. The final word came with difficulty to him, and he lowered his gaze from hers.

Kjelle walked over to him and held out her hand to help him stand. "Whatever. No hard feelings, right?"

Robin stared at her hand before accepting it and using it to rise. "I don't think you fully understand the gravity of what's going to happen, but sure. No hard feelings."

Kjelle smiled and stepped past him to her horse, who she prodded with one foot to urge them to a stand. Everything about Robin, while it had grown slightly more comforting knowing that he was merely scared of closeness to her in fear of their duel, had also grown equally as disconcerting with the knowledge that he may legitimately not know of the power that rested inside of him. Hopefully, he wouldn't do anything too bad, because she had to admit that she didn't hate the time they had so far spent training and travelling together.

"Come on, we've got lost time to make up for." she said to Robin. "Do you think we could still reach the bandit fort today?"

"Yeah, we-" Robin began, but cut himself off when he looked about the sky for the position of the sun to judge their time frame. "Wait, why the hell is the sun about to set? We weren't out here for very long, were we?"

Kjelle looked in the direction he was facing to see that the sun was truly about to set, giving them at best a few hours before they lost all light completely. "I… didn't think so? Maybe I lost consciousness too at some point and didn't realise?"

"Huh. Weird." Robin said before moving to raise and mount his own horse. "We can reach it tonight if we go into dark hours. I'll light the path up with a little fire magic and we'll be fine."

Nodding without saying anything, Kjelle waited for him to reach the same preparedness as her before she kicked her horse into motion. They progressed together northward, in far more amicable of a state than either would have thought possible given their morning or afternoon.

Kjelle glanced over to Robin's hand, knowing that the Mark of Grima was shining disturbingly underneath. Theories about his state of being, his magic, and his amnesia filled her mind, and before she managed to dispel them she knew she had placed herself on a path that would lead her to an incredibly detestable destination.

* * *

 **I don't know if I was perpetually half asleep when I wrote this or if my writing style is finally improving (hopefully the latter), but I was constantly making corrections on this chapter in editing. Usually I don't have to do too much, but I did a fair amount this time.**

 **The actual proper relationship between Robin and Kjelle isn't going to develop much until Robin learns to be less of an asshole. Right now, for anything to really work Kjelle has to put a lot of faith in him that she reasonably shouldn't be doing.**

 **Anyway, we've now been introduced to one of our two main antagonists! Woo! It only took me 13 chapters and hundreds of pages to reach a point that I probably should've started with! That's okay, because I have no concept of reasonable limits on my writing, or on time!**

 **This story will have two antagonists and one villain, with an important distinction being made between those terms. The antagonists are people who could reasonably be good under the right circumstances, with their ideals coming to oppose Robin and Kjelle in the story making them opponents. The villain will be closer to being straight up evil. I'm a sucker for sympathetic antagonists and villains, which is why antagonist #1 here probably doesn't seem wholly evil yet. They have an ideal that's undeniably good, to the point of it being absurd, but take it so far that they become a legitimate threat. That'll hopefully become more apparent as they're developed further.**

 **Status: As of 16-07-18, I'm still on chapter 28. Progress has been kind of slow, but also not, if that makes sense. I'm still writing at least 1,000 words a day, and I don't intend to stop that discipline until I've finished this story. Hooray for dedication!**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	14. Chapter 14

Anna hummed to herself as she traipsed leisurely along the Feroxi road, her overloaded bag weighing heavily on her shoulders. The noise she made was barely audible over the clamour of the various jewelry and miscellaneous equipment decorating her body, her excursion to the northern bandit fort having proven incredibly fortuitous, especially considering how uncomplicated of a mission it had proven.

A bright light appeared in the distance through the thick evergreen forests that shrouded her travel. She stopped, her bag jostling into silence as her humming cut out entirely, the merchant instantly growing wary of any potential confrontations with the bandits that had failed to appear at the fort.

The light died as quickly as it had appeared, and Anna waited for several seconds to ensure that a torch hadn't simply fallen before she resumed walking, far quieter and more conscious of her own noise than before. Another light appeared then faded, similar to the first, and she paused again to allow it to disappear. She wasn't certain of what was happening, but if she were to be exposed to any bandits in her current overencumbered state, either she or her acquired goods would be left defenseless. She didn't know which would be worse.

As she resumed moving, a larger swath of light began to glow through the tree cover further down the path, with smaller lights darting out ahead of the larger mass every once in a while before dying out. Anna ducked into the few cold, resilient bushes beside the path she and the lights were on, knowing that she couldn't move far or fast in her current state and instead hoping she could hide from whatever was approaching.

"Hey, you almost got one that time!" a male voice said from within the central glow, his voice almost inaudible to Anna's practiced hearing.

"'Almost' isn't anywhere near the same as 'actually', though." a frustrated female voice responded. "Show me again."

Another flare shot out from the glow, this time passing beside Anna's location. They were nearing her, moving at a far faster pace than she had, and when she concentrated she could hear the steady hooffalls of horses.

"Try not to focus too much on what my technique is like; it's way too casual for training." the first voice said. "Instead, try to focus on your tome, and your own abilities. Go with what's comfortable, not what you necessarily think it should look or feel like based on your experience."

Aside from the movements of the horses, there was silence up until the second voice cursed. "It's no use; I still can't do it. No matter how much I try, I'm not making any progress."

"Admittedly, you're a little behind schedule for what I would like… but that's okay. Just try your best, alright?" the first voice said.

They were near Anna's position now, and the merchant could hear the woman mumble something indistinguishable under her breath. Neither voice spoke again until they were almost on top of her hiding spot, when the first person began talking again.

"The fort should be about an hour away by now, maybe less." he said. "I suggest we rest somewhere around here and scout it out tomorrow. There's no telling how many bandits there still are, so we'll have to be prepared for the worst - not to mention that I don't have much to strategise off of right now."

"Won't Anna need help, though?" the second voice replied. "If she's at the fort with an unknown amount of bandits, she'll probably need us to back her up in case things get bad."

"Eh, she'll be fine. I doubt she would do anything as foolish as ransacking a fort all on her own." the first voice said, and Anna could hear his horse slow down. She felt a small amount of pride at the vote of confidence, but was disturbed by their apparent knowledge of her executed plans. Then again, if they did intend to help her, they may be a better solution to her predicament than she had considered.

"I'd still feel better about this if we scout the place out as soon as possible, and verify that she's safe." said the second voice. "Let's press on for now. We can see what her state is, then go from there."

"...Fine." the first voice gave in, and his horse began to move again.

Something about his voice was familiar to Anna, something she knew she could place were she to be given enough time. The woman was entirely unknown to her, but if they did intend to help her, then she would benefit more from revealing herself to them than not. If they were to prove malicious, them she could by all means protect herself against a mere two riders; she did still have the swords and staves she had both brought with her and looted.

She began to worm out of her hiding spot before a devilish grin fell over her features and she paused, waiting until the nearer of the two riders was directly next to her before jumping out onto the path.

"Hi there!" she shouted cheerily, bursting into the glow of their artificial light and sliding up to the side of the closest horse.

"Gah!" the man was the nearer one, and jumped sideways when she emerged from the forest, almost falling off of his horse. "Anna!? What are you-?"

The woman was obscured from her view, so Anna couldn't tell whether she too had been surprised or not, but she and Anna both began to poorly suppress laughter. Anna cleared hers up in swift order, backing away from the horse in case either person proved threatening.

"I heard that you two were looking for me, hm?" she asked, finally able to take in the first traveller's appearance. He seemed familiar to her, the same familiarity that had been present in his voice in some form being reflected by his features. The man was shrouded in orange light from a multitude of orbs of fire circling him and his horse, illuminating his white hair and shocked expression.

Concealing her laughter fully, the woman introduced them both while her companion struggled to stay on his horse and save face. "That's Robin, and I'm Kjelle. He's a Shepherd, and I'm… getting there. We were told by another Anna to come see you. She said you were going to a bandit stronghold?"

Robin tried and failed to swing himself up into a stable position, and so used his momentum from trying to do so to pretend as though he had wanted to dismount and greet Anna. "Yeah, that sums it up, I guess. Nice to meet you." he extended his hand for her to shake, the flames following his movements and adapting their courses suitably.

Anna stared at the hand, then at Robin himself. The cloak he should've been wearing was on Kjelle, but it was still undeniably him all the same.. "Robin, the Ylissean tactician? You don't remember me, huh?"

Robin retracted his hand hurriedly as he tried to place her mimicked face to some kind of interaction. "I, uh… it's… dark out…?" he offered weakly, having found out already how grave of an offense it was to mistake an Anna for another or, even worse, generalise them.

Anna frowned at him for a second longer, then broke into a wide smile. "Not a problem! We're all pretty much the same, after all; it's not like I could expect you to remember one of me from another - hell, I can barely do it half the time!"

Robin blinked, his confusion evident. "What? But the other Anna we talked to-"

"The one headed to the west, who probably passed through all the villages imaginable along the way?" Anna cut him off.

"Uh… maybe?" Robin said.

Anna nodded, letting her bag drop from her shoulders to the ground once she accepted that she was in no danger. "It probably was. I don't really have that much of a talent at telling everyone in my family apart, but her? She's probably the least Anna an Anna can act, and it shows. I'm honestly surprised she hasn't given up and tried to find a new walk of life yet. Well, not that she really can, since being an Anna is pretty hardcoded and all."

"I may have offered her a position in the Shepherds." Robin admitted, though he had little idea why he was acting so sheepishly about the matter. Somehow, he still felt as though every word he spoke was an insult to Anna. "We actually came here to offer you the same. I know you could hold your own in a fight, at least if your family is any indication to go by. Or… you, yourself, I guess? If we've met before?"

"We have." Anna confirmed cheerily. "I was selling some stock to anyone who wanted to buy it in Plegia during the war - you know, weapons and potions, basic wartime amenities - when my caravan got caught up in a swarm of risen. The Shepherds showed up and killed them all, saving me. Remember?"

"That happened more times than I can remember. Though, then again, for what I know those could've all been a different you…"

"Wait, were you supplying Plegian forces with weapons and potions?" Kjelle spoke up, no longer content with sitting back and watching their encounter. "But aren't you a- er, you were- no, no… you're going to be- ah, nevermind. Your loyalties lie with Ylisse above all else, do they not?"

"My loyalties lie with whoever has the moist coin." Anna answered easily, causing Kjelle to frown as she struggled to rationalise the merchant's claim with her pre-existing notion of the woman's character. "That happens to be Ylisse most of the time. Fertile land, plenty of sea access, amicable climate, tons of historic crap, religious ceremonies to prey off of, and a bunch of old money, not to mention everything that was taken in the old Exalt's crusades in Plegia… heh, Ylisse probably has over half the world's wealth in its borders."

Kjelle struggled to understand what Anna was saying and, more significantly, paint it in a good light. "Well, that's… nice, I suppose? I mean, the preying and crusades and stuff not so much, but other than that… it's… good that Ylissean citizens are well financed? They won't have to fight other nations if there's no real need to improve their lives."

"Oh, but a world where everyone wants to play at being soldiers and nobles is so wonderful!" Anna cooed. "It'd be like the old Exalt's war all over again - everyone wanted weapons, and armour, and potions, and supplies, and everything imaginable, all to protect their friends, and families, and villages, and whatever other crap… it was a noble pursuit, really, and the profits the Anna family managed to draw in were absolutely spectacular!"

"That makes… a little bit of sense, I guess? At least for you." Kjelle said. "I still don't understand why you would support both sides, though. The Shepherds are clearly superior; all you would have to do is sell to them and the world would be all the better for it."

"Now that's bad business practice." Anna said. "Why would I sell to one tiny group when there are legions of people willing to buy? Besides, who could fault one Anna for what her sisters and cousins decide to do? Maybe I sold to Plegia, maybe my sister did, maybe we both did. It doesn't really matter."

"Yeah, but you're selling them to people who are ultimately worth less." Kjelle argued, and both Anna's and Robin's eyebrows shot up in response. "You could sell to the Shepherds, the kind of people who have the strength to truly lead the world, and yet you also decide to help someone inferior? What's the point of doing that when the Shepherds are going to be the only ones left standing?"

"That's some dangerous territory, Kjelle." Robin spoke up. "The Shepherds are worth as much as any other person on the planet. It's kind of messed up to be selling armaments to both sides and only perpetuate conflict," he glared briefly at Anna, who merely shrugged nonchalantly, "but it's not like we can easily stop it from happening. 'Everyone is born equal' - that's something Emmeryn used to say. It's true, but the fact that people don't know that means there are always going to be struggles for power and fortune on behalf of people who think themselves superior. The Shepherds aren't like that. They wouldn't jeopardise anyone for their own sakes."

"Of course not, the Shepherds have always been way too humble to admit that they're superior." Kjelle rolled her eyes. "The simple fact is that they're all born to lead. They each have the power to change the world, and it's people like them who should be able to live their lives as they see fit, people who have that strength to determine their own futures regardless of what others say or do."

"So, what, people who aren't as strong as them don't get to do as they please?" Robin asked, allowing a trace of scorn to enter his voice.

"Ideally, they probably wouldn't be around." Kjelle said, and Anna's eyebrows shot up further. "It's not like people inferior to them provide anything of substance. The world would be a far greater place if people like the Shepherds, and only people like them, held power - the kind of people who prove through their own strength that they're worthy of shaping the future."

Anna gradually managed to restrict the movement of her eyebrows as she glanced between the knight and grandmaster. "I have to admit, I'm agreeing with Robin on this one. Er, well, I'm at the very least not agreeing with you, Kjelle. A world where people are willing to throw all of their coin away to try to be something greater is lovely, sure, but it isn't sustainable. You've got to ride the booms alongside the recessions, and a world with only the most remarkable of people is as unsustainable as endless wartime, and in the end probably far less profitable."

Robin nodded respectfully to Anna before returning his attention to Kjelle. "She's right. Even if the Shepherds were the only people in the world, they would die out, the same as everything else. There will always be people who aren't as good as them, and probably people who are better, and no one gets to judge who's worth more than another."

"Why the hell not?" Kjelle asked indignantly, refusing to let go of her ideal world. "The Shepherds have the power to lead, therefore they should lead. Others don't, so they don't deserve to have the same power as the Shepherds. The strong lead, while the weak break. It's simple, effective, and sensible."

"And who gets to decide who's strong? You?" Robin asked. "Because if my count is correct, you'd be dead a few times over by now for failing to prove yourself. You wouldn't be one of the people who got to see your own perfect world, because you're still weak."

"I'm not weak!" Kjelle shouted instinctively,though she knew that she didn't have much evidence to back up such a claim to Robin.

"What about everyone from your time, then?" Robin asked. "By your own logic, you should be spreading Grima's word and convincing everyone to bow down to him, since the Shepherds were apparently too pathetic to do anything about his ambitions. Your perfect world is flawed, Kjelle, because there are always going to be people stronger than what you know, and I can tell now that you only support your ideal as long as it suits you."

Kjelle's gaze toward Robin transferred from indignant to an intense glare in no time at all. "I guess I'll have to prove that I'm stronger, then. That my friends and I can kill Grima, that we can make the world a utopia where the strong, the people who deserve it, can thrive."

"'Utopia'?" Anna interjected. "I don't think you're using that word right. Without all manner of people to buy and sell things, the world would go to hell faster than through this 'Grima' nonsense the likes of you and Flavia go on about. Maybe 'dystopia' is more fitting?"

"A world of strong people would never fail." Kjelle argued, having been pushed into more defensive territory as soon as Robin and Anna had both begun to refute her. "They're already the kind of people who would be able to hold everything together. The kind of people willing to go as far as it takes to make the world a better place."

"I'm sure Grima would agree with you." Robin said coldly, his attempts at being calming having largely abandoned him. "Wasn't your biological father nothing more than a farmhand, anyway? He wouldn't be strong enough to see your world, either, and I'm pretty sure he and all the other Shepherds wouldn't be fond of something that defies their own ideals like that."

"My father was one of the strongest Shepherds, and he was able to prove himself as such constantly. Also, the Shepherds wanted the same world of peace, prosperity, and happiness that I do."

"Really? People like Chrom and Emmeryn, who are all about making the world a free and equal place, would support you?" Robin asked incredulously. "I can tell you right now that no, they wouldn't. Chrom in particular would be the type of person to kick your ass to prove that his ideals are better than yours. Which they are."

"Then I'd be fine with that." Kjelle said tersely, actively restraining herself from provoking anything and anyone further. "He'd prove that his ideals are stronger, and I would be forced to admit that they are. There's no guarantee that I'm not stronger than him, though."

Robin stared at Kjelle, the iciness in his eyes more than evident to her. He concealed it with an unsettling smile that did nothing to deter the cold. "Okay then, let's have a fight, here and now. Chrom's typically a better fighter than me - even if I do use magic - so if I beat you it should be all the proof you need."

Kjelle glared at him with more intensity than Anna had ever seen, though Robin was completely unfazed. Eventually, Kjelle's expression broke with a sigh.

"Let's not bother. We already know how it'll turn out. Congrats, you win." she said in a definitively dejected tone.

Robin stared at her for a moment longer before his smile widened. "And you accept that Chrom wins by extension?"

"Yeah, whatever." Kjelle breathed out, both listeners barely catching it. "Enough ideals and politics. Anna, why are you here?"

Anna blinked at the sudden change of topic, Robin also dropping it all far more easily than she had anticipated. "Hm? Oh, uh… I cleaned out the bandit fort a little ways from here, but my horses aren't in good enough shape to make the trip back to any nearby towns while hauling everything. One of them got sick, so I was going to m

Take a little walk over to the villages southwest of here to rent some new ones. But, now that you two are here…"

"You want us to haul your goods for you?" Robin finished for Anna when she gave no indication of doing so, and she smiled disarmingly. "Yeah, thought so. Will you consider joining the Shepherds in turn? We kind of wanted your… uh… sister? Cousin? Whatever she was, but you've also been recommended by her, so the more the merrier. Hopefully."

Anna tapped a finger against her chin, entering a deep trance of thought before her eyes lit up and her smile grew wider. "You're going to war with Valm, right?"

Robin reluctantly nodded, and Anna's expression became so radiant that it was harmful to gaze upon. "Alright then, count me in! I've never been one to turn down potential profits like that!"

Kjelle stared at Anna as the merchant beamed at Robin. "You… you're so… petty. You weren't always like this, were you?"

"I've been like this since birth, sweetie." Anna translated her smile over to Kjelle. "Every Anna is - well, except the failures, but by then they're probably not really Annas anyway. Why, was I so different in your time?"

"I-... yeah." Kjelle confirmed, taking a moment to remember the Annas' knowledge of her state of affairs. "You were one of the few to survive the war against Valm. You willingly died when the city fell to save us. Before then, your shop would always be open to my friends and I… and you would always buy me a big dinner before I went home to the Farfort every summer."

Anna's eyes widened before she broke into a calamitous laughter. "No way that was me! Hell, that probably wasn't a proper Anna, just some wannabe sister or cousin of mine taking my spot - if I had joined with the Shepherds at all!"

Kjelle shook her head. "No. At least, I don't think so. You would sometimes tell my friends and I the story of how the Shepherds found you, and I'm pretty sure it matches up fairly well with how Robin and I came to see you… except that the entirety of the Shepherds came for you in my time, and you were under attack from bandits."

Over time, Anna's laughter faded, though her smile remained as bright as ever. "You know what I think happened? I probably died in Valm and got replaced by a family member before anyone was able to notice, because I guarantee you that I wouldn't be going out of my way to pay off anyone's tabs or get them free goods. Who knows, maybe the other Anna you two already met was the one to replace me. Maybe she was the one to kill me, too."

"No!" Kjelle shouted out immediately. "You were a Shepherd! No one would… that's not…"

"Take a nice, long look at me." Anna said, a disconcerting evenness lining her voice. "Do I seem anything like the hero Anna you've been worshipping? No? Because I'm not. No one is. Whatever you've built up in your head, I can guarantee that reality wasn't the same. Not for an Anna."

"But… I've seen how good you can be, how selfless and kind." Kjelle reiterated. "I know that you were a good person, and can be again, under the right circumstances."

Anna's smile glowed alongside a light laugh. "Under the right circumstances I'll still be me. Every Anna is the same. Nobody's going to look at me, or any of my family, without saying 'that's an Anna'. We're all born the same - identical family members, all of whom want more wealth. Whatever finer points lie in our personalities are disregarded in favour of a company image, which does a really good job to define us overall."

"Then won't people such as the less-Anna Anna we met, or Kjelle's selfless Anna, be forgotten?" Robin asked. "No one deserves to be forgotten; that's probably a fate worse than death, and under your collective Anna people like them would be abandoned all too easily. It doesn't do that good a job of defining you if so many finer details and entire people are omitted."

"Alright, Robin, you look at me this time." Anna said, turning to face him. "When you see me, who do you think I am?"

Robin blinked and searched for some kind of descriptor that wouldn't serve her end, and failed to do so before Anna resumed speaking. "Do you think I have a name, one other than Anna? Or, do you see an Anna, and know that I'm an Anna?"

"You're an Anna." Robin admitted. "That's not necessarily a good thing, though. What if you wanted to be something different?"

"Does that matter?" Anna asked rhetorically. "If I were someone different, you probably wouldn't know who I was. You wouldn't offer me a spot in the Shepherds, I wouldn't have this sweet merchant work behind my name, and I would be as easily forgotten as all the other failed, unremarkable people in the world. As an Anna, I'll be remembered as something more than another nobody who died without ever reaching the prestige an Anna can access."

"That sounds… an awful lot like what I was saying." Kjelle cut in. "People who are remarkable are remembered and hold influence, and people who aren't may as well have never existed in the first place."

"Kinda, but that last part is way too far off." Anna said. "People may not be as remarkable as an Anna or a Shepherd, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't exist. People simply need the initiative to take a life of greatness for their own, and everyone needs the opportunity to do that. Even then, people who don't do that are needed to support the rest - the real Annas of the world."

"You both are putting way too much emphasis on people's values - not everyone needs them." Robin said, and Anna crinkled her face in genuine confusion. "It's up to each person to do as they please with them, but it's our responsibility to help them along whenever we can. That's what the Shepherds are all about. That's what's truly ideal, and attainable."

"Yeah, but having to look out for other, weaker people only weighs that all down." Kjelle argued again. "The same could happen with only the world's best, and it would be way more attainable than with everyone."

"That wouldn't be the same, Kjelle. At all." Robin said. "For things like this, it would have to be all or nothing. There are no compromises, no easy way outs - only the one ideal everyone would have to strive for or fail to attain, together."

Kjelle opened her mouth to refute Robin further, but she silenced herself before she was able to voice anything of the sort. "Whatever. We've wasted enough time here. Let's get going to the bandit fort, alright?"

"Good with me." Robin shrugged easily, and remounted his horse. He was approximately as tired of their conversation as Kjelle.

"Please tell me I can ride with one of you?" Anna said before they had begun moving, shifting her oversized backpack to add to her partially true illusion of weariness. "This bag is overloaded, and I'm not going to be able to carry it far on my own, but I'm also not willing to leave it behind."

Robin appraised her bag, judging it to likely be no more than his horse could handle, and slid up his mount to give her space. "Sure, hop on. Shouldn't be too far now, anyway."

Anna smiled and lifted her bag into place behind Robin. Robin's horse instantly buckled under the intense weight of her acquired goods.

"Good gods, what's in there!?" he asked as he struggled to somehow aid his mount with the added burden.

"You know, some gold, gems, armour, and… other heavy stuff. A pretty normal haul, really, and only a fraction of one, at that."

"It's about to cripple a trained warhorse!"

"Well, maybe the trained warhorse should get better at hauling." Anna said defensively, heaving the bag from the horse's back and allowing the mount to properly breathe once more.

Robin gingerly patted the horse's now-sore back and eyed Anna warily. "How are you able to lift that?"

"Maybe because I'm not an invalid of a horse?" Anna suggested as she faltered with the bag, barely managing to prevent it from spilling its contents across the ground. "Hey, Kjelle, think yours can handle this?"

"Uh… maybe?" Kjelle said. "Our horses did sort of recover from almost dying recently, so they might not be able to handle much."

Anna raised an eyebrow, but didn't bother to inquire any further. She dropped her bag on the ground, its contents settling into place after a few seconds and looking all the less possible to transport.

"Do you think you could carry it, then?" Robin asked, directing the question at Kjelle.

"What? No, I recovered from almost dying, too!"

Robin shrugged. "Maybe you would handle it better than the horses?"

Kjelle glared at him, but dismounted her horse. "You're lucky that I haven't gotten enough exercise these past few days…" she said, mumbling something more under her breath that Robin couldn't and knew he didn't want to hear.

"I might be able to help you with some wind magic." Robin suggested in an attempt ease her burden.

Kjelle had already begun to lift the bag, crouching in front of it to allow Anna to fasten its straps over her arms before she rose it deftly into the air. She gave what Robin could only assume was a grunt of approval, and so he prepped some simple wind magic to aid her efforts, allowing a few of his fires to dim so as to not waste any excess energy. Anna mounted Kjelle's horse and all three departed for the bandit hideout, with Kjelle doing a commendable job of maintaining pace with her companions' horses despite her handicap.

* * *

Anna raised her hand as the hideout fort came into view, stopping Robin from progressing any further. Kjelle quickly caught up to them, having fallen slightly behind over time, and came to a far more grateful stop.

"So, how do you two want to do this?" Anna asked, directing the question more to Robin than Kjelle. "There probably aren't any bandits in there, since there haven't been any since I started… uh… liberating it, but there's also the chance that some have returned from wherever they all went. Any plans, tactician-man?"

Robin stared at the barren, worn walls of stone that lined the ruins, each being capped with enough snow to be almost beautiful were they to have no connotation to bandits. "I'll scout it out and call for you two when I know it's safe. If what I'm thinking is right, though, there won't be anyone to fight."

He departed for the ruins, his horse lurching into action before Kjelle or Anna could contest his plan in any way. Kjelle allowed the bag on her shoulders to fall to the ground, using the spare time she now had to breathe heavily and try to not die from overexertion.

Anna hummed to herself as he left, and dismounted her horse to check on the bag. "What did he mean by that?" she asked Kjelle as she passed by the knight. "Do you two know something about the bandits here? Something that may be profitable to the poor, innocent merchants of this area?"

Kjelle bent over, her hands on her knees, as she struggled to regain anything resembling a proper breathing pattern. "First… you have to tell me… how the hell you managed to carry… that bag… all the way from the fort to where we met you. It looked to me like you hadn't broken a sweat."

"Years upon years of conditioning." Anna replied simply. She patted down the bag and peeked inside of its compartments, ensuring that nothing had been lost on their small journey.

"Yeah, sure, but I've been training to be a knight for longer than-" Kjelle started, but stopped herself part way with a shake of her head. "Nevermind. I should probably have guessed that a Shepherd would be so strong, anyway." she said, then finally managed to steady her breathing completely, and stood up to her full height to address Anna. "If Robin and I are thinking the same thing, then this entire area is probably safe. We killed a lot of bandits when we were headed to the village south of here, when we met your relative."

Anna's eyebrows rose up her forehead as she glanced away from the contents of her bag to gawk at Kjelle. "You killed all of those bandits? Two of you?"

"Well, yeah. There were only, what, about fifty of them, give or take a few?" Kjelle said. "Robin handled most of them. You'd probably be better off asking him about the specifics. But yeah, I think we pretty much got them all."

"Oh. Okay, then." Anna said in her most unenthusiastic voice yet as she returned to appraising her bag. "I guess we've gotten lucky so far if that's all you two have killed. There are supposed to be hundreds of bandits all around these parts, and they all tend to convene at or around this place, but since no one's been here for a while… I guess something more than only you and Robin has happened."

"Wait, hundreds?" Kjelle asked, her hopes that she had misheard being destroyed when Anna nodded. "But… we fought nowhere near that amount. Where could they be? And why are there so many of them?"

"For where they could be, I have no idea. Hopefully somewhere they'll never be able to interfere with my business again." Anna said. "As for the second question… well, it's typically an easier way of life for a lot of people. If they have power over others, anyone would be able to abuse it as easily as they could use it for good. Compare a little intimidation, and maybe a little fighting and killing, to a life of hard and thankless but honest labour, and it's plain to see why people take the easier option."

"Aren't there other people in Ferox with the power to take them on, though?" Kjelle asked. "I had a teacher who used to do something kind of like that. I know the Khans would, too. How are bandits allowed to operate without getting shut down by people like them, good people in power?"

Anna cursed softly as the light from Robin's fires faded, the small spells failing to maintain themselves over the distance he had travelled. She closed her bag and sat on top of it, facing Kjelle as she kicked her legs out leisurely into the space before her. "If the recon work I did for Flavia was any indication, I think she was doing something about it. You probably got some papers from her, ones she wrote up from information my family and I had given her, as well as one other sources she wouldn't talk about - some of the destinations should be related to the criminals around here. I think the ones that were named when we last met were… Ezra, Victor, and Vincent."

Kjelle nodded, not needing to pull out the papers Flavia had given her from her bag in order to verify the names. "Robin and I have already handled Victor and Vincent. Ezra's the slaver guy a ways from here, right? A bit more to the east of us?"

"Yeah, that's the guy." Anna confirmed with a barely visible nod. "He's not one of the ones who stops by this place, though, and neither are his men. He tends to go for quality over quantity, and even then he has a lot of people under his command. That guy can be a real pain. He's tried to catch me once or twice, you know… actually, about eight times."

"Have you not done anything about it?" Kjelle asked, one eyebrow raised. "You have the power to stop them, don't you? They've tried to catch you eight times, but still you waited for Flavia to send Robin before trying anything?"

"It's not like I could do anything if I tried." Anna said nonchalantly, as though the matter had crossed her mind yet simply had never interested her. "I mean, sure, I may've been able to take down Victor or Vincent with only a few scratches, but hundreds of bandits? I'd never make it. Ezra's way worse, too. If Victor, Vincent, or any of their goons manage to land the smallest of hits on you, Ezra and his crew would have killed you ten times in half as long. There's a reason no one faces them, not even the Khans."

Kjelle winced as her hand gravitated to where she had been stabbed with her own lance, the memory of being rushed being present despite the absence of any pain. Thankfully, Robin's cloak was still in place over her shoulders, preventing that memory from becoming too real through its mere comforting presence. "Then why are we here? What are three people going to be able to do against a force like that?"

"Well, you're one of the other cases that involved someone like that, aren't you?" Anna said, and Kjelle quirked her head in confusion. "There was a different Anna handling your location, but if I remember correctly, they said there was someone over by you who was almost on par with Ezra… a sorcerer, I think?"

Kjelle nodded as realisation finally dawned on her. "Cassius. He was a piece of work. It took Flavia, Robin, my teacher, and Tharja to take him down. I don't know if the three of us would be able to take him down, if I'm being honest. Flavia, Tharja, and my teacher were all better than Robin at fighting, and without them…"

"Also, it would only be two people." Anna announced, cheerily enough that it almost didn't faze Kjelle.

She caught it anyway, her eyes widening as the merchant's words sank in. "What do you mean? Are you not coming with us?"

"Don't get me wrong, I'll stick around as long as I can, especially for Valm." Anna said. "Outside of the work from Flavia, profits recently haven't been as good as I'd like, though that is a high standard. I may as well try my luck bartering around the world with the Shepherds - and, seriously, with Robin's whole 'all or nothing' mentality I'm willing to bet that you will end up in Valm before long. If things get too bad, though, and if it seems like everything is about to go to hell, I'll probably value leaving over staying."

Kjelle stared at Anna, flabbergasted by what was apparently nothing significant for the merchant. "You would abandon the Shepherds if things got too difficult for you?"

Anna gave an eerily pleasant smile no different from any other she had previously made and nodded. Kjelle opened her mouth to say something further, to somehow convince Anna to reconsider her stance, but faltered when she wasn't able to form any arguments that would appeal to the merchant. She had known a far different Anna than the one before her.

"You're still trying to find some way to idolise me, huh?" Anna asked as Kjelle failed to form words. "Don't do that. Nobody in this time is going to be as wonderful as you hope for them to be, so it's best to drop that whole mindset before you make a fool of yourself."

"But… you're you. You're a Shepherd." Kjelle defended weakly, knowing it to be a lost cause but not wanting to forfeit her memories of the Shepherds she knew. "Everyone looked up to all of you as the saviours of humanity. Hell, I'm not even the one who idolises the Shepherds the most from my group; there are some people who are fanatics about the whole thing."

"Yeah, but do you think that they're going to see everything the same as you?" Anna asked. "I know their type. People who worship whatever they think is great, but when it finally comes time to meet their heroes, they get so disenfranchised with reality that they abandon everything they used to be, or double down and go harder into the worship stuff despite how obviously incorrect they are. That second one is amazing, by the way - you have no idea how much people will buy to perpetuate their own make-believe fantasies of heroes and epic tales."

"You're predatory." Kjelle stated simply, and Anna flashed her signature grin that was growing progressively more unsettling. "Regardless, there's nothing wrong with having heroes and ideals like that. One of my friends, the strongest of them all, she took up the persona of Marth in order to pretend to have some of their power and will. It was all make-believe, but she still became the symbol of hope in our future."

"Hm… that could be a pretty good idea for some merchandise." Anna said, her smile brightening. "'Marth' is Lucina, right? Chrom's daughter? Her being a symbol of hope in a world on the brink of ruin would make anyone want to buy something with her face on it!"

Kjelle resisted the strong urge to gape in awe at the merchant's vulturous nature. It was almost as though Anna was going out of her way to prove how awful of a person she could be. "Lucina would never approve of that! Wait… how do you know that stuff about her, anyway? That her father is Chrom, or that she was going by Marth? I thought she disappeared a while ago and couldn't be found."

"The Annas weren't the ones to find her." Anna answered simply. "Someone else brought that info to Flavia before we met with her. A Shepherd by the name of Gaius, I believe? Regardless, Flavia was the one to tell us about her."

"The Gaius part is what Flavia told me." Kjelle said. "She also left out that you and your family did any work for her, for whatever reason. I also don't know if Gaius actually did what she said, since Robin never noticed him leave Ylisstol."

"He's a thief. He gets around a lot." Anna shrugged. "The exact words Flavia said to me when I asked were: 'if anyone wants to know, say Gaius did it'. I don't know if she was being honest or not, but that's all I've got to go off of."

"So… you don't actually know what happened to Lucina, only that someone else who may or may not be Gaius was keeping a few tabs on her?" Kjelle asked. Anna nodded, and she sighed. "I guess she's already doing better than me at keeping away from interfering. I revealed practically everything over the course of a few days…"

"To be fair, Flavia and her informants have known for a long, long time." Anna said. "When she asked us to look into some areas and check for your friends, she was spot on for their coordinates every single time. She got their appearances, traits, and personalities right, too. It was kinda strange how accurate everything was. She's probably followed them for a long time."

"Flavia knew about them before recruiting you?" Kjelle asked in a bout of confusion. "Then… who found them before you?"

Anna shrugged again. "I don't know. Maybe Gaius, like she said?"

"How long ago did you start working for her?"

"Hm…" Anna mumbled to herself as she tapped her chin, thinking back to when she had first been approached by the Khan. "I think… I was the last of my sisters who was recruited, and that was… a little under a year ago, give or take a few weeks."

Kjelle blinked. "That would be on the tail end of the Plegian war of this time. There's no way Gaius would be able to travel across Ferox, Plegia, and Ylisse without being noticed in the middle of the Shepherds' greatest conflict so far."

"Maybe someone from your time, who wasn't hampered by the war, managed to scout things out and fill Flavia in?" Anna suggested.

Kjelle blinked again, having to force herself to not glare at the merchant. There was no way Robin could have already covertly convinced her to corroborate his claim about a traitor. "Maybe. Anything's possible. Which of my friends did you find, anyway? Flavia hadn't found them all when I talked to her, or hadn't bothered looking for them. I assumed they were in Valm or somewhere else, but…"

Anna hummed to herself as she attempted to remember. "Hm… well, I found a lady named Noire who was hiding out in the wilderness east of here, around where Ezra operates. Other than that, I kept tabs on Victor, Vincent, Ezra himself, and some villages that are prepping for some risen raids, as per Flavia's request. That's all of eastern Ferox, and there was nothing in central, so… next would be one of my sisters, who kept tabs on you and the Ruins of Time in the west. I also had a cousin who was sent out to scout a desert in Ylisse, and another sister who was tasked with two locations in Plegia. There were a few who ran weapon convoys for Flavia, but that's all I can remember."

Kjelle nodded, then tilted her head and began to count the locations mentioned on her hand. "You're missing one. Flavia also gave me a paper for an island off the east coast, where one of my friends has been staying. Other than that, I think that's everything she showed me, too."

Anna tilted her head in turn, an uncommon light frown replacing her smile. "I handled all of eastern Ferox, and I never had to check a coastal island."

"You never had to check for a Manakete girl?" Kjelle asked, and Anna's eyes immediately lit up with an intensity to rival the heart of Robin's magical fires. "Orange-brown hair? Pointy ears? Looks young, but acts mature? Really, really small but packs a serious punch? ...Ringing any bells for you?"

"One of your group is a Manakete!?" Anna shouted enthusiastically, rushing off of her perch on her bag in order to get as close to Kjelle as humanly possible.

Kjelle recoiled from her burst of speed, the light shining in Anna's eyes causing her to take an unnecessary step backward. "Gods, I see why Flavia didn't tell you."

"You have no idea how much someone like her could be worth!" Anna squealed with delighted enthusiasm. "I didn't know that Manaketes still existed… but then again, you're all from the strange, wacky world of the future aren't you? And to think that she was right next to Ezra's territory the entire time! I probably wouldn't have had to do any of the dirty work myself!"

Kjelle's entire body tensed, with the only thing that prevented her from striking out at Anna being the memory of her friendlier form from a future lost. "You would have sold my friend as a slave?"

"Kidding, kidding!" Anna laughed, far too easily and joyously to be genuine. "I mean, any Manakete would make insane amounts of gold at auction, but they'd also be as valuable with me as a slaver. Who would be able to say no to merch when a Manakete is the one selling it, especially in somewhere like Ylisse or Plegia?"

"You're really not the Anna I once knew." Kjelle said coldly.

Anna's smile faded slightly, her new expression being happy yet devious enough to tell Kjelle that it was authentic. "Actually, I am. Probably. Maybe. The fact is that you don't know, and that it doesn't really matter, which is something you're going to have to wrap your head around. Better you do it soon so that you don't mess up when you first meet any the Shepherds. It's pretty obvious you haven't, by the way, since if you had, you'd probably know that they're human above all else. Not idols to be worshipped."

The cold of the night finally managed to assault Kjelle, causing her to shiver and retract her hands into the safe warmth of Robin's cloak. "I know that they're human. They died in my time, after all; but they also died as heroes. That's the part I want to remember."

"That's still not necessarily who they are, though." Anna sighed, seeing that she wasn't making any headway with the stubborn knight. "Hey, who was alive at the end of your world, anyway? Obviously I was, or at least one of me, but were there others?"

Kjelle nodded to her, shivering again despite her coverings and wondering how Anna wasn't doing the same. "By the day my friends and I left, there was you, of course, as well as Emmeryn, Aversa, Say'ri, Yen'fay, Frederick, Gangrel, Cordelia, Ricken, Maribelle, and Lissa. Everyone else had died."

"Gangrel? Seriously?" Anna muttered, more to herself than Kjelle. "Did they come back with you and your friends, too? Two Emmeryns could be okay, but two Gangrels…?"

"No, none of them came back in time." Kjelle answered with a solemn shake of her head.

"Ah… I see." Anna replied politely. She by all means wished to press further, especially in regard to her own apparent demise, but the considerably more grave tone Kjelle had adopted urged her to maintain her silence.

The two stood in the middle of the road for a while longer, neither speaking as the cold of the night managed to wrap over them both. To Anna, the silence between them was more discomforting than anything either of them could say, with the grim mood that had settled over their surroundings doing nothing to alleviate her unease.

"What are your friends like?" she asked after a few more minutes, breaking the silence between them and hoping that Kjelle would be courteous enough to give a reply.

"You're the one who was stalking them." Kjelle replied icily, an accusatory note hanging over her words.

"I stalked one of them, and that was at the request of a Khan." Anna defended herself. "For all I know, you could have a half dozen more Manaketes hiding away somewhere, waiting for a kind, benevolent merchant to come along and snatch them up!"

Kjelle glared at Anna, and her trademarked smile faltered. She coughed lightly into her hand before continuing. "That… that was supposed to be a joke. I really am curious."

Narrowing her eyes, Kjelle glared for a moment longer at the merchant with a greater intensity before her fervor faded. "They've all got something unique they bring to the table, and we're all pretty different from one another, but we're united in our desire to save our future. Not many are better fighters than me, though."

"Based on what Robin was saying, that's probably a difficult title to fail to get." Anna said, and Kjelle cast another glare at her as the merchant's smile returned. "Kidding, kidding. Sheesh, learn to take a joke."

Kjelle continued to glare at her. "The only one who ever managed to beat me fairly was Lucina, and that's because she's the only person more driven to succeed than me. She always has been."

"Ooh, do I hear some envy?" Anna cooed, her grin growing twice as devious. "C'mon, tell me the details!"

"There's no envy, and there are no details." Kjelle stated plainly, dashing Anna's hopes for a story, but not her ever-present and ever-pleasant smile. "Lucina has a tendency to beat me at duels, even if we haven't yet begun to fight. It's like she already knows what's going to happen in our fights beforehand, like she can read me so openly that I can't land a hit on her."

"She was essentially your leader, right? Is that why you follow her, because she can beat you so easily?"

"Kind of, yeah." Kjelle admitted. "We met because of the ties our families had, and we had similar goals, so we were always able to work together. She would never have her strength be the reason I follow her, though; the only times we've ever talked about anything like that she's always beaten it into my head that everyone in our forces were equal. She could even do it without ever raising a weapon."

"If she's really so strong, I'm surprised you don't share her way of thinking." Anna said. "Then again, you didn't bother to fight Robin earlier, so maybe someone doesn't have to be all that strong to beat you."

"Are you trying to provoke me into doing something here?" Kjelle asked, as apprehensive as she was threatening.

"I'm saying that if you really did value strength as much as you say, you'd be way more like her." Anna shrugged. "Then again, you don't seem as altruistic as someone like Lucina sounds, so maybe you flat out aren't capable of being the same as her. Either way, there's a reason you aren't as powerful as her, or Robin, or probably Chrom, and I'm fairly certain it has to do with how arrogantly you're acting about people you think are weaker than you. Y'know, pride before the fall, and all that."

Kjelle frowned deeply before a small, wistful smile broke out over her face. "For a second there, you kind of sounded like your old self. The one I knew. The one who was always giving advice and help."

Anna's grin wavered, becoming the most insecure Kjelle had seen yet. "Hey, that's not nice. I'm nothing like that! I've got a respectable image to uphold here, and I don't want you slandering it with… softness, and tenderness, and stuff!"

Kjelle retreated further into the warmth of the cloak on her shoulders as the chill of the night became all the more oppressive, hiding a low laugh as she went. She allowed her focus on Anna to weaken, despite how the merchant was now shivering from both the cold and a fear all her own, redirecting it instead to the distant ruins for which Robin had set out.

"He's taking a long time, isn't he?" Kjelle asked Anna, though her voice was soft enough that it could easily have been for only herself.

"Maybe he died." Anna joked, eager to reclaim her colder persona before Kjelle was able to dismantle her any further.

"Ha! I doubt it." Kjelle laughed abruptly. "He's not necessarily a hero like anyone in the Shepherds, but he certainly has a tendency to not die. It can be annoying at times."

"I don't think that he would be able to take on all of the bandits in this area at once. Nobody could do something like that." Anna said, a small note of concern working its way onto her voice. "It's not like he'd try to fight them all, right? He's a tactician, after all. He'd have to know that coming to get us would be a far better option than going it alone."

"Come on, you're worrying too much." Kjelle said. "He'll be fine, and if not, then oh well. I don't think he'd outright die to something as petty as a bandit; he'd get a scratch or two at absolute worst."

"Remember what I said about pride and arrogance? Like what you have right now?" Anna asked dryly.

"Why the hell would I be proud of him?" Kjelle asked, with Anna raising a suggestive eyebrow in an unsuccessful attempt to eat away a little more at the knight. "And how would it be possible to be arrogant for him? That doesn't make sense."

Anna blinked, her eyebrow falling back to rest once she knew it had failed. "That's… not exactly what I meant, but I guess you're headed in the right direction?"

"He's going to be fine." Kjelle restated, her voice free of any worry. "He's capable of defending himself, and it's not like he doesn't have any… protection…" her voice fell as she brought out one hand to slide over the surface of his cloak. She opened the front of it, darting her hand over one of the many pockets inside, finding some of his tomes in a few and his swords strapped to one side of the cloak, kept away from her own clothing by protective flaps and loops of cloth.

"He's screwed, isn't he?" Anna commented as she watched Kjelle pull out one of the swords and give it a tentative swing.

"He didn't have his weapons?" Kjelle breathed in disbelief before her eyes sharpened on the blade. "Son of a bitch, I could have fought him!"

"Um, Kjelle? Priorities?" Anna cut in, waving her in the direction of the bandit hideout.

Kjelle blinked uncomprehendingly. "What?"

"We have to go save Robin from whatever he's gotten himself into." Anna explained, as though it were obvious.

Kjelle blinked again. "Oh. Right." she said and immediately moved over to her horse, jumping onto its back before Anna was able to do the same. "I call the horse this time. No way I'm carrying that bag in the dark."

"What!? What about me!?" Anna cried out as Kjelle kicked the horse into action, already making her way toward the ruined fort.

"You managed to carry it for a while already. Do it again!" Kjelle said over her shoulder as she distanced herself from the merchant to the best of her ability.

"You've done as much as me!" Anna shouted after Kjelle as she left. "Come on, don't leave me here, defenseless and alone! What if bandits come after me, or risen?"

"Sorry, can't hear you! You'd better hurry to the fort so we can talk there!"

"Kjelle!" Anna called out feebly once more. The knight didn't respond, and Anna glowered as she grumbled to herself about work ethic and laziness.

She wrapped the straps on her bag over her shoulders, with her lightening hex instantly taking effect and lowering the apparent weight of her loot. Part of her felt bad for not keeping the enchantment active while Kjelle had been carrying it, but another part reminded her that it would build the woman's character, or some other adequate justification outside of her own lack of a desire to maintain the magic for so long.

* * *

Rays of vibrant green light beamed into the last of the bandit fort's abandoned rooms, wind magic carving through whatever would be unlucky enough to be at head height through the closed door in front of Robin. After a few seconds without any trace of sound, he blew the door itself down and took a step back, with some of the fires that orbited him leaking their light into the empty space of the room.

No bandits were there to greet him, neither dead on the floor nor in a flurry of retaliatory blows. The room itself was barren as well, each having proven as empty as any other when he had gone through checking every closed area, with Anna's looting likely being the cause. Robin stepped into the room to look around for anything that may have interested him, then stepped back outside when nothing caught his eye.

Every room in the fort was empty, both of people and of valuables. He returned to the wagon and horses he had passed early in his assessment, including where he had tethered his own, appraising the cart from afar before deciding to snoop at what Anna had scavenged from the now-desolate ruins.

The horses were fine, as far as he could tell. There was likely some structural problem or another with the wagon that prevented Anna from leaving. She had parked it in a small central glade within the front accessway of the fort, the crumbling walls and absent ceilings of the rooms around it proving that there was no need to check each one for bandits. Robin had anyway, of course; there was no such thing as being too safe.

Stonework around the cart Anna was using had crumbled and frozen as debris, causing Robin to wonder for the umpteenth time since he had entered how this place was supposedly in regular use. There had been rooms to house dozens of people, not to mention open space for far more, yet every area had proven empty and every room showed signs that nobody had occupied them for several days.

Deep down, Robin felt as though he were responsible for the absences at the fort. His hosts here would never have been gracious, seeing as they were all being bandits in some form or another, but he still felt as though he had closed off whatever opportunity those people and this place had to be beautiful. Then again, his kill count for the last battle had only been in the high thirties, so he again doubted that he was solely to blame for the emptiness in the fort.

He reached the back end of the cart and pulled back one of the flaps that shrouded Anna's wares. Normally, he would step inside the semicircle cylinder of canvas that shrouded the wagon and stand at nearly full height to best appraise its contents, but he wasn't so much as able to find a spot to step inside, let alone stand. Anna had truly managed to store almost if not everything from the ruins inside of her wagon, and he was legitimately surprised that the canvas walls and roof weren't about to burst open at the seams from the sheer volume of what had been collected.

Robin pulled free an iron axe that was jutting out from a set of weapons pressed firmly against the roof of the canvas and gave it an evaluative swing. The weapon was simple and worn, something he doubted anyone aside from Anna would ever choose to sell or manage to make a profit on. He replaced it and ran his hand over another set of weapons near his position, these ones being low-quality swords stacked vertically off of the cart's wooden floor.

Pulling one of the swords free and giving it a similar swing, he found it to be of the same condition as the axe, if not worse. It too was replaced as he advanced to a new section of the cart's rearmost contents. He plucked out a small bag from near the bottom of the pile and shook it in his hand, revealing that it was filled to the brim with coins. At this point, he realised that though what Anna had committed was against bandits, it was still technically theft and would likely face some form of tribunal of it were ever revealed to Chrom during her Shepherd assessment.

He pulled out several more bags of coins, gems, and other valuables, trying to decide on a rough estimate on the value of everything Anna had pilfered. After the tenth bag, he accepted how impossible such a feat was for a mere mortal, having yet to make even the smallest of dents in the tiniest of subsections of the wagon. He cautiously replaced the bags he had removed, taking excruciating care to ensure that nothing he had disturbed spilled over onto the ground.

None of the bags would fit. Everything within the carriage had somehow expanded as soon as the bags had been removed, refilling the space Robin had left empty with such a uniform evenness that he hadn't so much as noticed. He attempted to set the bags aside in a different location within the cart, hoping that Anna wouldn't notice he had been rifling through her goods, but failed to find any open space whatsoever. He attempted to lightly force one of the bags back into place and failed again, with the bag this time shooting out from where he had squeezed it under stacks of other, larger bags.

Robin instinctively reached for the bag, barely managing to catch it before it had hit the ground. He took a step back, holding all of the bags he had removed close to his chest with one arm as he scratched his chin with the other, hoping to find some feasible solution to his issue.

 _Anna wouldn't be too mad if I told her about this._ Robin thought to himself. _It's not like she would try to fight me for tampering with her wares… right?_ he sighed once he realised how probable such an outcome would be, and stepped forward to resume his efforts at forcing the bags into place.

He pushed two of them into spots that he could only hope were roughly close to from where he had taken them, and stood back to evaluate his work once more. Both bags shot back out of the pile, this time causing a miniature avalanche of rectangular packages Robin could only assume contained books and trinkets from the fort.

This time, Robin didn't bother to rush forward and catch anything, instead using a gentle stream of wind magic to keep everything that was falling afloat. Somehow, this task was proving more complex than slaying bandits or soldiers, with every move he made leading to several less favourable or unforseen reactions, each of which acted to further destabilise the precarious mess of items in the cart.

Allowing the eight bags he had yet to replace fall to the ground, Robin put all of his effort into his magic and began to force everything in the cart deeper into itself. Once the two bags were in place again, he stepped forward, finishing his spell and placing his hands over the bags to hold them in place. This time, nothing moved, with his magic so far proving more effective than brute force.

He stepped back again, picking up another bag and searching for a place to set it. The pile of goods sagged as soon as he did so, mountains of clothing and closed packages that sat at the top sliding down toward him at a pace so slow as to be taunting. Robin cast his wind magic once again, and moved forward to jam the bag into any spot that seemed the smallest amount open.

His glove caught on a load bearing metal chestplate stuffed full of elaborate cloth weaves as he went, and the entire pile of loot shook threateningly. He cursed and strengthened his wind magic, holding the chestplate and everything else Anna had claimed in place until it had settled.

A pile of boots and shoes in one of the wagon's corners erupted, showering footwear across the snowy floor of the ruins. Robin cursed again, strengthening his magic at the edges of the cart's opening in order to prevent any more explosions of goods.

The entirety of the wagon began to creak, with its canvas shell audibly tearing under the new stress he was applying. He lessened the force of his magic slightly, knowing that damage to the carriage would be more troublesome than any temporarily misplaced items, and a set of axes burst out onto the ground. Robin's eyes widened when he realised that he couldn't realistically keep at bay what he had started, and he was immediately showered with a spray of clothing from an area where his magic had grown too weak.

He recoiled as the first article, a heavy winter coat that undoubtedly once belonged to a bandit, collided with his upper chest, his magic faltering before cutting out entirely as he attempted to brush the clothing off of himself. Absurd amounts of packages, bags, armour, clothing, weapons, and whatever else fanned out on the ground until a negligible fraction of what was now outside the wagon remained inside.

Robin stared at the mess of goods that were worthless to anyone but Anna that now lined the ground, and hung his head before sighing deeply. He sat down next to the pile and tented his hands in front of his face, part of him having no idea how to tackle his situation and another expecting the pile to somehow resume exploding again at any moment.

He sat there doing nothing for several minutes, simply watching the pile, before Kjelle arrived. She entered his area, her lance drawn and held in a position next to the head of her horse that made her look as though she were preparing to joust.

She noticed him sitting on the ground by the pile of miscellaneous junk and valuables. Without lowering her weapon, she approached him cautiously. "Robin? Are you dead?" she asked when he didn't move in the slightest.

"You offering?" Robin asked in turn without looking in her direction or moving his hands.

"I noticed you didn't have any weapons when you challenged me to a fight." Kjelle said, ignoring his question. "You still want to try your hand at beating me?"

"The only reason I challenged you was because I was pretty sure you wouldn't realise I was unarmed, and so you wouldn't want to try." Robin said. "Technically speaking, that means I beat you without having to actually fight. So, I've already won."

"That's not-!" Kjelle shouted before she brought a hand to her temples and sighed. "Gods, you're sounding like Lucina here… damn you."

"Is that a good thing?" Robin asked, removing his eyes from the pile for the first time as his hands fell into his lap.

"...I don't know." Kjelle said. "Are there no bandits here?"

"I've swept through every closed room and checked each of the open ones. It seems like nobody's been here for a few days." Robin answered. "Do you think Anna's going to be pissed about her wagon?"

Kjelle set her lance to rest in place over the bags on the side of her horse, dismounting it and trusting the beast to keep it in place. "Maybe. Want some help cleaning it up? I don't think Anna will be here for a little while, so we might have some time to take care of it."

Robin blinked, looking over to her without bothering to rise. "You… want to help me?"

"Well, we're going to have to do it anyway before we can keep going, right?" Kjelle said, unsure of from where the uncertainty in both Robin's voice and her own was stemming.

"Yeah, you're right." Robin said as he finally rose from his spot on the ground, wiping wet frost from his backside and legs. "Thanks, Kjelle."

"Not a problem." Kjelle replied casually, her hands finding their way to her hips as she appraised the pile. "I take it this was all inside the carriage at some point?"

"Somehow, though I have no idea how it was possible to fit everything. That encumberment was probably what prevented Anna from taking it with her."

"So how are we going to handle this?" Kjelle asked, already disheartened by the sheer volume of the pile despite her natural determination to overcome it.

"I guess we just get started." Robin suggested, facing the pile with determination he hoped could mirror hers. "Any progress is progress, right?"

"True enough." Kjelle said in agreement, walking over to one side of the pile bordering the rear of the wagon.

"I'll get inside and sort through things in here, if you could do the same out here." Robin said as he stepped toward the carriage, gesturing to both of the piles, inside and out, with his hands. "We'll have to be careful about how we stack things, and even then there'll be the problem of what to have our horses carry and what to have hers take care of. When I'm done in here, I'll help you pass things off into my area or our horses."

"Sure." Kjelle acknowledged his plan in curt agreement, already kneeling next to her pile to begin sorting it. Robin climbed into the wagon and did the same with his, and together the two managed to work through the majority of the mess in a remarkably short time.

Kjelle passed a set of swords over to Robin who, having already completed sorting his sector into what he believed their horses could carry and what could remain with Anna, set it inside a small crevice in the mass of loot they were slowly building back up. As she gauged the remainder of their work, Kjelle found her eye wandering to the entrance she had used to reach Robin, their party's four horses all grazing through whatever meager grass remained in the clearing's entryway.

"Anna's taking a long time to get here, isn't she?" Kjelle asked Robin. "What do you think could be taking her so long?"

"You left her with that bag of stuff, didn't you?" Robin asked, and Kjelle nodded in response. "Well, she's probably struggling with that. We can go help her once we're done here, if need be, but she was capable of carrying it on her own."

"Alright, then." Kjelle said. She picked up a new handful of the items she had sorted, this set being of smaller valuables than the larger weapons and armour they had already moved. The remaining items strewn across the ground were all trinkets of some form or another, all being too oddly shaped to fit with the carefully selected wares they would be carrying with their own horses.

"We've got some bracelets, what look like some dragonstones, some kind of bangle, and… a crown." she said, passing every item off to Robin once she had announced them and he had found adequate space for each.

"A crown?" Robin asked as he put away the bangle atop a pile of books and overcoats, using only a small amount of wind magic to push them into place. Kjelle handed the item in question to him, and he tossed it from hand to hand, judging its make.

"Looks like a knockoff, at best." Kjelle said without bothering to look at the crown, having already progressed on to a new subset of equipment.

The crown itself was simple, a small golden circlet with dull gems that would undoubtedly prove false if tested. It was smaller and less significant than any Robin had seen before, even compared to the relatively unglamorous one worn by Gangrel during the Plegian war.

"I don't know, I think it looks kind of nice." Robin said, holding it in one hand before placing it atop his own head. "It's minimal, and not too gaudy even if it does have the fake gems. The kind of thing a child might wear when pretending to be Exalt… or what Chrom would use if he had to wear one."

"Are you trying to pretend at being an Exalt?" Kjelle asked with a small smile, averting her attention from her pile to take in his ridiculously pompous look. "I think you would work better as Chrom's queen than an actual ruler, if that."

Robin jolted and froze in place. "Why do people have to keep saying stuff like that?" he muttered to himself as he whisked the crown off of his head and tossed it haphazardly into the wagon, using a burst of wind to push it into unreachable territory.

Kjelle returned her attention to the remainder of Robin's mess, and with only a few more minutes of work on both of their counts, they had finished completely. Robin sat down on the edge of the carriage rear, in a small cleared area he had been using to stand that only existed now thanks to his and Kjelle's efforts.

"Are we all done now?" he asked, part of him not believing that they had actually succeeded.

"We're done." Kjelle confirmed with a small smile, which he soon reciprocated. "All that's left is setting everything left over on our horses, and then we-"

"Not quite!" a new voice cut in, with Anna emerging from the side of the carriage an instant later.

"Hey, Anna, we were about to-" Robin began to greet her before she casually threw her bag at him, knocking him to the ground in a horribly uncomfortable manner, her bag settling atop his chest and pinning him to the ground.

"How the hell did you manage to throw that?" Kjelle asked, bewildered by the merchant's apparent strength and completely unconcerned with Robin's condition.

"Magic." Anna responded dismissively, glaring at Kjelle for a second before translating her expression over to the upturned Robin. "May I ask, Robin, how you managed to spill out almost all of my cart's contents? Do you have any idea how valuable things in there could be?"

"No, seriously, how did you do it?" Kjelle asked, transfixed by the distance between Anna and the overweight bag, as well as where the bag itself now sat on Robin.

"There's this enchantment thing I learned to do forever ago that makes it easier to carry heavy loads. Taught to every Anna for carrying heavier goods." Anna explained, wholly disinterested with the knight's interjection. "Now, Robin, what were you doing with my wares?"

Robin managed to work his hands underneath the bag before it was able to completely crush him, and shot off a burst of wind magic to save himself from its weight. The bag soared through the air before landing with a sturdy thud against the ground a short distance from Anna and Kjelle, and Robin slowly sat up as he rubbed his chest free of any lingering compressed pain.

"That actually hurt, you know?" Robin said as he finished checking himself for any damage, though he didn't dare check himself for the bruise he knew was forming under his shirt.

"Which part, the one where you got hit with a little bag, or the one where it's entirely possible you were trying to steal from me?" Anna asked, her smile nowhere to be found.

"Are you kidding me?" Kjelle muttered to herself as she walked over to the bag and nudged it with her mostly ruined boot. It refused to budge. "Why the hell does the answer for how everything's possible have to be magic? It's so… unsatisfying. It's a stupidly easy answer."

"Magic isn't easy." Robin chimed in, eager to address something other than Anna and her anger for the time being. "I think your own ability with it proves that much. It's not easier than physically fighting to do something, only different."

"It's not like I'd even get anything to show for it." Kjelle grumbled, hearing what Robin had to say but mostly disregarding it. She turned back to Anna. "If you were to actually lift this thing on its own, you eventually wouldn't have to use magic at all, since you'd be strong enough to carry it anyway."

"You know that magic kind of works like that too, right?" Robin asked, continuing to ignore Anna's pouting frown. "Once you learn a spell and keep casting it, it becomes easier and easier to use it and other magic. There's no real reason to lift anything if you have enchantments or wind magic at hand."

"Well, what if you lose your magic?" Kjelle asked, turning away from the bag to address him directly. "If you somehow become incapable of casting anything, and you don't have the physical strength to do anything, then you're completely screwed."

"Same goes for if you somehow happen to lose your muscles." Robin rebutted. "It's about as likely to happen as losing magic, as well. You even build magic ability and muscles up the same way - train yourself like you do physically but for your mind, and you're able to store more energy and cast more, better magic."

"Hey, guys?" Anna cut in with a wave of her hand, drawing their attention back to herself. "I love arguing over magical theory as much as the next person, but do you think we could get back on track here?"

"Which was?" Robin asked.

"Were you trying to loot my loot, or otherwise tamper with my hard earned wares?" Anna glared, her smile still refusing to return.

Robin blinked, then turned back to Kjelle. "It's not like training with magic takes away from physical training, either. You need to be healthy in order to best operate with magic, so the two tend to go hand in hand, and mixed uses of magic and conventional weapons are becoming all the more common. Granted, magic does tend to have way more situational benefits than a sword or axe or anything, so I'd still say that it's better overall. Eh, in the end, it's each to their own."

Kjelle faced him, in doing so also ignoring Anna, and shrugged. "It's still not as tangible as a normal weapon. Not worthwhile enough, and not good enough to outpace say, a lance. It'll make a good addition to what I already know, don't get me wrong; I just also think that it's stupid how much people like you and her are relying on it."

Anna began to fume and stomped her foot on the ground to regather their attention. She failed, but spoke anyway. "I'm trying to rat you out here, Robin! Stop playing like this!"

"It's equally as stupid that you have to rely solely on your strength rather than magic." Robin said to Kjelle, and Anna's face fell in defeat. "A mixed bag is the best of both worlds. I already know magic and how to use a variety of weapons, so all that's left between the two of us is for you to learn magic."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Kjelle said. "But, even then, you know how to use weapons, yet you couldn't lift that bag. You're still weak. If I'm not mistaken, you also said that you haven't been training under Frederick much, even before you left Ylisstol. I'm probably already out of your league in a fair fight."

"Time will tell." Robin replied simply. "I'll admit I'm not the best in a fair fight, but I'm certainly not a pushover. Also, your forms are slow and sloppy, as befitting a knight; you rely too much on raw strength. I can tell that regardless of whatever happened in your future you can't operate on the level of, say, Kellam or Frederick."

"I get it. I've still got a long ways to go until I'm as significant as any of the Shepherds, or you, or Lucina." Kjelle said, her voice falling into a mutter. "We're done with things here. I say we rest for the night, then move out toward Noire's location in the morning. You may want to talk to Anna about her involvement in the battles to come."

Kjelle turned to leave in the direction of her belongings and mount, and Robin shifted his gaze over to Anna. The merchant's head snapped up from its crestfallen position, and a predatory gleam in her eyes told Robin that she wasn't in the mood to talk amicably with him.

He turned back to Kjelle and called after her before she could put any significant distance between herself and the back end of the wagon. "Hey, Kjelle! Wait up a minute!"

Turning to face him once again, Kjelle raised an eyebrow, fully aware that he was trying to stall talking to Anna, something she was neither for nor against. She said nothing, waiting expectantly for him to continue as if to see whether or not he could manage to worm his way out of his own position.

"Um…" Robin stammered, searching for something to say that would prolong Anna's fury. "You… didn't bring a spare set of boots, did you?"

Kjelle blinked, casting a glance down to her footwear, which had been torn and fused into itself under the draw of Robin's failed portal. She looked over to him to see that his own boots were completely undamaged. "Uh… no, I didn't think to bring spare boots. Did you?"

For an instant, Robin's face lit up with a genuinely pleased smile. "Of course! I always come prepared. I've even got a third pair lying in wait if anything happens to these, and tons more shirts, and-"

"Alright, I get it, you're prepared." Kjelle said, exasperated from both his own newfound eagerness and her own weariness from an incredibly long and tumultuous day. "I don't have spare shoes. I was going to buy some when we hit a new settlement with, uh… money I don't exactly have…"

"Worry not!" Robin exclaimed, his face still shining in an eager happiness. "As you saw when we were sorting through Anna's stuff, there were an absurd amount of boots and shoes that I doubt were solely from this place - some even looked completely new. We can get you a pair from them."

Kjelle raised an eyebrow and shot a glance over to Anna, whose mouth had fallen open in a combination of shock and disgust.

"Do you have any idea how much giving stuff out for free would cost me!?" Anna shrieked, causing both Robin and Kjelle to wince from her sudden intensity, though her face immediately calmed as her devious smile formed anew. "Unless you want to pay for it, hm?"

"Did you get these legally?" Robin asked, his own small smile plastered unconvincingly on his face.

"Come on, don't try to police my morals here!" Anna said, her smile fading into nothingness again. "It's not stealing if it's from bandits, right? Bad things against bad people don't count."

Kjelle could feel her own eyes widening slightly, Anna's sentiment being incredibly close to Robin's opinion on ending the lives of their bandit foes two days ago. She looked over to the grandmaster, and saw a deep conflict playing itself out across his features.

"Well, yeah, I guess that's… no, that's… that's not right." he said, his voice shaking in his discomfort. He hadn't hesitated like this to state his opinions on the matter after the fight at the snowfield.

"Are you sure about that?" Kjelle prodded, and he grimaced. "What about the bandits before? What about killing them?"

"That's… it's… I don't know." Robin said, struggling to find words to explain himself. "I get… caught up in fighting sometimes, and I can't help but try to justify everything I do however I can. I've done the same looting stuff as Anna has, or at least ordered for it to happen during the last war."

He shook his head, and in doing so somehow found a new trace of security to latch onto. "Anyway, that's not what I meant. What I was trying to say was that those boots, they aren't from the bandits here, were they? They were freshly purchased before you came out here?"

"Maybe?" Anna said with an uncharacteristic amount of sheepishness that caused Robin and Kjelle both to narrow their gazes on her. "Okay, so, look: I didn't know that there weren't going to be hundreds of bandits here. My plan was to sell them some stuff, then loot whatever I could while their backs were turned. When I came here, the place was empty, so I took advantage of the situation. That's all!"

"Seriously, Anna?" Kjelle sighed. "Was selling to the Plegian army not enough? You had to go out of your way to arm bandits, too?"

"At least it wasn't the slavers!" Anna argued in her own defense. "I did what I thought would work, okay? Turns out it was unnecessary, but I'm not at fault for trying to be prepared."

"I've never seen any Annas selling boots before. Always weapons, potions, tomes, maybe some armour, but never something as simple as common variety clothing." Robin said, running his hand over a pair of untouched boots that looked as though they would fit Kjelle.

"Yeah, because I bought them beforehand." Anna gave an obvious answer.

"I'll ask again, Anna." Robin continued, his voice more stern that what he had previously address her with. "Did you get these boots, and whatever else you brought to sell to the bandits, legally?"

Anna paled slightly, and Kjelle found herself frowning at the merchant. She wasn't surprised anymore, having no reason not to expect anything less from her once-hero, instead being merely disappointed and displeased.

"I-It's absolutely legal!" Anna shouted louder than she should have, her unease shaking her voice clearly for each of her companions to hear. "That's right, I didn't actually break any laws from any nations buying this stuff! It's all fairly and rightly mine!"

"Are you really trying to lie to a grandmaster?" Robin asked, his own voice completely level even though he knew that he wasn't one to make threats of any sort. "I could probably have you thrown in prison for life for slighting me, you know."

"I'm not lying!" Anna shouted, trying to make herself sound genuine despite the counterbalance that was her own shriveled conscience. "I didn't- okay, look, maybe I stole a teensy tiny bit of gold from Ezra last time I was checking out his encampments. Maybe, just maybe, I found out that this gold was marked and that he would eventually be able to track it down… so, purely theoretically here, I pawned it off on the first merchant I found. Who happened to be selling winter wear. Theoretically."

"Anna!" Kjelle exclaimed, her voice conveying far more disappointment than outright anger. "You know what that could do to someone, right? Why the hell would you subject them to something you yourself are so afraid of?"

"Hey, I'm not-!" Anna began to refute her, but held silent when she realised how easily destroyable any argument she could form would be. "At least I feel bad about it, right? Otherwise, I wouldn't have told you two."

"I practically had to pry that out of you." Robin said dryly as he held up the pair of armoured boots in his grasp for Anna to see. "Tell you what: you let Kjelle have some footwear, and we'll take care of Ezra and everything that got messed up. Deal?"

Anna stared at him in appraisement before her smile returned to her features. "Deal. Seems like a fair trade once you add on how you've probably ruined half of my loot anyway. A few seconds on the ground can add up to a lot of wear and tear later on, you know?"

Kjelle resisted the urge to roll her eyes, then blinked in a moment of confusion. "Wait… we were already going to take care of Ezra. He's one of the people Flavia pointed out for the operations in Ferox, and we're probably going to find him when we go to get Noire." she said. Her eyes lit up when she began to understand where Anna was coming from in her actions and desire to help. "You really aren't all that different from the you of my time, are you? You were planning on having someone take care of Ezra all along, one way or another, even if you had to force our hand."

"Hey, Kjelle? Do me favour and go to hell." Anna said with an overbearing sweetness. "Once you get there, find the me of your time that you love so much, tell her she's a failure of a merchant, and then laugh at her for me."

Kjelle rolled her eyes. She accepted the pair of boots Robin held out to her and swiftly tried them on, finding that they fit as well as her usual combat pair, and nodded in thanks to both Robin and Anna. Then, she departed for her horse, checking on the other mounts as she went, some of Robin's fires following her wherever she moved. She silently cursed them for their practicality and her inability to cast them.

Robin watched her leave, then turned back to Anna. "So, do you think that we'll be able to leave in the morning?"

Anna shrugged and stepped toward him, her animosity from earlier as easily forgotten as his own. "Let me check out what you've done. From what I heard while I was waiting, we should be fine, but I'd like to make sure."

"How long were you waiting?" Robin asked as he stepped away from the cart, giving her room to operate.

"Pretty much the entire time." Anna replied simply and nonchalantly. "With that enchantment on my bag I was almost able to catch up to Kjelle, and she was on her horse."

Robin raised an eyebrow and looked over at her bag, where it sat unmoving on the ground. "That's a powerful enchantment, then. Why not use it on your carriage to get it to a town or something?"

"Come on, you're a magic user. You of all people should know that stronger enchantments take more out of you, and I'm barely able to keep that one on my bag for long without running into problems. There's no way I'd be able to have it on an entire carriage for days on end."

"Then why not make it a passive enchantment?" Robin suggested, and Anna tilted her head in confusion. "You know, make it so that it's always active instead of having to be turned on and off." he explained. "That way, it's a one-time cast instead of a constant energy supply being needed to keep it active. It probably won't be as powerful as your version, but it'd be better for your health in the long run."

"That's possible?" Anna asked in bewilderment, her eyes falling on where her once overburdened wagon now sat, sorted and partially lightened.

"If you write down the enchantment for me, I could probably do it right now." Robin added, and Anna's face lit up.

She scrambled with one of the pockets lining her merchant wear, and soon held out a worn piece of parchment for him to take. "This is the enchantment, as passed down through the Anna family for… I don't know, like half a generation? I pawned it off of some guy in Plegia during the war and have shared it with my sisters since. It's still technically tradition, though!" she added happily.

"That'll work." Robin smiled, and accepted the paper from her outstretched hand. He looked over in the direction of the front of the wagon before turning back to Anna. "Hey, as a little addition to trying this… do you mind if I try it on your horses, too? It could make them stronger as well, or at least make them able to carry heavier loads without much difficulty."

"Hm… is there a downside to that?" Anna asked, evidently hoping that there was none through the keen shine in her eyes.

"Maybe. I honestly don't know." Robin answered. "Do you know anything about what would happen? Anything at all - surely someone in all of history must have tried enchanting living things at some point, right?"

Anna blinked, then furrowed her brow. "Come to think of it… no, I haven't heard of anything of the sort. Weird, it definitely seems like something someone would've tried. Feel free to try it out."

"I guess we're always making progress and trying new things." Robin shrugged, halfheartedly dismissing the topic as Anna did the same. Without further ado, he knelt at the end of the cart, maneuvering his right hand into position underneath it as his left gripped the paper he had been given.

He read silently form the page as he applied his magic, a bright whiteness flashing out from under the wagon as the symbol for the enchantment appeared where he had set his hand. Removing his hand and ending his cast, the marking remained, signifying that he had successfully applied a modified version of the enchantment that would always be weak but active. He rose from his position and smiled to Anna, who reciprocated the action as she examined her wares, and he turned to attempt the same for her horses.

He stopped after only a few steps and spun to face Anna again, an almost insignificant note of worry playing out across his face. "Hey, Anna? Have you met anyone on the roads recently, aside from Kjelle and I?"

Anna faced him, then looked away as she tapped her chin in an attempt to remember. "Um… not for a few days, I think. Maybe a week ago, or maybe even two. I've only really seen people in settlements recently, not on open roads."

"Yeah, same here." Robin said, losing himself to his thoughts.

"Didn't you and Kjelle come from the direction of the port and capital?" Anna asked, and Robin nodded. "How haven't you seen people? Those places should be crawling with caravans, sightseers, wanderers… even bandits."

"There were supposed to be hundreds of bandits here, right? At least, as of the last time you had checked?" Robin asked, his worry now plain to see.

"Yeah." Anna confirmed slowly. "Now they're all gone. What happened to them?"

"Maybe we've had some insane luck?" Robin said. "It's entirely possible that we've managed to miss everyone on the roads… though, there were reports of absences in the capital…"

"Do you think something bad is happening?" Anna asked, hoping that the grandmaster would hold an answer she had yet to see.

Robin simply shrugged and shook the concern from his features. "I don't know. I'm sure we'll find out eventually."

"Let's hope it is isn't something sinister." Anna said, and returned her attention solely to her wares in the bag if the wagon. Robin, for his part, made his way to where Anna's horses were tethered, a short distance from both the cart and his and Kjelle's own mounts.

Kjelle herself was in the process of setting up her tent nearby, understandably unwilling to sleep in the same quarters that were supposedly used regularly by bandits. She halted her construction in order to approach Robin when the light of his orbiting fires became apparent to her.

"Hey, Robin." she greeted, and he nodded to her before moving to pat the side of one of Anna's horses. He knew the enchantment he would be casting already, having needed only the most basic form of Anna's information before he was able to form his own modified version that he would now hopefully be able to use on the horses.

"I wanted to say that… well, I know one of us isn't going to, uh, you know, live for too much longer." Kjelle said with an unusually uncertain voice, and Robin averted his attention from the horse to look at her. "I already know there won't be any hard feelings, but… I feel like I should tell you that, if I win our final duel, I'll do everything I can to help my friends realise that their own dreams. Some of them - well, at least one of them, is like you, with regards to their own goals."

"You mean the whole 'world of people who are free and equal' ideal, like with Chrom and Emmeryn?" Robin guessed.

Kjelle nodded. "If I win, I'll try to help her reach that end, because I know that she's strong enough to do it. She always was."

"Is 'she' Lucina?" Robin asked. "That's probably the person who would have the closest ties to Chrom and the rest of the royal family, right? The closest ideals shared?"

Kjelle nodded again. "Yeah, it's her. I know that if I follow her, what I do will be for the best, kind of like how you follow Chrom, and I thought that you should know as such. I'll try to help the world as much as I can with her, and that I'll always do my best, if not more."

Robin's lips curved upward into a genuinely happy, pleased smile. "You have no idea how much that means to me. I'll do the same, you know - if I win, I promise to do everything I can to make the world as wonderful as possible." he held out his hand for her to shake and seal the promise, his smile never faltering in its splendor.

Reciprocating his smile, Kjelle shook his hand. Her eyes fell to her sleeve as she did so, noticing the unfamiliar intricate patterns that lined the garment. "Oh, uh, do you… want your cloak back?" she asked, having almost forgotten that it was something she was wearing.

"If you're feeling better, then sure." Robin nodded.

Kjelle removed the article from her shoulders and passed it off to him, thanking him for it with a nod of her own. "I've never felt better." she said when he still seemed uncertain, though she then began to frown when he refused to put it on.

"No way I'm wearing this immediately after a sick person had it on." Robin explained, already able to assume where her train of thought had gone. "I'll wash it as soon as I can, but for now, I'll risk not wearing it."

Kjelle couldn't help but roll her eyes. "A little remnant of a cold isn't going to kill you. Wear the damn cloak."

"See, you're saying that it's fine, but what I'm hearing is that you were practically dying and want to kill me." Robin partially joked.

"Why are you so scared of a little sickness?" Kjelle asked, suppressing a sigh at his behaviour.

"Because… because I can't get sick. I won't allow it." Robin said, his voice carrying a gravity that Kjelle couldn't quite understand. "If I get sick, then she'll be disappointed… probably. I don't want to find out. I don't want to have to risk it."

"...What?" Kjelle furrowed her brow, failing to follow his vagueness. "Who would be disappointed?"

Robin froze in place, uncertain of how or why he had been so willing to let the information he had hidden from even himself slip. "I… it's no one. At least, not anyone that you would know; a person that I know from my time in Ylisstol. They're not really important, but I've known them for a little while, and I trust them, and I know they wouldn't be happy if I ever got sick. Probably. I haven't gotten sick yet."

Kjelle's eyebrows rose up her forehead, both from genuine surprise and some other myriad of emotions she couldn't and knew she didn't want to place. "Oh? You have a special someone? I really didn't see that coming."

"They're not - wait, what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Robin asked, his earlier trepidation leaving his voice and being replaced with annoyance.

Shrugging, Kjelle let him piece together his own answer as she moved on. "Anyway, what's the plan now? Are we good to move on to Noire tomorrow?"

Robin watched her for a moment longer, trying to glean some form of answer off of her before he returned his attention to Anna's horse. "Yeah, we'll be good to go. Anna's checking our work right now, and I'm going to try to enchant her horses before calling it a night."

"Alright, sounds li- you're… enchanting a horse? A living being?" Kjelle cut herself off, her eyes widening as she took in the full implications of his planned work. "That's not a good idea. It'll go horribly wrong."

"Maybe, but I still want to try. For science." Robin said, keeping his gaze locked on the horse as he began to slowly prepare his magic.

"Last time you said that, you nearly tore us apart with a failed portal." Kjelle deadpanned, though her voice was lined with a genuine trace of concern. "Back in my time, one of my friends tried to do something similar to this. They wanted to try an enchantment on a recently deceased body, and it went… poorly."

"Yeah, you mentioned that before." Robin said, his voice purposefully uncaring yet not entirely desensitised to her concerns. "Don't worry, I'm a better spellcaster than some kid. It'll be fine."

"You don't understand, Robin. Their body melted. It broke in on itself and… dissolved, piece by piece." she shuddered, wincing at the reappearance of old memories. "I've seen some pretty terrible things from my time; deaths, and ruin, and destruction, but that was probably the most gruesome."

"Look at me, Kjelle." Robin said calmly, and she eagerly complied. "I know that what happened was probably difficult for you, but there's the chance that we can do better, or that we can improve upon what happened in your time. If so, we have to try. Besides, I'm a fairly competent mage; I doubt the horse would melt as long as I have a bit of control over how much energy I'm putting into it."

Kjelle shook her head, keeping her eyes locked on him to avoid any unwanted memories from her time. "I'm telling you, Robin, this isn't going to go-"

She was cut off by a loud, snapping pop, which silenced her completely, the sound soon being followed by some of Robin's fires sizzling in reaction to moisture. Somehow, she was able to see the red lining Robin before she could feel it on herself, and she found that she was completely incapable of reacting whatsoever.

Robin had casted his enchantment on the horse, his arm now resting motionless in space where it had once been placed against the beast's flank. His entire person, as well as much of the floor around him and Kjelle herself, were coated in the reddish mess of substances that had once composed a horse. There were no scorch marks or magical aftereffects denoting that a horse had once existed in the space that now sat empty, with the red, liquified mess being the only means of identifying that anything at all had once been present.

None of the remaining horses gave any indication that anything had happened, all three continuing to laze about contentedly without noticing the loss of one of their own. Robin and Kjelle stood in complete silence, neither moving a muscle, as they both separately attempted to come to terms with what had transpired.

"U-um…" Robin was the first to speak, his voice shaking to an incorrigible degree. "I… oh gods, I should have worn my cloak…" he stammered, wiping hurriedly at the pulp of gore lining his face and exposed skin.

"Robin." Kjelle began speaking, her voice incredibly well measured given her circumstances. "What the hell did you do?"

"I enchanted the horse?" Robin offered weakly, continuing to swipe futilely at the remnants of the beast lining his body.

"It exploded!" Kjelle shouted, her emotions returning to her in a full burst.

"At least it didn't melt?" Robin laughed, both awkwardly and weakly.

"Because it exploded!" Kjelle shouted again. "I don't… how did you even-?" she finally realised the coating of horse that was lining her, and staggered as though it were a physical wound. "Why!? Why did you try the enchantment!? I told you what would happen!"

"Yeah, but… science!" Robin countered, finding ground to hold himself on and resist his shaking.

"You blew up a horse! How is that science!?"

Robin calmed, his expression growing oddly serene as he looked back to where the horse had once stood. "Actually, it is. I didn't know what would happen, and neither did you, to an extent. If this is something unprecedented, then it deserves to be studied. We could… I don't know, set up some kind of study? We already know that horses don't spontaneously explode, so if we get some more and try-"

Kjelle's mouth fell open and she stared at Robin in bewilderment. "You're not blowing up more horses! That's not science!"

"No, no, hear me out on this." Robin said, no longer fazed by the horse lining his skin and clothes. "Back at the Ruins of Time, I casted some magic inside of you to stop you from drowning. That means that normal magic won't make things like this happen, so it probably has to be enchantments alone that have this effect. If we set up a study, one where we try different types of enchantments at different strengths, then we can determine what the point is that causes living things to explode."

"Why would that ever be of help to anyone?" Kjelle questioned before his words truly began to sink in. "Wait… what the hell did you do to me at the Ruins of Time!?"

"I casted magic inside of you to clear out your lungs after you had started drowning." Robin explained, his expression still far too calm. "As for the study… well, maybe it won't be of help to anyone, ever. The fact of the matter is that we don't fully know what happened, and I want to. That's reason enough for me."

"You did what!?" Kjelle shouted, ignoring his weak clarification on his motives.

Robin glanced over to her before returning his gaze to where the horse had once stood. "You're fine, and it was helpful at the time. I told about this already, didn't I? That I had used magic to save you?"

"You never said that you had casted it inside of me!" Kjelle said, holding a hand to her chest as of it were about to burst in similar fashion to the horse. "Gods, I could have died from that! Weren't you thinking about what could have happened if you messed it up?"

"I didn't, though." Robin said. "I also didn't know that it could make things explode, or melt. Besides, that was anima magic, not an enchantment; apparently they don't work in the same way. If I only knew more about what they really are…"

"No! No trying to find out more about them, not as long as it's stuff like the portal and blowing up horses!" Kjelle said. "That's not science, not in the slightest. It's just… messed up."

Robin shot another glance in her direction, easily conveying with only his eyes how little he intended to obey her. He returned his attention to what remained of the horse, kneeling to the ground in order to better assess what had happened. His efforts proved useless, as there was in essence no record of what had transpired, or at least not one he was able to detect.

Sighing, he rose to a stand and looked over himself to check his state and that of his clothing. "I'm going to go get cleaned up. After that, I'll rest, we'll be on our way to Noire by morning, and after that, I'll try to find out the point at which livestock can explode from magic, and what's safe for them to undergo. You won't stop me from progressing the world of science."

"How many times do I have to tell you that blowing up horses isn't science!?" Kjelle argued, though she knew it would be to no avail. Robin gave her an exaggerated wave goodbye as he turned to depart, only slowing when she called after him again. "If you're really going to try something like that, then I'll stop you. Every single time, as long as it takes, until you know that you'll never be able to do something so messed up."

Robin turned back to her. "Tell you what: if I find out that someone has already found the threshold that a living being can be enchanted to, then I won't do anything. But, if no one has, then I'll be the one to find out myself."

"Not good enough." Kjelle said with a shake of her head. "You can try to do whatever you want, but I'll still be there to stop you. I won't let you go that far, into something so inhumane and unnecessary. I'll stop you."

"That's a pretty big job." Robin laughed, though he was wary that it may be one she was actually willing to undertake.

"Then I guess it's a good thing I'm the one who's handling it." Kjelle replied, reinforcing his wariness and causing him to frown.

"Sure, then. Go ahead and try." Robin said, his tone more defeated than evocative. He began to walk away again, hoping to find some source of water adequate for impromptu bathing. "Things might get ugly if that happens, though. I'm not about to stop myself if I think that I can legitimately benefit humanity."

"So what? You're going to fight me in order to carry out your experiments?" Kjelle asked, now painfully conscious of her own disarray as she wiped at the horse on her skin and clothing.

Robin stopped again, his eyes scanning for some form of exit from the ruins that would somehow tie into a stream. "Don't risk your safety for this, Kjelle. Sit-" he froze and whipped his head around to see her. She was more focused on attempting to rid herself of the mess of gore than anything else, and was unable to see Robin's widened eyes and borderline fearful expression.

The grandmaster stood in place and stared at Kjelle. Apparently, she hadn't heard his last words, and her lack of a response almost made him believe that she hadn't heard anything past what she herself had said. Robin simply watched her do nothing, his mind racing to understand how something had emerged from beneath the grey and why he had so readily spoken to Kjelle. He then swiftly returned to his desired place of clouding the mystical voice from his memories.

He had already let slip parts of the voice's identity, or at least all that he could assume to know them by. However, directly relaying what they said was far beyond anything he had done before, and he was equally as scared as he was excited at the prospect of any further developments.

He shook his head as a final act intended to clear it, and resumed making his exit from the ruins. Kjelle looked away from herself to watch him leave, wondering for a moment what he had been saying and why he had concluded so abruptly, before the disgusting slime tainting her body called once more for her attention.

She approached her own horse to claim a change of clothes from her bag, then departed herself in search of a body of water that would cleanse the enchanted horse's remains from her. Robin would have required significant power to accidentally cause a horse to explode, and by this point, that was practically the only thing she could think about.

Anna emerged from behind the wagon, her eyes widening as she noticed the mess on the ground and the correlated missing horse. "Kjelle!" she called as she noticed the other woman departing. "What happened here!?"

Kjelle stopped in the middle of her exit, cursing as she slowly turned to face the fuming merchant. Robin's fires had yet to fade, and both people were clearly illuminated to one another despite a small stretch of darkness between them. Anna's eyes widened as she caught sight of the red lining Kjelle's front.

"Uh… Robin did it?" Kjelle offered weakly, though she was aware that she had no reason to feel so uneasy; it was his fault, after all.

"Then why are you covered in blood?" Anna asked.

"Blame Robin for that, too." Kjelle replied, this time with far more certainty supporting her voice.

"Is it also Robin's fault that I have a horse missing?"

"Yep." Kjelle answered without hesitation, her piece intentionally short as she resisted the urge to begin frantically wiping away the mess from her clothes again, knowing that the garments would likely be unusable forevermore.

"Is Robin to blame for practically everything that's happened here?" Anna asked, her tone equal parts exasperated and dismissive.

"More than you know."

* * *

 **You may not believe this, but this chapter was shortened dramatically and streamlined hard during editing. It's probably difficult to see that, since I'm the only one who's seen the unedited version, and about 90% of everything that happens is still** **dialogue, but it's true.**

 **The next chapter may be broken up and come out at odd times, since it's pretty big. I may also simply edit it down to be an adequate length, since I'm seeing now that I didn't have to write so much initially. I kind of get carried away when writing, and a lot of it isn't necessary or even valuable to the story, so I'm probably going to be editing more and more in the future.**

 **Status: As of 05-08-18, I'm on chapter 29. There's really not much more to say than that.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	15. Chapter 15

"Where are we going, again?" Kjelle asked through a yawn. She leaned back in her saddle, as though doing so would somehow invigorate her despite her having woken up so early in the morning.

The sun itself had yet to rise over Ylisstol, the closest thing to light she and her companions were receiving being the streaks of orange and red that had yet to overtake the horizon. The city itself was slowly fading behind them, disappearing from view in an early morning fog that did next to nothing to impair the movements of their semi-legally obtained horses. They were headed southeast, and had already been travelling for well over an hour, having begun their escapade under the cover of total darkness.

"I've already explained it to you… what, three times? Four now?" Noire sighed, keeping her gaze locked on the path ahead of them and not bothering to turn around to address the knight. "You're the one who asked to tag along, the least you could do is memorise what we're doing."

"All I know is that it sounded like something you might need protection for - Lucina mentioned something about risen, if I remember right." Kjelle said, then smiled and puffed out her armoured chest, beating one hand against it in a graceless salute. "That's why I'm here! I'll be your knight in shining armour, and I'll be the one to protect everyone!"

"Do you really think we need protection?" Lucina asked, turning her head around from her position beside Noire to glance back at Kjelle. She wasn't being smug or cocky; she was never like that. Instead, she was being entirely genuine, as always.

"It's kind of weird that you'd all want to go so far from the city without a guard." Kjelle said. "Risen could pop up anywhere, at practically any time, and sir Frederick was saying that encounters have become absurdly common as of late. If you're not going to take him, or ladies Phila or Say'ri or someone, then I should at least be here to make sure you stay safe, princess."

Lucina rolled her eyes, but couldn't conceal the practiced smile on her face. "It's nice of you to care."

"I still don't see why you had to bring these dastards along, though." Kjelle said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of both Brady and Laurent.

"For your information, it's because she's actually gonna need us." Brady piped up, almost shouting to ensure that he was heard by the already disinterested knight. "We aren't some kinda last minute tag along who couldn't get over her hangover well enough to remember what we're doin'."

"You're only pissy because you aren't old enough to drink with us yet." Kjelle jabbed, resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at the novice healer.

"You aren't old enough to drink, either!" Brady shouted indignantly, himself resisting an urge to pout. "If Lucina hadn't gotten you clear from Frederick and Severa hadn't gone out of her way to steal wine from the kitchen - from my special stash, by the way - you'd've been made to wait 'til you were of age, like the rest of us."

"You have a special stash?" Lucina asked, looking further back in their procession to spot the healer, her voice far more measured than when she had spoken to Kjelle. "Hm. That sound like something Frederick would be very interested in hearing about."

"Aw, don't go trying to extort me here, Lucina!" Brady whined. "Gods, you sound exactly like Severa… but, hey, I haven't actually had any of my own stuff yet. I've been saving it for my own eighteenth, when I'm hoping Ma and me'll be able to share some of the good stuff. It's from my Da's old stashes, y'know, some of the real fancy crap he stole from some noble house back in the day."

"Well, it certainly tasted like crap." Kjelle said, bringing a hand to where her head still had phantom throbs from where it had begun to ache the day prior.

"It hadn't aged enough!" Brady defended himself weakly, his voice already wavering. "Besides, that was your first time drinking. You probably wouldn't know the difference between fine wine, utter crap, and water!"

"Alright, everyone, that's enough." Lucina said gently, and Brady begrudgingly silenced himself. Kjelle stuck her tongue out at him, and he discreetly attempted to flip her off. "As much as I enjoy your bickering," Lucina continued, "it's about time we focus on more pressing matters. We'll be nearing where Noire wanted to go soon, and we shouldn't be at each other's throats when we arrive."

"It is quite the perplexing situation, that I will admit." Laurent spoke up, and Kjelle didn't need to look at him to know that he was either grasping a tome too tightly or adjusting his glasses, or possibly both at once. "I understand that you will be remaining in Ylisstol for the foreseeable future, Kjelle, and that such a thing may be adequate cause for veritable celebration, but that does nothing to explain why only you, Severa, and Lucina were engaging in any of the party activities."

"Yeah, and why the hell did you get your own party, anyway?" Brady added on in agreement. "You comin' to live with the rest of us ain't no big surprise or nothing. Hell, I didn't get one when Ma made me start staying in the city instead of Themis."

"I guess it means that Lucina likes me more than you." Kjelle said, earning a scowl from the healer.

"You are both treasured companions, and I cannot imagine what the world would be like without having the both of you around." Lucina said in an effort to placate them.

Kjelle rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in discontent. "Ugh, that's definitely what you would say."

"Hey, I'm not about to complain." Brady said, throwing his hands up into the air. "That's the way she is, always gotta take the best route possible for everyone. Kinda endearing, really."

Kjelle pointed to Brady then Lucina, and pretended to swoon in the most exaggerated way she could manage, ensuring that the healer was able to see her doing it. Brady scowled again and quietly cursed her, a faint blush manifesting itself on his face despite his anything but romantic feelings.

"Come to think of it, you're staying here as a result of the Farfort becoming too hazardous due to the presence of risen, yes?" Laurent asked. "Will we be hosting another celebration when your father arrives, then? I've yet to try alcohol myself, but I am certain it would be an… intriguing experience, to say the least."

Wincing, Kjelle turned away from the men in the back of the line to hide how far her face had fallen. Lucina, one of the two non-Kjelle non-adults to know more than only the basics of what had happened at the Farfort, glanced back and caught the knight's desolate expression.

"I can try to get some for you when we return to the castle." she offered Laurent, wrestling the others' attention away from Kjelle. "Otherwise, who knows how long you could be waiting. Severa and Inigo may end up draining our national supply before the day comes."

"Seriously? They're drinking, too?" Brady asked, shocked yet somehow unsurprised. "Guess it makes sense that I'm the only upstanding member of society here."

"Tell yourself whatever you want to hear, mama's boy." Kjelle said, her voice layered in ice but recovering quickly from the shaken state it had adopted at the mention of her father.

"You should'a stayed at the castle, Kjelle." Brady said, meeting her coldness on equal ground. "You could'a stayed sloppy drunk and wouldn't've bothered the rest of us."

"Hey, Brady? Be quiet." Lucina said, flashing her same usual smile that radiated a brightness of which the world always needed more. "Kjelle is undoubtedly apologetic for her cold actions and words deep down, as am I. Also, I'm glad you're here with us, Kjelle. It's reassuring to know that someone so strong has our backs every step of the way. I'd like nothing more than to have you by my side for everything that happens, now and always."

"Thanks, Lucina." Kjelle smiled warmly, then shot a quick glare back to Brady and stuck her tongue out at him once again.

Brady mimicked her swooning actions from moments earlier, angrily pointing to her and Lucina. Kjelle gave no response as she turned away from him and focused more on their travel, so the healer leaned over to nudge Laurent and repeat his actions in hope of a greater response. The mage simply rolled his eyes and pried open one of his dozens of tomes, more intent on using the growing sunlight to study than anything else. Brady pouted without a care for who would see.

After a considerable stretch of time, though the day had still yet to reach its peak, Noire gave a silent command for their horses to slow. She pointed to a side path that didn't exist to anyone but herself, with Lucina nodding at the gesture as they both lead the way into a small open plain bordered on every edge by forests and hills.

"This… this is the place." Noire said, her voice adopting a weaker state than usual. "This is where… w-where he…" she began to shake, and reached for a flask she had hidden away on her person.

Each person had brought their basic equipment, ranging from staves for Brady, to a bow for Noire, and tomes for Laurent. Kjelle was the only one who was heavily armoured, her typical knight wear and favoured lance separating her from the slightly more casual equipment everyone else in her group had donned.

Lucina watched as Noire took a deep drink from the flask, her eyes narrowing on the archer as an overly powerful aroma began to waft off of her. She reached out to tilt the flask downward, preventing Noire from drinking any more before pulling the substance away from her completely. Noire blinked in confusion, but didn't bother to resist.

Lucina smelled the drink carefully, and almost had to wince when the scent of an absurdly strong wine threatened to overpower her senses. She settled for quickly coughing, covering her face with one arm to partially hide the action until she could turn back to Noire.

"Bloody hell, is everyone I know an alcoholic?" Brady muttered before anyone else could say anything.

"Noire? Why do you have this?" Lucina asked, her tone in no way judgemental and instead simply curious.

"I… i-it's…" Noire stammered, her body shaking more than earlier. She took an incredibly deep breath and managed to calm herself, steadying her voice before continuing. "My father… he was sent out to check up on the Farfort after Kjelle arrived. I followed him a little to make sure he would be okay, but he ran into some risen and… didn't make it."

Brady's eyes widened, and he sat up far straighter on his horse than his typical slouch permitted. "You… you're saying that old man Henry is dead?"

"Maybe." Noire said quietly, Brady raising an eyebrow in response. "I-I… I didn't want to lose him, too… it's been he and I, the two of us, for so long, ever since mom didn't come home from Valm… I wanted to help him, but when the time came and the risen attacked, I didn't do anything but get in his way…"

Lucina leaned over to place a reassuring hand on her friend's shoulder. "We're all here together, Noire, and we'll help you in every way we can. I'm sure you were more of a help to him than what you credit yourself." she said, her voice growing colder without losing its personable warmth. "But, Noire… you need to tell us why we're here. Why it's us you're telling, not Chrom or Robin."

Noire breathed deeply again, mustering her courage. "I… I want us to try to bring him back."

Everyone gathered either had their jaws fall open or eyebrows shoot up in shock, though Lucina's expression remained as neutral and stone-set as ever. Noire dismounted her horse and the princess swiftly followed suit, with Kjelle and Laurent doing the same a moment later while Brady lagged behind in a stunned silence.

"Um, Noire…" Laurent began, already aware of how dark the situation had rapidly grown but desiring as much information and discourse as possible regardless. "You made the initial proposition of this journey yesterday… meaning he's already been dead for a significant period of time. Perhaps if we had all been present at the very instant of his demise, we would have been able to do something, but now…?"

"We… we have to try!" Noire said, guiding them all forward through the plains until they had reached an edge of the forest near them. "I know that normal healing magic probably won't work… s-so I've thought up something else, in case Brady can't do anything."

"You've thought up a way to revive the dead?" Kjelle asked incredulously, her voice soon falling to a cautious whisper. "Wait, you… you aren't going to make him a risen to bring him back, are you?"

"No! I'd never do something that terrible!" Noire shouted, returning to her meekness an instant later. "I… I found an enchantment of his, one that can reverse the flow of time by a small amount. If Brady can't heal him, then I want to try using the enchantment, but I'll need your help for that, Laurent."

"Intriguing." Laurent muttered from under the frail cover of his glasses. "I've yet to encounter such an enchantment in my magical research… do you truly believe that it will be capable of such a feat as reviving one deceased?"

"I-I don't know." Noire admitted. "I can only hope it works, but I'm also hoping that Brady will be able to do something before that becomes necessary."

"You want me to do what now?" Brady asked as he finally caught up with the others, falling into place behind Laurent as they began to enter the forest, travelling in a single line.

"Try your healing magic, okay?" Noire pleaded, her voice growing weaker.

Lucina glanced to Noire again as the archer led them deeper into the forest, her mouth a thin and unwelcoming frown. She said nothing as they progressed, her expression unchanging and unreadable.

Soon, they arrived at a small partition in the forest, a tiny and unremarkable clearing that reeked of death. Noire stopped, and Lucina continued to walk until the two were side by side, the rest of their procession stopping behind them.

"Gods…" Lucina breathed, her neutrality fracturing for a moment and allowing a grimace to press into her features.

"That's… that's him." Noire said quietly, and more unsteady than before. She stepped forward, and after a moment Lucina did the same, granting the others a view of their destination.

Leaning against one of the trees, with his dark clothes stained a putrid blackened red and his skin paler than ever before, sat Henry. The dark mage and sorcerer who had been a friend to the Shepherds since the midway point of the Plegian war, the one who had seen them through dozens of conflicts over the years and had been one of the few to survive through the ordeals in Valm, the one who remained objectively as a stronger mage than any other in the world, was dead.

"H-How did this happen?" Laurent asked, gripping his glasses tightly as though he were missing a crucial point of information that his eyes alone refused to reveal.

"I told you. I got in the way." Noire said, her voice wavering as she knelt down beside him. "He… something happened in the Farfort, something that's resulted in Kjelle staying with us in Ylisstol and him being sent out to check on the place. I-I'm assuming you know what happened, Kjelle, but based on this… I won't need to pry."

"But Kjelle didn't get to Ylisstol until about two days ago, which is when the first news of the Farfort could have reached us, through her." Brady said, never averting his eyes from the motionless body of an old friend and mentor lost. "Henry would'a had to've been sent out after then… meaning that he never reached the Farfort, did he?"

Noire shook her head. "After only a few hours of travelling, I revealed myself to him. I told him why I was following him, that I wanted to keep him safe… and then the risen were on top of us." she shuddered, but pressed on. "They… they came out of nowhere, and surrounded us. H-He protected me, and managed to kill them all off, but he was hurt. I left him here, as he was bleeding out, promising that I would go get help…"

Kjelle cleared her throat, stepping forward to place a hand on the archer's shoulder, intentionally mimicking what Lucina had done earlier. "You did what you could, Noire. You got us, and now we can do everything we can to help him." She was trying to come off as genuine as possible, as genuine as Lucina had been when comforting her, but every word that came out of her mouth felt nothing more than empty.

"He… he didn't want me to leave." Noire whispered, choking away a sob. "He wanted me to stay with him, to hold his hand and tell him that things would be okay, that I would be fine and that he wouldn't have to worry about dying without someone by his side… but I left him. I didn't want to see him die; I wanted to pretend that things would be alright if I were to close my eyes… so I ran away, and left him here, alone…"

Kjelle lightened her grip and slowly backed away from her friend, already easily detecting the volatile sobs that would soon wrack the archer's entire body. Lucina stood resolutely in place, breathing deeply without opening her mouth as she watched Noire slowly begin a personal moment of grieving.

The moment passed as soon as it arrived, with Noire standing up abruptly, a pleasant smile written across her face. "Anyway, not like that matters too much. He'll be fine now, once we heal him, and then we can all go back to Ylisstol together. We can have dinner together again, and he can show me his magic, and teach me how to do everything he can, and we can save the world, together."

Lucina raised an eyebrow at her sudden shift in demeanor. She opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it and turned toward Brady. "Do you think there's anything that can be done for him?"

Brady stared at Noire and Henry, shifting his gaze over to Lucina when she spoke. "I… I don't know. He looks pretty far gone…"

"B-But it's okay, because we can bring him back." Noire smiled, her expression radiating an untold yet uncertain brightness. "Then, we can work together to bring everyone back. We can bring mother back, and be a family again… she could tell me all about Plegia, and Valm, and how she met father…"

"Naga, I think I almost prefer the usual psycho version of you…" Brady muttered as he stepped toward the corpse, taking his personal staff out from underneath a fold in his robes. Lucina stepped away from Henry to give the healer space to operate, and Noire soon followed suit, walking around the clearing until she had placed herself between Lucina and Kjelle.

Brady kneeled at Henry's side and began applying his healing magic. The entire clearing started to glow a bright blue, each member of his audience of four watching on in complete silence. He remained in place for several minutes, his magic gleaming all throughout, but never giving any indication that Henry would spontaneously stand and laugh his typical maniacal laugh.

"No offense to Brady, but why didn't you bring lady Maribelle, or lady Lissa, or… anyone other than us?" Kjelle asked Noire, never diverting her attention from the corpse. Brady heard her, arcing his head back as if to say something, but continued his efforts in healing without voicing any sentiments.

"Because they wouldn't try." Noire said, a note of animosity emerging behind her frailty. "They would leave him for dead, not wanting to waste resources or effort in trying to bring him back… he would definitely be gone forever if I had brought them."

"They wouldn't do that!" Kjelle argued, aghast that she would suggest something in such a horrid vein. "They would try everything they could to help him. They're the heroes who are strong enough to save the world, and they wouldn't leave one of their own like that. They would be the ones strong enough to save him."

"Noire's basing her conclusion off of mother… er, off of lady Miriel." Laurent said, his voice atypically emotional and uncertain. "When she fell ill, there was nothing that could be done to help her recover, and so nobody attempted to heal her. All they did was alleviate her pain, and… wait for her to pass."

"The same was true for my mother." Lucina said, her voice persisting in its usual unwavering stoicism that left no room to doubt anything she said, regardless of if it was or wasn't something that could be doubted. "When she… fell ill… there was nothing that could be done to save her. She died so quickly, and then there was the war against Valm so soon after, that no one had any time to so much as grieve."

"You had the time. We all did." Kjelle said, her tone falling low. "When mother died, and whenever we got news of who wasn't coming home from Valm, we all had nothing but time to grieve. That, and time to get stronger, to pay back the damage to those who would do so much harm to us and our families."

"Yet you… you never grieved, did you, Lucina?" Laurent asked, rotating his body to face the princess. "When news of the first awry battles arrived in Ylisstol, when we were all barely old enough to understand what had happened, you never grieved. When our families finally came home, or rather what little remained of them, when they had to explain what had happened in Valm to us, mere children… you never cried."

Kjelle nodded in agreement, but kept her gaze locked on the ground instead of on the princess. "You were too strong to cry or be sad, even then… even now."

"I haven't had the time to, yet." Lucina said without missing a beat. "There's always been something to do, someone who needed help or risen that needed to be defeated. My time to grieve will come when the world is safe, when I know that the atrocities we bear witness to daily will never again occur."

Kjelle smiled at the ground. "Of course. Always too strong to show a moment of weakness… that's you, alright."

Abruptly, Brady stood up, staring down at Henry with his staff in hand. "There's nothing I can do." he huffed, struggling for a breath before continuing. "I've done everything I can. He isn't getting any better, Noire, and I don't know if I've done a damn thing to help him… I'm way out of my league here."

"Okay." Noire said, stepping forward as she pulled a book from somewhere on her person that Kjelle hadn't noticed. "That's… that's okay. We're up, Laurent. I'll need you to feed me some power while I cast the enchantment, so that I have enough to make sure I don't mess up."

Laurent hesitated, but followed her to Henry's side. "Are you certain you wish to try this, Noire? If a mistake is made, and perhaps if one isn't, the results could be horrendous beyond precedence. Magic isn't meant to be cast on living beings, not like this."

"We won't know that until we try." Noire said, determination erasing any remaining shreds of insecurity in her voice.

"I did try!" Laurent hissed in a register too low for anyone but her to hear. "When nobody else would, I tried! I therefore know what it means to fail. It won't be something you will want to see."

"Then we won't fail." Noire said, her determination refusing to abandon her. She opened her book to a specific page and placed one hand over her father's chest, waiting for confirmation from Laurent before initiating her enchantment. The mage reluctantly nodded, solidifying her steadfast focus, and they began to cast their magic together.

White light enveloped the clearing, being offset only by a supply of similar yet somehow distinguishably different light stemming from Laurent. The two knelt beside Henry for far longer than Brady had, leaving their three onlookers to do nothing but wait and watch.

"We should have brought more healers. Better healers." Kjelle said to no one in particular after several minutes of nothing had passed. "I'm sure you're all great and everything, but if we had Ricken, or Emmeryn, or Robin, or any of the Shepherds here, maybe they could have been convinced to help, and they would have actually been able to help."

"Give me some time. We aren't quite finished yet." Noire said, though the strain of her magic and lack of results was all too evident to her friends.

"This could have been something monumental. Revolutionary." Kjelle continued, her voice beginning to waver. "We could have brought back the people we've lost. Saved everyone who died in Valm, or to risen; we could have had our families back."

"We're not finished yet!" Noire reiterated, her tone hiding the same amount of insecurity as always beneath its surface.

"Give them their time, Kjelle." Lucina said, her words as masked and emotionless as her face. "The fact of the matter is that we're here, and the Shepherds aren't. We'll have to do everything we can and hope that that's good enough."

Kjelle took a ragged breath, but remained silent and allowed her friends to continue their efforts in peace. Eventually, after far too long for an ordinary cast to be successful by any stretch of the imagination, Laurent ceased supplying Noire with magic and rose.

"That's… that's all I can do." he said, each breath he took running short. "Please, Noire… you need to stop soon. I am unaware of the mannerisms of the enchantment you're attempting to cast, but I know that nothing should require so much power, even to revive the dead."

"I'm almost there!" Noire shouted, shifting her position around her father until she was no longer at his side, instead facing him directly. After a few more seconds of working, she too abruptly stood, her legs threatening to fail her from the sheer strain her magic had placed on her entire person.

"I'm done." she announced, returning to her typical state of meekness. "All I have to do is activate the enchantment, and he should come back. Time will reverse on him, and he'll be returned to a state where he was healthy and alive a few days ago. From there, we can work with him to make the changes permanent, or find a way to regularly strengthen the enchantment… we can be together again."

"We could find a way to bring mother back…" Laurent murmured, his hand covering his glasses and obscuring his eyes.

"I could bring my Da back, and we could all have a drink together… he, Ma, and me…" Brady muttered in agreement, his face directed toward the ground and his gaze distant.

"Once I find out the name of the bastard who got the better of my mother, I can go take them down… with her at my side." Kjelle said. "Then, with people as strong as her, we won't have to fear the risen or anything anymore. We can… we can bring back… f-fa…" she stopped and brought a hand to her head, covering her eyes with it as she choked down tears. "We can bring everyone back, and be safe. Finally…"

Lucina looked over each of her friends, saying nothing. Her face held a cold, unwavering detachment that was more evident than even her usual stoicism, and when she shifted her gaze back over to Henry it was strikingly obvious how indifferent the air about her had grown. She gave Noire a small, almost imperceptible nod, and the archer gave a much more emphatic nod in return.

"Alright, then. Let's do this." Noire said. She raised one hand to point directly at Henry's centre of mass, and with a few whispered words, both her hand and a point on Henry began to glow white. The entirety of the clearing grew to be enveloped in this light, filling the eyes of its inhabitants until it had faded in full.

Kjelle blinked, ridding her eyes of the last of the light and finding that nothing in the clearing had changed. "Did… did it work?" she asked tentatively, her lack of magical knowledge superseding the appearance of nothing having improved.

"It should've." Noire said, taking a step forward and falling to her knees next to her father. "D-Dad? Are you…?"

Each of her friends stood in wait with bated breath, eagerly anticipating Henry's return and the subsequent promises of restoring their losses, aside from Lucina. The princess was watching the sorcerer's corpse with the same cold detachment as before, her hand having found its way to the pommel of her steel sword. She stepped forward to stand at Henry's side, opposite of Noire.

"Did the enchantment work?" she asked, her tone demanding a straightforward and true answer. A chill was lining every word, and when Noire looked over to her, there was no unnecessary compassion in her eyes.

"Y-Yes, of course!" Noire replied immediately. "He… he needs time now, that's all. We should try to bring him back to Ylisstol."

"Noire." Lucina said coldly, with less emotion. She didn't need to say anything more to get her intentions across to the archer.

"H-He'll be fine!" Noire cried, defending herself and pleading with Lucina at the same time. "We need… m-more power, and some more spellcasters, and a better enchanter, and…"

Lucina brought a hand to her temples, closing her eyes as she massaged them and tried to appraise their situation as best she could. "Noire… we can't-" she opened her eyes and immediately widened them, reaching out to grab Noire by the shoulder and forcefully rip her way from her father's corpse.

"Gah!" Noire squealed as she collided with the ground, Lucina foregoing dampening her impact as she instead prioritised drawing her blade and leveling it with Henry's slouched body. "What are you-!?"

She was cut off, more by herself than Lucina, when she saw the condition she had brought to Henry. The sorcerer's clothing was intact, but that notion was only true for his fabrics - his skin itself had begun to slowly liquify, melting in waves off of his flesh, which soon began to follow suit. Brady let loose a string of curses and turned away from the sight, covering his mouth with one hand as he lurched to his knees. Laurent watched on in a stupefied silence, utter horror written clearly across his face.

"D-Dad!" Noire shouted, her voice falling apart at its seams. "Dad… n-no, I…"

Henry slowly raised his head, staring with drained eyes at his daughter. Noire screamed and scrambled backward, her hands flailing about behind her in an attempt to find purchase on the smooth ground of the forest clearing. Henry raised one arm, holding it out to her as he opened his mouth to speak, but both sections of him failed completely before he was able to truly do anything, his mouth collapsing in on itself as his arm crumpled and melted within his sleeve.

"Oh, shit!" Kjelle gasped, her hands finding their way to her mouth and covering it in shocked horror. "Noire… you…"

Lucina swiftly brought her sword down into Henry's head, stopping all of his faltering movements with a single strike. His body remained motionless when she removed her blade, the process of his melting slowly coming to a close after she had pulled the weapon free, though she struck out quickly at his head once more for the sake of certainty. Having confirmed the man's final death, she sheathed her sword and turned to Noire, offering her a hand to help her to stand.

Noire didn't take the hand, refusing to do anything but stare blankly at her father's destroyed body and shakily speak. "Lucina… what did you do!?"

The princess retracted her hand, her face adopting a look of sensitive empathy that would have proved impossible for anyone but her to replicate. "He was dying, Noire. No; he was already dead. I did what I could to help him on his way."

"You murdered him!" Noire shouted, shaking in place on the ground until she found the strength to scurry to her father's side, past Lucina. "He… he was coming back! We could have helped him!"

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Kjelle asked Lucina, causing the princess to shift her attention away from Noire. "Do you know how many people we could have saved, how much grief and damage could have been undone!? Now, you've gone and killed one of the few people who would be truly able to pull the reversal off, and have deprived Noire - no, all of us - of the families we've lost!"

"It failed, Kjelle, and even if done flawlessly it wouldn't have worked. You know that. There's never such an easy solution to so much devastation." Lucina said, shaking her head solemnly. "The most we can do now is ensure that nothing like this, none of this death and loss, ever happens again. People we know and love have and will perish in this pursuit, but if it's to help and save, as the Shepherds have always done, then their sacrifices are in no way made in vain."

"He wasn't a sacrifice!" Noire cried, pulling their attention back to where she was knelt over her father, tears beginning to stream down her frail cheeks. "He… he was my father… he never deserved to die like this, not even to save anyone else!"

"There's nothing we could've done, Noire." Lucina said calmly, easing the archer into a less forceful state of mind. "Your father lived as a beloved friend to us and the Shepherds all, and he has done more than most people could ever hope to achieve. It would be a great honour to hold a fraction of the courage and indomitable will he always possessed, but I know that to follow in his footsteps, we must move on. As long as we can keep moving forward, grasping for a world where no one will ever be subjected to this fate ever again, then that's what we must do."

"I don't care about moving forward! I don't care about living in his image, or saving the rest of the world!" Noire cried, allowing her tears to flow freely off of her face and onto Henry. "I… I want my family back…"

"You… you can try it again, can't you, Noire?" Kjelle asked, unaware of how desperate she sounded. "You can cast the enchantment again, try to bring him back again, bring them all back…"

"No." Laurent said, his voice resolute after having expended so much time searching for it. "We've failed. If we were to try again and again endlessly, even if we had the greatest spellcasters to have ever existed at our side, we would still fail. Take it from me, Kjelle: no matter our own power, no matter the ideals and virtues we hold in our hearts, we will never be able to reverse anything this tragic."

"So what, we give up!?" Kjelle shouted indignantly. "We let the dead stay dead, tell everyone who had their life stolen from them that they weren't worth the effort!? I'm not going to leave and let them waste away like they were nothing!"

"It's impossible to save everyone who has died, and all those who will die in the future. Loss is unavoidable." Lucina said. "I know that everything proposed here today by Noire was enticing to you personally, as it was to us all, and I can assure you that if her methods and theories were proven effective that I would experience no dubiety in supporting her fully. However, as it stands now, I cannot support such foolishly optimistic goals."

Kjelle brought her hands to her head, clasping them around her temples and lowering her face in an uneasy discomfort. She suppressed the urge to sob like Noire, her hope having been ripped away from her as soon as it had appeared, with the losses that had gradually compounded over the course of her life returning to the forefront of her mind in full. Only the thought that everyone else around her had experienced the same as her, and that Lucina especially showed no signs of weeping, gave her the strength to prevent her emotions from roaming free.

"I-I can make it work!" Noire said, desperation violating her already weakened voice. "I can refine the enchantment, or find another that will save him, and everyone!"

"No, you won't." Laurent said, his tone harsh but not unforgiving, causing Noire to look over to him in confusion. The mage gestured to Henry's now fully liquefied corpse. "This is what happens when enchantments are cast on a living entity, be it human, animal, crops… anything. If alive, the host of the enchantment deteriorates rapidly, though the effects may not always manifest in a manner such as this."

"How are you so sure?" Kjelle asked, fearing the answer she may receive.

"I made the mistake of believing that this time would be different, that you had done your research and knew the risks entailed herein." Laurent continued, removing his glasses for a moment to run a hand over his face. "I was wrong to do so, as you clearly have yet to encounter any tutelage that would have informed you of enchantment risks. Allow me to tell you now that there have never been any successful uses of enchantments on living entities, in all of human history, and I sincerely doubt that there ever will be."

"No! No, there'll be a way to save him! There has to be!" Noire shouted frantically, then began to run her hands through the mess that was her father's robes. "I… I need some more strength. With a little more power, I'll be able to do anything!"

She combed through her father's clothes until her hand finally settled over the end of one of his sleeves, where the hand he hadn't raised toward her had once rested. As rushed and panicked as each of her other movements, she pulled something from the mess, holding it up to her face and revealing it as a small, dirtied charm.

Her face lit up at the sight of the trinket, and she clasped it tightly in her hand. "This is it! I-I gave him my charm before I left - with it, I'll have the power to help him!"

She closed her eyes and forced herself to take in several deep breaths. When she opened her eyes, nothing about her had changed. "BLO-od a-and… and th-thu…" her voice cracked, and she brought up the hand holding the charm to cover her eyes, sobbing into it openly.

Lucina watched her for a moment, visibly struggling with the decision of whether or not she should approach and offer support. Ultimately, she turned away from Noire, facing instead toward Kjelle, Laurent, and a Brady that was still unwilling to so much as look at the liquid corpse. "We need to get back to Ylisstol. If the risen managed to get the better of sir Henry this close to the capital, then… well, I fear for our safety as much as that of our people. Please, I know this will likely be difficult, but we need to leave immediately."

"Don't need to tell me twice." Brady said, choking on his own words as he turned toward where they had left their horses, never looking at Henry in the process. "Gods, I'm not cut out for this kind of crap… and if I am, my stomach sure as hell isn't…"

"Are we to leave sir Henry here, then?" Laurent asked, his eyes locked on Noire and the body both. "Or, I suppose, what remains of him?"

Lucina nodded. "There's not much we can do right now. I'll inform father and sir Robin of what happened upon our return, but at the moment all we need to do is reach the safety of the capital."

Kjelle stared at Henry, a grim and unwavering frown set resolutely on her face as she began to mutter to herself. "This… we're pathetic…"

"Hm?" Lucina tilted her head, having failed to catch what Kjelle had said.

"I said that we're pathetic!" Kjelle shouted, startling Laurent yet failing to make Lucina flinch. "We couldn't save sir Henry, and we don't have the power or means to save anyone else! We can't do anything!"

"It's all we can do to try." Lucina said evenly, never losing her composure. "We must do all that we can to save everyone possible. For now, that means returning to Ylisstol, where we won't be in the direct path of harm and will be able to find a moment's reprieve. Now, Kjelle, Laurent; if the two of you could please help me get Noire on her horse?"

Laurent nodded and moved forward with the princess to help collect their weeping friend, who gave little effort in the way of remaining by her collapsed father's side. Kjelle watched them, silent and unmoving, her frown having only deepened since Lucina had spoken.

Once her friends had passed her on their way to the horses, Kjelle turned and followed them. She wouldn't give Lucina the time to go out of her way to help her recover as had always happened. If nothing else, Kjelle was left with the knowledge that Lucina was right - she always was, for better or for worse.

It was the type of strength that she possessed. One that few people ever knew, or so much as held themselves. A type of strength that Kjelle knew she should be humbled by the very presence of, but wasn't.

A strength only Lucina had.

* * *

"You tell your stories the same way as me." Robin smiled smugly, with Kjelle scowling in response.

"I thought it might be a little easier that way."

"Is that a difficult story to tell?" Robin asked, his smile instantly forgotten.

"In a sense, I suppose." Kjelle said. "At least, telling it to you is. If it were one of my friends, like Lucina, then it'd probably be easier to talk about."

She was laying in the back of Anna's carriage, with Robin trailing close behind her on his horse. Thanks to Robin's failed attempt at enchanting Anna's horse yesterday, the merchant had repurposed Kjelle's own mount for her use and had permitted the knight to rest in her carriage until they arrived at their next stop.

The merchandise Robin and Kjelle had designated for the knight's horse had been replaced into the carriage before they had departed, giving Kjelle far less space than could ever be considered comfortable, though she never complained. Robin had loaded his own horse with a few more awkward items as well, giving her a small fraction more of uninterrupted space to utilise.

Their misadventure with the horse had also led Kjelle to tell him of her own limited experience in enchantments, as well as the belief that it was something he would need to know in order to understand Noire once the two met. He didn't necessarily need to understand Noire, but Kjelle believed that if he were to do so, it would be for the best.

"What's your relationship with her like, anyway? Lucina, I mean?" Robin asked. "Based on what you were saying and the way you said it, it sounds like the two of you care for each other, but that you also have some stuff you really need to work through."

"Maybe, I guess." Kjelle agreed halfheartedly. "Don't get me wrong, we are and have always been close friends, and I wouldn't have it any other way, but… we're supposed to be saving the world, as well as countless people. Talking about mushy crap really isn't high on our list of priorities."

"It sounds like something you should make time for, especially if it's 'mushy crap' and not a simple 'hey, I think you're strong and I'm kind of envious of that', or something." Robin said. "Besides, she doesn't sound like the kind of person who would make that big of a deal of it, if that's what's making you uncomfortable. I think you would be able to handle it, whatever it really is."

"Yeah, she wouldn't… and I suppose I can." Kjelle smiled to herself, and Robin flashed a small smile of his own that she didn't see. "Maybe we'll have the time to talk once we find her. I haven't seen her since we all left Ylisstol."

"She'll be fine." Robin reassured her, though her lack of a response showed that she wasn't particularly concerned. "Do you have any idea where you would find her, anyway? Flavia didn't give any info on her, and I haven't seen her since near the end of the Plegian war."

"No clue. She's her, though. There's no way she isn't okay." Kjelle sighed, bringing an arm to her forehead and blocking out what little light bypassed the canvas of the carriage.

Robin did nothing but follow along behind the cart for a few minutes, giving Kjelle time to think while doing the same himself. Eventually, though Kjelle never raised her arm and gave no indication she would be invested in any further conversation, he began to speak again.

"So, how did you know about certain stuff that happened back then?" he asked. "Y'know, things like when Laurent said something too low for you to hear, or what people were doing when you weren't looking?"

"Some of the stuff, like with Laurent, became public knowledge later on." Kjelle answered without raising her arm. "A lot of stuff came out in the years after that day. Other stuff I made up from what I knew. I assume you did the same for your story a few days ago."

"To an extent." Robin admitted before lowering his tone, accommodating for the gravity of his next topic. "I'm assuming that Donnel died at the Farfort, and that's why you and Lucina were acting like you were? Also, that Lucina was one of the only people to know?"

"Yeah." Kjelle confirmed quietly, and she didn't need to expose her eyes for Robin to know that her gaze had grown distant. "I made it to Ylisstol and told the remaining Shepherds, as well as Lucina. She can always be trusted for things like that… I also told one of my other friends, Severa, and she came up with the idea of getting drunk."

"Did that help at all?" Robin asked skeptically, already knowing how poorly his own escapades into drinking had gone.

"Not in the slightest." Kjelle said, finally pulling her arm away from her head to look over at him. "It was nice to be with my friends, though, and they really did want to help."

"Sounds nice." Robin said, neither wistful nor robotic. "Was I there when that stuff happened? You and Lucina both talked about me as if I wasn't evil, and was still a trusted part of the Shepherds."

"Everything about you being evil wasn't known to us until you had killed Chrom in the climax of the second Plegian war." Kjelle said. "That war… it stretched on forever, though the missions were few and far between. When we finally realised what you had done, we barely had time to escape with our lives."

"Ah. Sorry about that, though I guess that won't mean much coming from me." Robin said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "If you don't mind me prying a little more, what was leaving Ylisstol like? I assume there weren't any Shepherds left when that happened, so you were probably on your own."

"There were still Shepherds." Kjelle said, and Robin furrowed his brow in confusion, some deep, hidden part of him not believing her to be sincere, for whatever reason. "Frederick, Phila, Yen'fay, Emmeryn, Cordelia, Gangrel, Ricken, Say'ri, Lissa, Aversa, Maribelle. That's everyone from the Shepherds who was alive at the start of our final day in our time."

"'Yen'fay'?" Robin muttered to himself, the name sounding as foreign to his ears as its origins undoubtedly were. "And at the end of that day?" he asked, part of him afraid to do so.

"No one." Kjelle answered simply, and his face fell considerably. "Frederick was the only person to have accompanied you and Chrom to Plegia, and he informed everyone of what you had done as soon as he returned. Lucina already had the plan to travel back in time, and Frederick exposing you gave us all a clear target beyond blind protection. Come to think of it, that was the last time I ever saw him, even though I've met you, Tharja, Olivia, and more."

Robin's face had fallen further, displaying a genuine emotional distress that was so authentic that Kjelle held no doubts in her mind that it was in no way fabricated.

He raised his head to meet her and smiled, erasing any trace of his more dour expression. "He's doing fine. Strong and reliable, a little too concerned for Chrom, but all in all a great asset to the Shepherds, and a good friend on top of it all."

"Good to know." Kjelle said, giving a smile of her own and shifting her gaze away from him, where she then began to aimlessly study the wagon's interior canvas walls.

"Hey, what happened to the Flavia of your time?" Robin asked, pulling her mind from its wanderings yet again. Oddly, Kjelle found that him doing so didn't infuriate her, and that she rather enjoyed speaking with him. "You never mentioned her dying, but also never said she was in Ylisstol."

"She never fought in the Valmese war, for starters." Kjelle explained, Robin raising an eyebrow at how the warrior ruler wouldn't have gone to war. "I don't know if she died or not. Last I heard, she was alive, but was in Ferox when the portal opened for us to leave. I don't know if Naga would have made one for her, too, but I honestly doubt it."

Robin winced, but didn't bother to voice any explanation for why, or any explanation for Naga's probable actions. He himself hadn't done much better than abandon her, having left her to her mission in Plegia despite knowing her goals and the danger tied to them.

Kjelle stared silently at the walls surrounding her before turning her head back toward Robin. "Hey, can I see your Mark of Grima?"

"What? Why?" Robin asked, instinctively moving to shield his hand from her line of sight.

"I never saw it in the future… actually, I never saw you." she explained. "The only time I saw the mark was when you were changing at the port, and even then I didn't get a very good look at it. I want to check something."

"How did you not see me at all in the future?" Robin asked, stalling as he rubbed the back of his right hand protectively.

"You and Chrom were both rarely ever at Ylisstol, instead always being in Ferox, fighting risen in the countryside, or gods know where else. If anyone saw you, it would've been Lucina, since she was old enough to walk around before the Valmese war started. You and Chrom were practically ghosts after that. We knew you were there, and thought you would help us at any opportunity, but all you wanted to do was keep fighting forever."

Robin winced, his growing understanding of why Kjelle and her friends hated him doing nothing to alleviate his own concerns about the future. "What good would seeing my mark do, then?"

Kjelle turned her entire body toward him, leaning partially off the back of the cart in order to cement herself as determined and make it all the harder for him to refuse. "I want to look at it. I'm thinking that maybe seeing it will… I don't know, make something click, and that it'll help me to better understand everything that's happened."

"You already have something specific you suspect me of, don't you?" Robin asked slowly, still unwilling to remove his glove.

"In a sense." Kjelle said vaguely. "Show me the mark already."

Robin narrowed his gaze on her, attempting to evaluate in an instant how dangerous revealing something as sensitive as the mark would be. He sighed, giving up on his efforts before he was able to overthink anything, and pulled the glove off of his right hand.

The Mark of Grima was already writhing, having been squirming in place ceaselessly for as long as he could remember. Robin deposited his glove in his lap and held the back of his hand up for Kjelle to see, the mark shining a disturbing, pale purple light into the poorly lit back of the wagon, over her revolted expression.

"Is… is it always like that?" she asked, her voice unintentionally lowered in caution.

"Every time I've ever looked at it, yes." Robin confirmed, turning his hand to get a glimpse of the mark for himself before returning it to her view. "Based on everything I've come to know, it should be like Chrom's, meaning it shouldn't be moving or glowing, and I don't know why it's like this."

"I see." Kjelle said, leaning away from him and back into place in the cart. She nodded to him once, and he replaced the glove over his hand, taking a deep breath and rubbing it passively.

"Did that do anything for you? Do you have any theories on why it's moving?" he asked.

Kjelle refocused her gaze on him and shrugged. "Maybe. I honestly don't know right now."

She brought her hands back up to her head, pausing to give herself a short amount of time to think, and for Robin to silently frown to himself. "You have amnesia, right, Robin?"

The grandmaster blinked, confounded yet again by her desire for unusual basic information. "Yeah, I can't remember anything before the day I met Chrom. Is that different from your time?"

"I don't know. My friends and I barely learned anything about your past, or that of anyone outside of our close family."

Kjelle paused again, evaluating her circumstances before deciding to continue. "To be sure, you don't remember anything beyond meeting Chrom… what was it, a year and a half ago? Nothing at all before that, not even the smallest of things?"

"Not a thing." Robin said, and she began to frown. "Do you not believe me?"

"I don't know."

"Well, does the amnesia help with anything you were thinking about? Any of the theories you're undoubtedly forming right now?"

"Again, I don't know." Kjelle said. "There's a lot of possibilities and stuff I'm not certain on. For now, I want to focus on finding my friends."

Robin nodded several times, still struggling to piece together what conclusion she was reaching. "I'm going to go talk to Anna for a bit, then. Apparently, I have some negotiating to do."

"Good luck." Kjelle said, waving to him as he left, not bothering to put much thought toward her movements and instead focusing almost entirely on her thoughts. She was struggling to somehow link his testimony to what she had known from her future.

Waving in return, Robin didn't realise his own actions until he was already maneuvering his horse alongside the carriage. Kjelle's actions seemed genuine, thoughtless in a sense that she wasn't attempting to corner him in any sense, and he found that his mouth had morphed into a small smile. He immediately replaced it with a more natural deep frown, finding the change to be more than welcome.

Somehow, she had managed to worm the thought into his mind that he enjoyed spending time with her. That he would be okay around her, that everything was okay between him and her. He instantly hated that, though he wasn't certain whether or not that feeling was forced.

The path they were taking was wide enough to allow him to pass by the carriage without difficulty, the road having been beaten down into a wide, uniform surface by years of constant travel. There were no indications that many people had used it recently, giving Robin more cause to fret over Ferox's apparent disappearances, though there were the odd set of prints or sign of human interaction that showed someone had taken the path within the past few days.

Granted, that was all more likely than not from Ezra or his crew, considering how far into dangerous territory Flavia had charted for them to go, but the very thought that there were people around was welcome all the same.

Once Robin reached the front of the cart, he waved to Anna, who smiled cheerily and waved back to him. Kjelle's horse was in its new place next to Anna's remaining one, showing no signs of defying its sudden placement as a payload carrier.

"Heya, Robin." Anna greeted him with the same cheeriness as her smile. "What's going on?"

"Kjelle said I should talk to you about the battles we're going to be in." Robin explained. "Is there something I need to know?"

"Actually, I've been thinking about that, too." Anna said. "I'm not really keen on having to fight, but would I get hazard pay if I did?"

Robin blinked, uncertain of how to progress. He had anticipated that Anna would be willing to fight, provided that she was becoming part of the Shepherds. "Uh, yeah, technically you-"

"Alright, I'm in." Anna said with an even brighter smile, cutting his thoughts and words off in the process.

"Seriously?" Robin asked, tilting his head in perplexed confusion.

"Don't underestimate the power of gold, Robin." Anna smiled, far too eager for what could amount to incredibly severe personal injury.

Robin frowned, offset by her grin. "If Kjelle asks, could you tell her that I gave some kind of amazing inspirational speech that convinced you to fight for the Shepherds?"

Anna's smile faded slightly, shifting to be replaced with another that was far more nefarious. "Depends, how much is something like that worth to you?"

"Not a lot, admittedly; I thought it would be a good way to mess with her. What kind of price would you want?"

"Hm. I didn't think you to be the jokester type." Anna said, her tone absurdly light at the premise of a blank cheque. "How about… two thousand gold?"

"Two thousand!?" Robin gasped, though low enough that he was certain Kjelle wouldn't be able to hear. "I… fine, whatever, you can have it. Tell Chrom I said it was okay for you to take two thousand from my balances in Ylisstol when you get there, okay? And no more than that."

"Won't we be reaching the capital together, though? Why don't you get it for me yourself?" Anna asked, her contentment at having secured such a large sum of money for something so meaningless shining through every word. "Come on, you've got no idea how lazy I can be. Don't make me charge you a convenience fee."

"That's not quite how all of this is going to play out." Robin said, forcefully injecting a shred of levity into every word that failed in comparison to Anna's own. "There's some stuff Kjelle and I need to handle later on, and I'll have probably sent you to either Port Ferox or Ylisstol by then."

"Hm… okay, I get it." Anna smiled again, more fiendishly than her last. "You want a little bit of 'alone time' with Kjelle, eh?"

"Gods no, Anna." Robin said, surprising himself with how calm he sounded despite the blush he knew was creeping over his features. "It's some additional stuff I want to take care of, but it'll probably only require her and maybe some of her friends. Hopefully only her."

"Okay, message received." Anna said, raising her hands away from her reigns for a moment to show that she didn't mean him any harm. "Word of advice, though? Don't instantly deny liking someone like that - at least pretend to be a little bashful about it, even if you don't feel that way. It makes them feel more wanted, and I can tell that's something Kjelle could use."

"I'm not even going to try to guess at what you're playing at here." Robin said, forcefully dismissing her words with a frown to counter her far too easy smile.

"Really? You didn't literally pay me an absurd amount of money to try to impress her for you?" Anna laughed, as devilishly as every other action she was so prone to taking.

"I don't care if you impress her on my behalf, I want you to impress her as yourself." Robin explained, and Anna tilted her head in confusion. "Surely you've seen how enamored she is with the people and concepts of her time, yeah? Well, I could already tell how disenfranchised with you she became yesterday, and with everything that's been happening. I figured she could use a little support, regardless of how she gets it. You being kind and not as greedy as she thinks would work to that end."

"How noble. Kinda." Anna muttered, neither distaste nor reverence in her voice.

"I try." Robin smiled, only now matching her light nature.

"By the way, another word of advice?" Anna said, her tone coming across as far more genuine. "I purposefully overshoot my estimates with the full knowledge that people will try to talk me down. I'll take the two grand, but know that I would've been fine going down to about a hundred gold, give or take."

"Why are you giving me advice on how to counter you? Isn't that kind of, I don't know, antithetical to who you are?" Robin asked before a small, knowing grin broke out on his face. "Unless… you really aren't all that different from what Kjelle thinks? The ideal version of you?"

Anna shot him a glare that he knew would be able to silence anyone, be they bandits, Shepherds, or royalty. His grin grew far more sheepish, and he began to rub the back of his head awkwardly, with ground around the merchant proving far more difficult to tread than most, even if he was going out of his way to mess with her.

"Is there anything else you wanted to say, or are we done here?" Anna asked, evidently bored with his presence already.

"We're pretty much done." Robin answered, offsetting her own less enthusiastic mood with forced enthusiasm of his own. "How long do you think is left until we reach Ezra?"

Anna shrugged and stared at the horizon beyond the cart before turning back to Robin. "I'd say sometime early tomorrow. He hides out in a place called the Kidnapper's Keep, and your plans have us reaching the nearest possible safe zone late tonight, so we'll have to make the last part of the journey tomorrow."

"Do you have any last minute tips for when we face Ezra and his group?"

"Aren't you rushing things a bit?" Anna asked, her previous severity already forgotten and replaced with another, distinctly different yet similar gravity. "We have time to sit back and plan. We should be taking advantage of that."

"We're on a bit of a time constraint, considering how soon everything with Valm will probably be happening." Robin explained. "Hopefully, we'll be able to make it through all that Flavia requested with time to spare, buy I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"Alright, then." Anna said, apparently unperturbed by his explanation and their coming conflicts. "The worst of Ezra's goons are his riders - he has four primary squads consisting of paladins, bow knights, griffon riders, and falcon knights, as well as some other foot soldiers who can probably get in your way if they try. As for Ezra himself… well, you should probably be the one to handle him, if not all of us together. I'm willing to bet there's a reason he's the undisputed leader of so many powerful bandits. I never saw anything from him myself when I was watching him, but he certainly instilled his will into his people."

Robin nodded, already forming a barebones strategy for dealing with the slaver troupe. "By the way, do you know where Noire is? I have a suspicion that we'll probably find her by finding Ezra, but…"

"No clue." Anna shrugged dismissively, causing him to frown.

"Weren't you the one who was keeping track of her?" he asked.

"Yeah, but here's the thing: I never actually saw her once." Anna said.

Robin raised his eyebrows in confusion. "What? But you were making it sound like-"

"I know what I was making it sound like." Anna said, cutting him off. "Flavia told me not to worry if I didn't find her, so I didn't. She said she would show up eventually, so I took it at that and didn't bother myself any further."

"You were actively trying to deceive us?" Robin asked, Anna's aghast expression telling him he was wrong before he continued. "Were you actually lying, purposefully, about Kjelle's friend?"

"No! Not at all!" Anna shouted, the sheer emotion she put into it showing how sincere she was. "I trust Khan Flavia. That's all. She said things would be okay, so I didn't bother worrying you two about what'll probably amount to nothing. Flavia said she would be near Ezra if I didn't find her, so I'll trust that she's near."

"And if she isn't near him?" Robin asked, though he didn't understand why his voice had grown so cold. "What would you do then, if the way you've been presenting everything leads to her getting hurt, or worse? Would you still trust Flavia blindly?"

"Then… then I would tell you, and we would work through it." Anna said, uncertain of why her voice had suddenly grown so meek.

"That would only make sense if you were to have known that we would be travelling together." Robin said, lowering his expression into a natural frown. "Face it, Anna, you put blind faith in Flavia because you thought she knew best. You were wrong, and everyone else is going to suffer for it."

"Nobody's suffering!" Anna countered, her voice equal parts confusion and a newfound concern. "We'll still be able to find Noire, even if I haven't seen her myself. Also, trusting Khan Flavia wasn't the wrong thing to do - she's proven time and again that she's deserving of her title. I mean, you fought alongside her in the Plegian war; you should know that better than anyone!"

"Yes, but she's still going to die!" Robin countered, a tad too loud for his own comfort. Anna's eyes widened but she said nothing, silently urging him to continue.

"No matter how well things are going to turn out, people are going to die." Robin explained through tremors in his voice. "Those deaths are necessary for what's coming, but… things are going to get so bad that everyone's going to learn what it really means to be strong. What it means to not be able to ever rely on someone like Flavia, or Chrom, or… or me."

"You know, you kind of sound like Flavia right now. She kept saying that something bad would happen if we all didn't work to stop it." Anna said. "Robin, do you know what's coming? Flavia would never tell me, and… well, to elicit this kind of response from people like you and her, I'm assuming it'll actually be something worth my time."

"I…" Robin hesitated, unsure of how much of his own limited knowledge he should be sharing, let alone with Anna of all people. "I… I don't know. All I can say for sure is that it's not Valm, and that it's still on the horizon. That's all I've got so far."

Anna nodded to herself, her rare frown making its existence known again. "I… I know this might be a mistake, especially after your little rant on Flavia, but… okay. I trust you, Robin, and I trust that you'll do what's best for the Shepherds and - most importantly - me."

"Always." Robin agreed absentmindedly. He resented the fact that he knew so little, though he knew that he wouldn't be keen on sharing even if he knew everything, as long as the information under the grey was any example to go by.

Deciding that all he could do was stay true to his plans of developing strength and trying to save everything he could, Robin allowed his thoughts to flow freely from his mind as he idled in wait for his eventual arrival near Ezra's keep. Soon, he could only think of strategies, and he welcomed the change wholeheartedly.

* * *

Kjelle jumped out of the back of the wagon once it had ground to a complete stop, refusing Robin's hand offering to help her down. She stretched upon landing, working through all of the uncomfortable aches and numbness a full day of riding in the cart had caused.

They had stopped for the night at a small, snow covered clearing, already far enough into Ezra's territory that they wouldn't be stumbled across by any passers by. Sunlight had faded a short time ago, though the horizon was still smeared in a coat of orangish hues that defied the creeping blackness of nights in Ferox.

"So, you up for a duel?" Robin asked as soon as she showed signs of finishing her routine of stretches. "It feels like it's been a little while since we've had one of those, at least properly. I'm assuming you haven't gotten that much better yet, but…"

"I'm always ready for a duel!" Kjelle grinned, already moving to retrieve her weapons from where she had placed them in Anna's cart. She picked out her lances from the other assorted weapons she had gathered from Arena Ferox, testing each with a spin before setting her silver variant next to the wagon and brandishing her enchanted variant, her gifted fire tome already at her side.

"Good to hear." Robin smiled in turn, pulling out his thunder tome. "You want to try hitting me with magic first, or can we head straight for the main course?"

"I'm not going to be able to hurt you with raw magic. Yet." Kjelle said, her gaze flicking away from him before returning in full determination. "On you."

Robin placed his hands on his hips, his tome still grasped in his left hand. "That's not good enough. Try it - maybe you'll surprise yourself."

Kjelle simply stared at him, ultimately sighing in resignation. She placed her lance down on the ground and opened her fire tome, flipping to the most basic of spells it offered. It wasn't as though she could cast any of them, anyway.

Allowing her previously spiking nerves to calm as she cleared her mind, even though she wasn't certain if that was necessary for magic, she raised her right hand to point at Robin. The grandmaster stood in wait patiently, not moving from his position once as she attempted to prime her spell.

Nothing happened. Kjelle tensed and relaxed her arm repeatedly, as much in an effort to cast anything as to prove to Robin that she was legitimately trying. Sighing again, she picked her lance back up and began to silently recite her spell, taking care to point the weapon directly at Robin.

Anna strolled along the side of the cart, stopping in place with an eyebrow raised when she caught sight of her companions' positions. Robin waved to her with a pleasant smile, and she opened her mouth to say something, but shook her head and threw her hands up in the air, leaving them to the mess they were certain to cause.

Kjelle shot off a magical replica of her lance at Robin, a streak of red brightening the night around them. It collided with her target in a vibrant spray of colour that quickly faded from existence.

"Did that work?" Kjelle asked, unable to hide the part of her that vehemently hoped it had.

Robin waited for a second, raising one finger to have her do the same. After his moment had passed, he solemnly shook his head. "Sorry, not a thing. You want to try again?"

"No." Kjelle shook her head, falling into a less enthusiastic fighting stance than when he had first proposed their fight.

"Alright then, let's get right to the duel." Robin said, adopting his own relaxed fighting stance that consisted almost solely of flipping his tome open. "I can tell you're improving, though. Slowly, sure, but you're getting closer and closer to something worthwhile."

"What's the point of fighting you if I can't hurt you, anyway?" Kjelle asked, relaxing out of her stance momentarily. "It's not like I stand a chance against your magic. I'd need to face you on even ground, which for me is without any magic at all."

"Magic is powerful, and you'll become more powerful yourself by mastering it." Robin said, his stance impossible to make any more lax. "As for now, consider everything we're doing training. You learn to fight a mage, even at a disadvantage, and it'll be all the better for when major conflicts arise. Besides, you might learn a thing or two from watching me fight."

Kjelle said nothing, straining her lungs through another, albeit far more restrained, sigh. She prepared herself for dueling him, and launched out with her lance before he could have time to right his own stance.

Robin easily directed her lance skyward with a small burst of wind magic, sidestepping out of her way as the now disoriented knight crashed to the ground where he had once stood.

"Y'know, if you actually managed to hit me with something like that, it'd probably kill me." he said, watching as she sprang to her feet. "You're not holding back nearly enough for this to be considered proper sparring."

"That's because I already know that you'll be able to handle whatever I throw at you." Kjelle replied, darting her lance out only for him to blow it sideways. "Honestly, it's kind of disheartening, knowing that I can go all out and still not put you in any danger."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Robin smiled, deflecting another attack without moving his lower body. "You'll get stronger, though, to the point where you can take me down. You'll have to, soon, for everything that's coming."

Kjelle took a step back, reevaluating him and launching a few test flame lances his way. He extinguished each with bursts of wind and flame of his own before they could reach him. "That still seems a long ways away, though." she said. "Progress with this seems to be going by way too slow, at least for my liking."

"Give it time. You'll be on my level before you know it." Robin encouraged her, using a blast of wind to set up a screen of snow between the two of them. "There's a steep learning curve, but once you get casting down, you won't believe how easy everything else becomes."

"Right now, all I can do is take your word for it." Kjelle frowned. She lunged at Robin through the cloud snow that separated them, only to be forced back to the ground when she was met with a powerful shotgun burst of sparks.

Robin pushed the snow he had knocked into the air down, pressing it into the ground with more magic. He held his hand out to Kjelle, the knight rubbing passively at where one of her shoulders had collided with the ground unfavourably.

"Again?" Robin asked, keeping his hand outstretched while she merely stared at it.

"Again." Kjelle confirmed, taking his hand in hers and using it to pull herself to a stand.

* * *

 **Remember how I said last chapter that this chapter was going to be incredibly long and would need to be edited a lot or broken apart? I lied. That's next chapter, though I apparently also had the forethought to change some scenes around and fit more into this chapter a long time ago. That means that next chapter isn't absurdly long, either, but rather that I had completely forgotten how I had already edited some of it a long time ago.**

 **Speaking of a long time ago, I'm a way better writer now than when I started, so much so that even someone as dense as me can notice. Half of my editing is restructuring sentences so that they actually make sense and removing useless filler words, since I had an absurd reliance on 'just', 'apparently', 'slightly', etc. which added nothing to any scenes. Hooray for learning and development!**

 **Status: As of 25-08-18, I'm on chapter 30. I've had a lot of time where I haven't been able to write recently, but I've still managed to get my 1k words goal every day. I've got to admit, that feels pretty good.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	16. Chapter 16

Kjelle rubbed a small amount of a vulnerary into a training wound on her shoulder, one of many she had accidentally received when dueling Robin the night prior. The potion set to work immediately, removing the aching pain that had manifested beneath her skin and leaving her as though she had never been wounded in the first place. She had to regret having been too exhausted to heal herself last night.

"Again, sorry about that." Robin apologised from where he sat on his horse, following closely behind the cart she was sitting in. They had departed for the Kidnapper's Keep early in the morning, as per what their schedule dictated, and he had watched her intently since learning of his accidentally inflicted lasting damage.

"It's not a big deal." Kjelle shrugged, subduing a wince when her shoulder clicked in pain. "The best way to learn is to see all of my mistakes laid out for me, and that's exactly what this does."

"Sure, but it doesn't have to be so brutal." Robin said. "You can learn from mistakes by having them pointed out to you, without having to take a hit."

"Because risen and trained soldiers are going to be pulling their punches?" Kjelle laughed. Robin found that he wanted to both smile and frown at the sound.

"They won't, but that doesn't mean getting hurt from training is necessary. It's training for a reason." he said.

"Eh, it's not really something worth worrying over either way." Kjelle shrugged again, this time without pain.

"You don't have to be tough about something like this, Kjelle." Robin advised. "I get that you probably want to, that it's natural for you, but it's okay to not always be strong about everything."

Kjelle blinked at him, letting his words sink in for a moment before she shook her head clear. "Whatever."

She raised her vulnerary, which Anna had been courteous enough to sell to her at only a slightly increased price - that Robin had spotted her for, considering that she was still devoid of any major funding - and allowed her attention to linger on it instead of him. "Hey, these things replicate… cells, or whatever they were called, right?"

"That's my theory, anyway." Robin confirmed. "Have you seriously never heard of that before? I once accidentally brought the topic up to Miriel once, and she managed to hold a conversation on the topic for over an hour… on her own. Without letting me leave the room."

"Everything she taught to us was incredibly basic, since we were young when she started teaching." Kjelle explained, Robin nodding along as she went. "She must've died before teaching us anything like that. Her son might know a thing or two about it, though - he would go out of his way to learn everything Miriel had studied in life."

"Hm… sounds like he'd be a person worth meeting." Robin said, lowering his head in thought before snapping it back up to see her. "Anyway, you were building up to something?"

Kjelle blinked again before managing to remember the course of her thoughts. "Uh… yeah, about the replication stuff. If I were to take a bunch of vulneraries right now, they would replicate my cells - including my muscles. Wouldn't that make me insanely strong, without the need to work out or train at all?"

Robin shook his head. "If that were possible, a hell of a lot of people would be doing it, and vulneraries would probably be more valuable than they already are. Also, that's another part of my replication theory that doesn't check out; by my understanding it should be possible to endlessly grow all of your body at once with potions, but in practice I've never heard of or seen anything of the sort. It's like there's a cutoff that the vulnerary itself somehow recognises, even though it can't distinguish between much of anything."

"It sounds like there's still a lot of holes in your theory." Kjelle commented, and Robin nodded without a trace of scorn or indignation.

"The entire thing is preliminary, at best. I'm hoping that I'm somehow able to patch the holes that are all over the place, but that'll take a lot of study and an absurd amount of time, not to mention that the whole thing may very well be wrong to begin with."

"Sounds like a hassle." Kjelle said, lowering her vulnerary back to the floor of the cart.

"It's scientific. I'm sure both of our Miriels would be proud." Robin said, his tone mimicking his vision of their pride.

"Am I the first person you've told this stuff to?" Kjelle asked. "Not Miriel, or Chrom, or someone?"

"Nope, you're the first." Robin confirmed with a smile. "I mean, I tried to talk to Miriel once, but that's when she went on a rant about cells. Congrats, you get to see how unrefined everything is and can watch it crumble every step of the way."

Kjelle frowned, more at his apparent resignation to failure than anything else. "Why haven't you told anyone? It'd make sense to tell this all to someone like Miriel, who would care for it with their entire being."

"I haven't really had the time, what with going around the continent and everything." Robin explained casually. "My theories have only really taken root now that my horse and older research have worked to support their validity, and I wasn't willing to share an untested guess with people."

"I see." Kjelle said, returning to as much of a relaxed state as she could attain in the wagon. Robin, seeing that she wasn't intent on talking much more, allowed his uninterested gaze to wander around their environment. The climate had somehow managed to get colder as they progressed northeast, with the few hours that remained until they reached Ezra's encampment promising to be all the more frigid than the last.

Robin yawned, even though he was nowhere near exhausted. "Have you made any progress on your magic yet?"

"In the… what, nine-ish hours it's been since last night, when we dueled? Most of which I spent asleep?" Kjelle asked, and Robin merely shrugged. "Yeah, because I'm going to become a world-class mage in that short of a time."

"Hey, you never know. Maybe you had some kind of revelation last night and became unstoppable." Robin joked.

"I've had about an hour of time I've spent awake since last night, tops." Kjelle said. "I'd like to see you come up with a strategy or enchantment in that amount of time."

"I already have." Robin smiled happily, and she raised an eyebrow. Somehow, Kjelle found that she didn't doubt his claim or his ability, but rather the extent to which he was willing to go to prove himself - or, at the very least, a point he was trying to make.

"I've got a basic plan for when we go face Ezra." he explained. "There's nothing too specific, since Anna only gave me basic information, but in essence you and her will be working on kiting his mounts while I fight the man himself, and then I'll come back to press the backs of the mounts. We all attack at once, and they likely won't have any escape. Except for maybe the fliers - watch out for them by the way, apparently Ezra has more than a few on his payroll."

"Noted." Kjelle replied, both surprised and not that he had developed a plan, even if it was barebones.

"Are you going to practice your magic?" Robin asked, leaning toward her by a small degree.

"Are you going to watch over me like this until I do?"

"It's not like I have anything better to do." Robin said, leaning back in his horse but not averting his gaze from her. "Maybe I'll be able to help you cast something."

"As if…" Kjelle grumbled, begrudgingly drawing her tome all the same.

She attempted to cast a few more small-scale spells, though yet again none succeeded. Eventually, she stopped bothering to point her hand out of the carriage, instead aiming it directly at the canvas walls around her, knowing that she wasn't about to burn them down. Robin offered as much help as he could give her, though the uncertainty in his voice as he did so clearly showed how little he knew about how to provide his aid.

* * *

Stretching his arms high into the sky above his head, Robin slowly began to remove the soreness he had accumulated from several hours of riding his horse. Next to him, Kjelle did the same, taking more care to flex her rested muscles that had been unused in her hours of doing next to nothing.

As with every time she had attempted before, Kjelle proved unable to cast any magic whatsoever without the aid of her enchanted lance. She had remained dedicated to her practice, however, partially thanks to Robin's constant counsel recommending she continue regardless of her numerous failures. Even so, she showed no major signs of improving.

They now stood at the last place Anna had been willing to travel with her caravan, a small stop next to a dilapidated road beyond which the edges of ruins could be seen. Anna had identified them as the Kidnapper's Keep, the most common central location of Ezra and his bandits, and had begun to guide them through a technically nonexistent path that led to what would soon be their battleground.

"Are you sure we'll be able to do this?" Anna asked Robin, who kept stretching in place, unwilling to move. "If the Shepherds were here, it'd make sense, but only the three of us? That seems stupid, at best."

"We'll be fine… probably." Robin said, the slight trace of uncertainty in his voice causing her to frown. "I'll admit I don't really know too much about Ezra or the slavers themselves, but if they aren't as organised as a military they won't be as hard to take down. I'm willing to bet they'll be a little stronger than the bandits we faced with your… sister, or cousin, or whatever, but not by much more."

"What about her?" Anna asked, pointing to where Kjelle was still stretching. "She doesn't exactly have a vote of confidence from me yet. I haven't really seen her fight successfully, but considering how much stronger than her you've already shown yourself to be, I kinda have to fear for my safety here. What if she isn't up to this?"

"You should be more concerned with yourself." Kjelle spoke up, glaring at her. "I may not be as strong as him - or, more accurately, his magic - but I can still hold my own."

Anna raised an eyebrow at her, turning her head toward Robin and visibly dismissing the knight's claim. "Well? Is she capable?"

"Yeah, she should be fine." Robin nodded, Anna giving a small frown at his incertitude. Robin then turned to Kjelle. "You're going to have to look out for her as much as yourself, by the way. The two of you are working more or less together on this, so you're going to have to cover for each other. Consider yourselves interlinked, or paired up, or something."

"Meaning I have to let her weigh me down?" Kjelle sighed, suppressing a small smile when her desired effect came across, with Anna crossing her arms angrily.

"We'll see who weighs down who." she said, glaring at Kjelle over a pout.

"What were you going to show us, Anna?" Robin asked, breaking her glare.

"Ah, right, the fort." Anna said. Her subdued rage at Kjelle instantly forgotten, she began to lead them both to her desired location. "I was going to show you the place we'll probably have to be fighting at. There's a river that runs between two old, ruined buildings, with Ezra typically using the western one as his own personal quarters. The eastern one is used by his workers, and they have their mounts within walking distance of the place."

The trio quickly reached where Anna had wanted to take them, a pathetically small raised section of land that was still somehow the highest part of the landscape for a fair distance. Sure enough, Robin could make out two ruined buildings separated by a large river in the distance, which itself fed out of a massive and seemingly frozen body of water further north.

Tiny shapes were milling about both buildings, a swarm of ants that appeared to be rushing from west to east in a continuous stream. Though he couldn't hear them from his distance, Robin knew he would hear voices shouting if he were closer.

He frowned. "Are things usually this hectic for them?"

"Nope." Anna shook her head, mimicking his frown. "Looks like something's going down. We should hurry - it might be good for us."

"Lead the way." Robin said, and Anna began to trace her path back to where they had left their equipment.

"What are we going to do once you kill Ezra?" Kjelle asked as they moved. "You said we would be kiting the mounts while you fought him, then that you would come back around and help us with the mounts, but what then? We won't exactly be able to outrun them all with the cart, and if that commotion is one of their 'sales', we can't exactly leave the matter unresolved."

"We aren't going to outrun them." Robin said, his tone making obvious that this was something she should already have known. "We're going to rout them. I off the head of the snake, then help the two of you wrap up the stragglers. I'm not about to leave half a band of slavers running around Ferox."

Anna's eyes widened slightly, though she kept them trained on her steps so that neither of her companions could see them. "That… might actually make this harder to pull off than simply running away. Wow, I didn't think that was possible."

"Would you kill them if they weren't slavers?" Kjelle asked, Robin tilting his head as though he didn't understand the question. "I mean that if they were only normal bandits or something, would you still kill them all? Rout them, or whatever you called it?"

"Maybe?" Robin answered. "Depends on if I think it would be for the best or not. If they were bandits, then probably."

"What if they were normal people?"

"Then I wouldn't be fighting them in the first place." Robin said. "What are you hoping to learn here, Kjelle?"

"I… I don't know." Kjelle admitted.

"Do you think that I would say 'why yes, I would kill dozens of innocent, normal people'?" Robin asked, his voice laced with mockery that somehow came off as hollow.

"Let's get to fighting." Kjelle sighed, dispelling her myriad of concerns that never seemed to fade in his presence. Thankfully, Robin complied with silence, and they returned to their equipment without another word shared.

Kjelle pulled on her cavalier chestpiece, stopping when the entire thing felt wrong. She removed it to examine the surface of the metal, but upon finding no deformities, placed it back on herself. Then, the thought that there were no deformities struck her as odd, and she removed the piece again to search for where she had been run clean through with her own lance a few days prior.

"You having issues?" Robin asked as he observed her, a trace of mockery overshadowing genuine concern. He was already fully prepared for conflict, his cloak storing all of the weapons he needed while offering him protection, and so he was merely waiting for Kjelle and Anna to make their own preparations.

"There's no holes." Kjelle quickly explained, never looking up from her armour. "I was hit with my own lance a little while ago, remember? There was an entrance and exit point for it through my armour, but it's not here anymore."

Robin's brow furrowed for an instant as he stepped over to look at the armour in question. "What do you mean? Did you not repair it?"

"No, I didn't do anything." Kjelle said, holding her armour out for him to appraise while pointing to where she remembered the damage being. "What's more is that something with the armour itself feels off… like it's gotten smaller since I last put it on."

"Hm… this was outside of your bags when the failed portal appeared, wasn't it?" Robin wondered aloud. "Maybe it was distorted, too? Like what happened to us?"

"But then why would the entirety of the holes seal?" Kjelle asked, pulling the armour back to her to check inside of it. "Also, there's no trace of any holes at all. One opened toward my body, the other away, but now there's nothing to show that either was ever there. How would the portal seal the entire hole, and not just smooth its edges, while also leaving no trace of the original holes? And why does the entire thing feel tighter?"

"The portal was caused by some weird stuff involving distortions and ether, so… maybe it's something about the properties of magic?" Robin guessed. "It's possible that the portal managed to replicate parts of your armour, like what I think ether can do with cells, or maybe even restructure the entire thing outright… but aside from the portal itself somehow being sentient, I don't see a way that could happen."

"Doesn't that poke even more holes in your theory about cells, too?" Kjelle asked. "If something that isn't alive, like armour, can be replicated, then magic isn't only able to replicate living things like you were saying."

"Maybe it can replicate anything at all, not just living cells?" Robin shrugged. "Like I said, my theories have yet to be proven. Anything's possible, so it's not like I can really rule anything out. Then again, that makes less sense in regards to how no one's stumbled across something so major before…"

"Did you never come across anything like this in your studies? Nothing from the 'traitor' you were going on about?"

Robin shrugged again. "There were small things, here and there. Nothing as big as this, though."

"You two done chatting?" Anna cut in, having at some point appeared near them with a variety of weapons and staves at the ready. "If so, we can get to fighting now. It's not like there's a better time to catch them off guard than now."

"Yeah, sorry." Robin apologised, turning away from Kjelle to face toward the general direction of the Kidnapper's Keep. "I'm ready when you two are."

Kjelle pulled her armour on despite the minor discomfort it gave her. "I'm ready, too. Lead the way, Anna."

Anna smiled, though it was obviously strained by the prospect of their coming battle, and both Robin and Kjelle knew they wouldn't have been able to give one better. Robin may have been able to, but he didn't dare to try, and followed behind Anna quietly in anticipation of the fighting to come.

* * *

"I'm going to go see if Ezra's still in his usual place. You two should probably check out the disturbance." Robin said, waving at Anna and Kjelle briefly before turning from them and dashing off in the direction of the eastern building.

They had all arrived at a spot near the slaver forces, at the furthest point the river reached before splitting off into two paths. Robin had made for the bridge over the river that led to the eastern building, and would likely take the single bridge a ways north from them to reconvene later, leaving them with the bridge and building to their northwest.

"Well, then… let's do this." Anna said, turning from where he had run off to face their own bridge. "I've got some staffs with me if you run out of those potions I sold you, so I can heal you if necessary. Keep in mind that I can't actually use them on myself, though, so if I get hit I'll need to take the time to use a vulnerary, and we might both be left open in the meantime."

Kjelle nodded, and the two began a fast yet cautious run toward the western building. Both could make out mounted guards beyond the walls that separated them from the slaver forces, though none of their potential opponents had made any indication of noticing them yet.

"They've already got their horses and fliers up." Anna commented, lowering her voice as they snaked around some unaware enemies toward the entrance to their building. "They've settled down a lot, too… maybe there was a threat they had to deal with. Risen, or something else we could use to our advantage."

"How would we be able to use risen to our advantage?" Kjelle whispered. "They're risen. They wouldn't exactly be willing to cooperate with us."

"They're mindless, Kjelle." Anna explained in as hushed of a whisper. "They can be manipulated into doing what you want, to an extent. Point them at a target, and bam, instant life-or-death fighting."

"That seems… unethical. Smart, but unethical."

"It's a potentially deadly battle we're talking about." Anna said. "No one cares much about ethics when their lives are at risk."

Kjelle remained silent, as unwilling to consider the atrocities that could be committed and prevented with risen as she was unwilling to expose their position. Anna followed suit, remaining silent as they approached their building's entrance.

Immediately upon turning the final corner into the building, having skirted past walls and enemies on their way, Kjelle stopped and found her eyes widening. Inside, seemingly no different than the day they had last met, was Noire, leaned against the wall far from them while clearly shaken. She was seemingly wearing the same, albeit slightly more worn, clothes as that day they had last been together, her white hair only slightly longer than when they had parted ways. Everything was only marginally different than before.

"Noire?" Kjelle called out to her, and although she kept her voice lowered considerably to avoid any external attention, the archer immediately whipped her head over to the building's entrance.

"Kjelle!?" Noire shouted, her voice considerably louder and less restrained than her friend. "What? What are you doing here?"

"We're here to help you." Anna explained, following Kjelle as the knight rushed through the room toward Noire. "That, and stop Ezra. And a lot of other stuff after the matter, really."

"Lady Anna?" Noire said, pushing herself away from the wall she was leaned on to slowly approach them. "H-How are you both here right now? How did you know where I was?"

"I've been tracking you… kinda." Anna smiled, quickly judging that the woman wasn't wounded or in any state that would require immediate attention. "I know you're one of Kjelle's time travelling friends, though I didn't know that you would be here today. Anyway, I guess we've come to rescue you."

"Are you okay?" Kjelle asked, having rushed over to Noire, now standing within a metre of the archer. "The slavers, did they catch you? Were they going to…?"

"I can only assume so." Noire answered before she could finish. "I-I came up here to hunt - that's what I've been doing since I got here - and I was hoping I would find enough to sell so that I won't have to do much for a while, maybe get to travel and see my family again…"

"But then Ezra and his crew found you, caught you, and put you here?" Kjelle finished for her.

Noire nodded. "They took my bow away, and set up some kind of guard outside, so if I tried to get away…"

"We noticed. Not like they're that hard to get past, though." Anna said, turning away from the two time travellers to keep an eye on their exit.

"Are the rest of the Shepherds with you?" Noire asked Kjelle. "What about my parents, are they okay? And where's Marth - is she- he with you?"

"It's just Anna, Robin, and I here." Kjelle answered, and she could see how Noire's gaze intensified at the mention of the grandmaster. "I revealed my identity to some of the Shepherds, and I think they have started to believe me, but listen, Noire, things are different in this time than what we thought. Things like our families, and… something involving Robin, something that I really need to talk to you about once I know we aren't in any danger."

"What about Marth? Where is he?"

Kjelle felt her gaze narrow slightly, but did her best to keep any errant emotion away from herself. "Knowing her, she'll be fine. She met the Shepherds during the first Plegian war, but she's disappeared now - and according to Flavia, who's been finding all of us, she doesn't have Falchion anymore."

"Hey, ladies?" Anna cut in, waving to them from the entrance, her voice still hushed. "Keep it down, we aren't clear yet. We need to get you either a weapon or away from here, Noire - Kjelle and I still have a job to do."

"Right." Kjelle nodded to Anna, already forgetting to lower her voice. She turned back to Noire. "Do you know where your bow is? Or how to get out of here on your own?"

"I… I think my bow was taken by their leader himself, some creepy guy on a horse." Noire said. "I can get away from here, provided that the guards aren't too intense."

A shout sounded from beyond the walls of their building, and a new commotion soon began outside, with hooves pounding away from their general position. Anna peeked her head outside the open entryway, and seeing that it had remained as empty as when they had arrived, waved Kjelle and Noire forward.

"That's probably Robin." she said, glancing outside again before stepping out entirely. "Come on, we need to go distract some of the mounts. Noire, can you use a sword?"

Noire shook her head. "Only bows."

Anna cursed softly. "Alright, then you're out of luck. We have a little wagon with our horses a ways south of here; if you can make it there without anyone following you, you should be safe. You might be able to find a bow in my merchandise, but I'm going to charge you if you use it."

"Understood, lady Anna." Noire said, with Anna scrunching her face up at her new title. "I'll get there as soon as possible, and come back to help with the slavers when I can." Noure continued, then turned back to Kjelle behind her, whispering so that Anna wasn't able to hear her. "Then, we can work together to stop Robin."

Kjelle paused, tensing for a moment as she considered her options, and how to handle the mess she had found herself in. Eventually, she nodded resolutely, and Noire did the same as she followed Anna out of their building.

"Okay, Kjelle." Anna said, stopping her once they had all exited the dilapidated structure. "I want you to help Noire reach where Robin broke off from us, then try to lure a group of mounts back to this building. I'll do the same in the opposite direction, and we can choke the entrance here to face a limited amount at once. We need to make sure Robin isn't put under a lot of pressure while he faces Ezra, got it?"

"Why are you the one giving orders?" Kjelle asked, though she was willing to accept them despite her resistance. Noire's eyebrows raised slightly at her insubordination, as while it was something she had come to expect from the knight, she hadn't expected her to be so brazen with one of the heroes of their time.

"Because I'm stronger than you, and to you, might makes right, yeah?" Anna said, ignoring the slight frown Kjelle gave in response.

"Let's go, Noire." Kjelle said, moving south without another word as Anna began to do the same to the north. Noire followed begin her quietly, not daring to speak now that they were in the open.

As they neared the end of the wall that separated them from the rest of the slavers, Kjelle put up her hand to stop Noire. She then slowly drew one of her lances, a faint glow on its hilt showing Noire that her friend had certainly changed her combat style since they had last met.

"Is that an enchantment?" Noire asked in a muted voice. Kjelle merely shushed her and held firmly in place.

After a second of total silence, the only sound either person heard being distant hooffalls and wing beats over the gurgling of the nearby river, Kjelle began to move again. As if on cue, an entire group of falcon knights touched down on the stretch of land between them and their destination, menacing lances of various make held at the ready.

"Damnit…" Kjelle cursed under her breath. Keeping her gaze locked on the closest of the fliers, one who had landed in front of all the rest, she addressed Noire. "Go back to Anna, at the building we were in. I'll follow you in a second."

Noire opened her mouth to protest, but a sidelong glare from Kjelle reminded her that she had no weapon and would be worse than useless in a fight. She shuddered at the memory of what such a thing could do to others, those who wanted to protect her, and complied with the knight's ordinance.

The falcon knight who had landed ahead of the others turned to her companions, barking out orders to them. "Go take care of the grandmaster and capture that girl again. I'll handle this one."

Kjelle tensed as the fliers began to follow their orders, hurriedly firing a shot from her lance at one of them before they could take off. A bolt of flame met with the woman's torso, knocking her from her mount to the cold ground. The other riders paused, but with a wave of the hand from their leader took to the sky again.

While preparing another shot from her lance, Kjelle was stopped by the leader, who dashed her pegasus forward at such speed that Kjelle was forced to jump backward or risk impalement from the woman's silver lance. Behind the flier, the slaver that had been hit with Kjelle's magical attack had regained their footing, dazed but largely unharmed by the spell.

The leader shot a quick glance back at her companion, and with a sharp nod ordered her too to take flight. She complied, shakily rising into the air and crossing the river in search of Robin. The leader looked back to Kjelle, who was hurriedly preparing yet another shot from her lance, and leisurely removed her helmet.

"You don't remember me, do you?" she asked, and Kjelle faltered at the final stage of her cast. Her lance shot out of her grip, soaring out toward the woman, who masterfully caught the weapon with a single hand as it passed her.

She smiled disarmingly at Kjelle. "My name is Andrea. Sound familiar, Sully?"

"Sully?" Kjelle asked, suddenly more intent on talking than fighting. "How do you know my- how do you know Sully?"

"No… you're not Sully, are you?" Andrea said, studying her closely. "Sully… she had that armour then, but with red hair… you have purple. I don't think she would care about trying to dye her hair."

"How do you know her?" Kjelle asked again, her tone conveying her wary lack of patience.

"We used to work together." Andrea smiled, clearly recalling fond memories as she ignored Kjelle's confused stare. "How do you have her armour, anyway? Don't tell me you managed to get the better of her?"

"No, not at all, she's…" Kjelle quickly began to explain before remembering to hold herself back. "She's… fine. It's a long story."

"Hm. I see." Andrea said, her smile remaining on her face. "What's your name? I'm Andrea, as you know." she held her free hand out to Kjelle.

"I'm Kjelle. It's… nice to meet you?" Kjelle stepped forward, took her hand, and shook it, Andrea being far more vigorous than her in the action.

"Nice to meet you, Kjelle." Andrea said. "What brings you out to this wasteland of snow?"

"You know… stopping slavers, saving people, that kind of thing." Kjelle said, conscious of the time she was wasting by speaking. "If you've worked with my mother before, why are you with slavers now?"

"Technically, we're not slavers; we're Feroxi rebels." Andrea said, completely unconcerned with the distinction. "Slaving is more of… a necessary evil, for saving Ferox."

"'Feroxi rebels'?" Kjelle asked, expending a little more of her precious time.

"Yep! We're going to stop the Khans, and bring this nation up to proper standards!" Andrea smiled. "I was born and raised here in Ferox, see. When the time came for me to learn to fight, as everyone in Ferox has to do, I refused to raise my weapon, and so my parents sent me to Ylisse. I wanted to be a scholar, not a fighter… but even then, I got roped into service with the Shepherds, were I met Sully, Chrom, Stahl, Frederick…"

"I've… never heard of you before. Or a resistance group trying to defy the Khans." Kjelle admitted, and Andrea's smile became an unconcerned frown.

"Well, I guess that makes since." Andrea said, her carefree nature returning alongside her sprightly smile. "We are all still under Ezra's thumb, after all… but someday soon, we'll be able to overthrow him, and give order to Ferox. We'll be able to stop the reign of the Khans, and instill a proper democracy, not like what we currently have or the theocracies of Ylisse and Plegia."

"But the Khans and people like Emmeryn, or Chrom, they're amazing leaders." Kjelle said, ignoring how Andrea's frown returned at the statement. "Besides that, do you seriously somehow think that you'll be able to help anyone when fighting alongside a slaver? You were with the Shepherds. Why would you ever leave that, especially for something like this?"

"Because of Tracie. She was one of the first friends I ever made in the Shepherds." Andrea explained, her smile growing strained, though Kjelle only furrowed her brow in further confusion.

"Heh, she was the one who convinced me to become a pegasus knight in the first place, once I had learned that I would have to fight." she continued. "Sumia was ecstatic at the prospect of having someone in the same position as her, even though Sully got mad that I wasn't going to become a knight, or cavalier, or something."

"And she convinced you to leave them, to come out here and work for slavers?" Kjelle guessed.

Andrea shook her head. "All she did was disappear. Vanished completely, and no one ever cared. It was as if everyone in the Shepherds had forgotten her overnight, and that I was the only one to remember."

Kjelle narrowed her gaze. "I know a lot about the Shepherds, more than a lot of people probably ever have or will, and I've never heard anything about you, or this 'Tracie'."

"So you don't believe me?" Andrea assumed, with Kjelle's unchanging expression giving her the answer she needed. "Eh, that's fair, I guess. I am a stranger to you, who was introduced alongside slavers, and I'm someone who claims some pretty unreasonable things and has some wild ambitions. I can see where you're coming from."

"Why overthrow the Khans, or nations like Ylisse and Plegia?" Kjelle asked, remaining all too wary that Andrea was armed and that she herself still had yet to draw her second lance.

"There's something wrong about them, something really, really off." Andrea explained, though it was already doing nothing to assuage Kjelle's doubts in her. "Granted, when I started, it was just to object the forced savagery and fighting, and the theocracies instead of letting the most capable lead… but now?" she sighed and shook her head despairingly. "It's like there's other players on the field, people outside of Ferox and Ylisse. Reports of clandestine meetings, outsider manipulation, coercion… and some kind of ridiculous nonsense about time travel that only an idiot like Flavia would ever buy."

"Ah… that's… understandable, I suppose." Kjelle said tentatively, not wanting to expose anything unnecessary. "Are you sure there's no merit to any of that, though? Maybe some inkling of truth, one that Flavia can see?"

Andrea shrugged her shoulders, both to herself and Kjelle, then tossed the knight's enchanted lance back to her. "Why don't you go look after your friend, and we can talk later. Take this as a sign of good will between us."

Kjelle bent down and picked up her lance from where it had hit the ground, never breaking eye contact with the other woman. "What are you going to be doing in the meantime?"

"Nothing, probably." Andrea shrugged. "I'd like to ask that you don't kill any of my friends, though - the other pegasus riders. They're on my side through all this, but all the other people here are slavers, so… go wild."

"You still never answered why you're here, with the slavers." Kjelle said, waiting a few more seconds.

Andrea shrugged yet again. "Honestly… I don't really know myself. I came back to Ferox to help people, and next thing I know, I'm here. It's like there's an entire section of my memory that's missing, or muddied over so much that I can't understand it."

"Like… amnesia?" Kjelle asked, though her voice was barely over a mutter.

"Maybe, but I don't think so. It's difficult to put into words, but… it's like things I know are fading out. Even now, I can't remember what Tracie looked like, only her name, and I fear that one day, I'll be the same way."

"I… I see." Kjelle lied. Rather than ask anything further she simply nodded curtly to Andrea and turned to help her friends. As soon as she turned away, she realised she had no idea what the rider had looked like or how her voice had sounded, though it somehow didn't bother her enough to make her turn and look again.

* * *

Robin had run into trouble immediately upon separating from Anna and Kjelle. As he had left them behind to tend to their building, he had approached his, only to be cut off from entering it by a swarm of paladins and bow knights.

A horde of soldiers ground to a halt as they swiveled their heads toward him. Robin hurriedly began to draw his wind tome while struggling to keep the action hidden.

"Who the hell are you?" one of the paladins spoke up, not yet drawing their weapon despite their surprise.

"Um… I'm here to speak with Ezra?" Robin said, venturing out on an attempt to reach his objective without complication.

"That's not an answer to the question." the paladin said, glaring at him through the visor of their helmet. Beside him, some of his companions were reaching for their weapons, albeit tentatively.

"Ah, right. My name is… uh…" Robin stammered, uncertain of how much he should be revealing to his potential enemies - especially on the off chance his plans fail and lead to further complications down the line.

"You're Robin, aren't you?" a bow knight next to the paladin spoke up. "The grandmaster of Ylisse, the one who fought against Plegia in the war?"

Robin tensed his hand around his tome. "Yeah, that's… that's me."

The bow knight broke into a hearty laughter that set Robin on edge more than anything else. "It's an honour to meet you, sir! I've wanted to since during the war, when I learned of everything that was happening down south… you paved the way for a lot of stuff happening up here, believe it or not."

"What do you mean?"

"Wars are great time for profits, you know." the bow knight explained. His friends had slowly removed their hands from their weapons, though Robin had yet to do the same. "Word of mouth is that you made the war more brutal than anyone had anticipated, allowing an invasion of Ylisse and sacrificing the Exalt to force more and more conflict… that kind of thing created enough confusion to allow people like us to gain the power we deserve."

"That was never the intention." Robin said. "I wanted to stop the invasion, to save Emmeryn. I wanted the fighting to stop."

"Sure, whatever you want to tell yourself." the bow knight laughed. "Facts say something else, though. And public opinion, at least among my friends and I. You know, where it counts."

Robin blinked, and his face fell into a frown. "I'm idolised by bandits and slavers. Wow. That's… almost heartwarming?"

The paladin who had first spoke approached Robin, his horse moving at only a slow trot. "'Robin', was it? Tell you what, for your service to us, we'll take you to Ezra. You can talk over whatever you want with him. I'm sure he'll be happier than my friend here is to meet you."

"Uh… thanks?" Robin said, and he began to follow the paladin toward the entrance to the western building. The entire situation he had found himself in was incredibly disconcerting, both from his lack of trust toward the slavers as well as their apparent admiration of the unintended results of his actions.

Several other members of Ezra's slavers shot Robin sideways glances as he and the paladin passed them, a few recognising his cloak and explaining his identity to their friends in hushed whispers. Inside, the building was as decayed as it was outside, though it was somehow far more accommodating despite a lack of décor.

The paladin stopped outside the entrance to the building, waving Robin ahead as he craned his head around the entryway. "Sir Ezra!" he called out. "You have a visitor - grandmaster Robin of Ylisse himself!" 5he paladin shot Robin an easy smile before turning to leave, not waiting for a response from his leader.

"Grandmaster Robin!?" Ezra shouted from within the building, his tone more amazed than anything else. Robin didn't enter the building, standing in uncertainty in the entrance.

Ezra appeared in front of him, a wide smile splayed across his thin face. "Ah, but it is! To what do I owe this honour, grandmaster?"

"Just 'Robin' is fine… I think." Robin calmed him, still offset by the slaver's apparent hospitality. "I'm… here to meet you?"

"You're here to put a stop to my operation, aren't you?" Ezra asked, though his enthusiasm had yet to abandon him. "That's what you Shepherd types do… eh, so be it."

"Huh?" Robin screwed up one eye as he looked at the completely unconcerned slaver before him. "You're okay with that?"

"No, not at all - I'm not about to give up my livelihood, even for someone who's done as much for me as you." Ezra said. "I'm assuming the rest of the Shepherds are here, and maybe even the Khans. I'm willing to fight you all, though. You got any prep left to make, kid, or are you ready to do this now?"

Robin stared at him blankly. "You're giving me the opportunity to make preparations? Why?"

Ezra shrugged. "Out of respect for everything you've done for us, all the confusion of the last war that let my lot do as we please… maybe a little personal respect from myself, too."

"Okay…?" Robin said, and he pulled his thunder tome out of his robes. "I'm… ready now, I guess?"

"Have at you, then." Ezra flashed a predatory grin, stepping back into the room he had emerged from and drawing a silver bow. "Let's see if you can handle the wolf of Ferox!"

Robin raised his right hand to point at Ezra, bright yellow sparks already dancing on his palm. He fired off a rapid thoron shot, hoping to end this fight as quickly as possible to maintain his unassuming cover to the other slavers.

Ezra deftly stepped sideways out of the line of his shot, dodging the spell before it could reach him. Robin blinked, amazed that he had managed to so easily dodge his magic, but immediately had to make a dodge of his own when Ezra fired off a retaliatory shot from his bow.

The arrow glanced off the side of the cloak on Robin's arm, and for a moment Robin feared that Ezra may be powerful enough to slice through his enchantments, but a quick glance showed that his concerns were unfounded. He shifted his gaze back over to Ezra and was forced into another dodge that was far less successful, a second rapidly fired arrow colliding with his cloaked chest.

"You're not wearing armour, but you're fine." Ezra wondered aloud, spinning an arrow in his fingers as Robin narrowed his gaze on him and charged another spell. "Is it your cloak, then? You're a mage, so it may be enchanted…"

Robin cursed, the advantage of confusion that his cloak granted him over his enemies being second only to its actual protection. If Ezra were already able to figure out how to target him effectively, the man was at least proving that he was worthy of his position at the head of his fighters. Robin flipped the hood of his cloak up for more protection before firing off another spell. It was dodged as easily as the last.

"I'm guessing I was right, then." Ezra grinned. Robin fired off another shot, which he sidestepped effortlessly, shooting off an arrow in response.

"How are you so fast?" Robin asked as he hurriedly constructed a barrier of wind, distorting the path of the arrow and causing it to collide with the wall to his side.

"Years of practice." Ezra answered simply. "A lot of it, actually. Thanks to you." he fired another arrow, this time aimed at Robin's exposed face, but the wind barrier managed to repel it without any difficulty.

Robin frowned, studying the man across from him in as calm of a manner as he could manage. Surely, his magic would be noticed by the other slavers soon, had they not already caught sight of or overheard his missed spells already. He hastened his efforts in finding a way to take Ezra down.

"How good are you, kid?" Ezra taunted, bringing out another arrow before Robin could prepare another spell. "Come on, I was expecting the great grandmaster of Ylisse to be utterly fearsome. You know, someone who could tear apart nations at the flick of their wrist! Where's that power, eh?"

"Shut up! I don't have that kind of… shut up!" Robin shouted, and he could already tell that doing so brought unwanted attention from outside. He cloaked his hand in a weak specialised wind spell, which he shot out across the ground near Ezra's feet, purposefully missing the man. His magic lingered on the floor.

A shout sounded outside of the building, notifying Robin once and for all that he had been exposed. Or, rather, that the slavers had stopped bothering to respect the status they had granted him.

He fired off another bolt of thoron magic, and when Ezra attempted to dodge, the wind on the floor lapped at his feet and forcibly held him in place. The shot still missed, as Ezra was thrown off balance and out of the way of the spell, but Robin had at least succeeded in getting an edge over the kidnapper.

"That's more like it!" Ezra laughed, earning a frown from Robin. He hopped back up to his feet, the wind magic doing nothing to stop him without a command from Robin, and masterfully nocked another arrow as he went.

More shouts sounded outside, and Robin spun his head in time to see a griffon rider descend a few metres from his own position, with several paladins appearing through the more distant woods spaced out behind them. Across the northern bridge, Robin could see that there were more forces rallying. An arrow from Ezra tapped harmlessly against his hood, and he only noticed the shot when it clacked against the building's stone floor.

He whipped his head back around to the bowman, pushing himself into a backpedal when the man lunged at him. Ezra had somehow managed to draw a sword since his last shot, its silver matching that of his arrows as he sliced toward Robin's exposed face.

Barely managing to avoid the slash, Robin fell to the frozen ground outside of the building, with a hastily formed shot of thunder being the only thing that prevented any further attacks from Ezra. The griffon rider charged him, their axe meeting with his upper arm but failing to cleave through his enchantments.

Robin fumbled with his cloak as the griffin rider prepared another swing, pulling out his levin sword just in time to catch the axe's second descent in the blade's grooves. He sent out a burst of shocks along his weapon, the metal transmitting through the axe and into the griffon rider. The attack was by no means enough to kill, but was sufficient for making the rider drop their axe and recoil in pain.

Ezra dived forward with another swing of his sword while Robin was distracted, but the grandmaster's wind held the slaver in place and prevented him from exiting the building he had reentered. He cursed and struggled out of the magic's grasp, Robin failing to sustain his spell as he turned to address a second griffon rider approaching his flank.

A unit of paladins had made their way over the north bridge, and were all brandishing their weapons high in preparation for a fight. Robin flicked his gaze between the griffon riders swarming about him, the paladins over the bridge, and Ezra preparing another attack behind him, and quickly swapped to his wind tome and launched himself over in the direction of the eastern building, out of their ranges.

He landed on the far bank of the river, next to the bridge, and waved his arms in front of himself awkwardly to remain stable. Turning to appraise his enemies in the new safety of his reach, Robin's smug smile at the success of his feat was immediately erased when an arrow grazed past his cheek, drawing blood and lodging itself in place between his head and hood.

Ezra's predatory grin was visible at the distance Robin had placed between them, and as Robin placed his gloved hand over his cheek and looked at his fingers only to be met with blood, the slaver nocked yet another arrow. Robin cursed and pulled the arrow out of his hood, but wasn't able to put up another shield of wind before both Ezra's next arrow and a falcon knight were upon him.

The arrow collided with his glove grasping the original arrow, the enchantments he had placed on it protecting it from being pierced yet not from the brunt force of the shot. He winced and instinctively dropped the arrow he was holding, the falcon knight following up on their leader's borderline successful hit with an attack of their own.

Robin shot off a thoron spell at the falcon knight, and they proved that they weren't quite as capable as Ezra by failing to dodge out of the way in time. The spell warped the armour on their chest, vaporising the point it touched before ripping cleanly through the flesh underneath, knocking the rider to the ground in a single lethal hit. At least three other falcon knights were circling above him, though they didn't seem intent on attacking him after his work on their companion.

Across the river, a squad of bow knights had appeared to aid Ezra, one of them leading the man's own mount with a handheld rope. Ezra hopped onto the horse without using his hands, instead nocking yet another arrow and taking aim for Robin in a single fluid motion.

He tracked the grandmaster for a second, but ultimately lowered his bow. "The game is on, men!" he announced to those around him, shouting to ensure that the groups of griffon riders and paladins that had already set out for Robin could hear. "Go, find the grandmaster and every single one of the Shepherds! Kill the ones you must, but capture as many as you can! Someone's bound to pay an arm and and leg for people like them…"

Ezra broke out in a stream of hoarse laughter, with the bow knights gathered around him taking that as their cue to depart. Each of them made to follow their paladin counterparts over the northern bridge, leaving Ezra alone to wait in place for the believed to be inevitable wave of reinforcements the tactician would have to support his efforts.

Robin was slowly moving his way up the side of the building he had landed near, heading for its northern edge to where he could only assume its entrance, and his companions, were all located. A griffon rider reared up in the sky above him, preparing for a bombing descent that would promise to damage Robin through sheer force if not penetration.

Quickly firing a moderate burst of wind magic at the slaver's mount, Robin shredded the griffon's wings, forcing it into a sharply pitched fall rather than a diving swoop. The mount and its rider both collided with the stone of the bridge near him, the griffon visibly snapping its head at an impossible angle on impact while the rider failed to jump free of the landing. They hit the ground next to their griffon at the same time and speed, their own bones audibly shattering underneath the force of the hit.

Two paladins reached the far side of the bridge from Robin, stopping as their comrade hit the ground. One of them made to move out again despite the sickening sight the mage had brought about, but was stopped by the outstretched hand of their companion.

Robin had approached them, or rather the collapsed griffon and its rider, his hands raised in front of him in a show of temporary peace. "Can we pause this, just for a second?" he shouted to them. "I want to try something!"

The first paladin attempted to move forward again, but was still held in place by his companion. "Are we seriously going to give him the time to do what he wants?"

"He's a Shepherd. If he really, really wanted to kill us, we'd probably be dead or dying by now." the other paladin said. "Let's see where this goes."

"Hey, do you know if griffons have hollow bones?" Robin shouted to them, and the first paladin's expression turned to a displeased blankness at their shift out of conflict. "It might matter a bit for what I'm about to do!"

"Uh… I think so?" the second paladin shouted back to him, and their companion sighed.

Robin held his free hand up with his fingers in the shape of a circle, showing that he had received their shout. He kneeled next to the griffon and placed away his wind tome, placing both of his hands on the beast as he primed an enchantment. In a last second preparation, he closed his hood around his head as closely as he could, and shifted his legs so that they were completely covered by his cloak.

The griffon exploded in a shower of blood that caused Robin to instinctively scramble away from it, even though he had been expecting the action to some degree. All of the beast's inner elements ran off of his cloak harmlessly, with only a small splash that reached his face sticking to his body, though that too was easily swiped clean. The bridge and rider faired far more poorly than him.

The paladins across from him were caught in a light shower of red, both of their mouths falling open at the sudden eruption of one of their group's mounts.

"What the hell was that!?" the first paladin yelled, barely noticing the blood that fell on their armour and face.

"Wait, wait, I still need to try on the person!" Robin shouted back to them, and slowly approached the blood soaked rider he had felled alongside the griffon.

"Like hell you will!" the paladin roared, and kicked his horse into motion across the bridge. This time, his companion was too dazed to stop him.

Robin stepped away from the second corpse, reaching for his wind tome again as he placed his endeavours in enchanting on hold. Moments before the paladin could reach him, Robin sidelined them with a burst of magic, knocking them off of their mount and into the freezing water of the river. He swapped to his thunder tome and electrocuted the surface of the river, his magic acting more vehemently than a lightning strike and outright frying parts of the stream.

"Godsdamnit, man, I told you…" the remaining paladin muttered, too low for Robin to hear him. He sighed and dismounted his horse, knowing that his other companions would be close enough that they would be able to handle the Shepherds at their own disclosure.

Robin ravaged the river with another powerful lightning spell, ensuring that the fallen paladin was both dead and wouldn't be able to return as a risen. He began to charge a thoron spell as he turned back to the other slaver across the bridge, blinking when he saw that they were in no state to fight him, and even seemed unwilling to do so.

"Consider this a surrender!" the paladin shouted to him, both hands cupped around their mouth after they had dropped their weapon to the ground. "I know you Shepherd types, heroes of goodness and all that! I know you won't-"

He was cut off when Robin's spell tore through the side of his head, sending his instantly lifeless body spinning to the ground. Robin stared at him for a second before deciding that he wouldn't need to be double tapped, and shifted his attention over to the rest of Ezra's forces.

Four bow knights had almost reached the same point as the two paladins, though Robin still had no idea where the other paladins and assorted slavers he had passed on his way to Ezra had gone. The other griffon knight that had caused him to reposition himself had soared clear overhead of him, and was engaged in some kind of fight at the building to which he had sent Kjelle and Anna. The falcon knights had also disappeared, seemingly in the same direction.

Robin glanced over to the bloodied body on the bridge, then back to where Anna and Kjelle were undoubtedly fighting the brunt of the slaver forces. He shook his head and began running in the direction of the eastern building. Science could wait a little while longer, at least until he knew that his friends were safe.

A burst of lightning signalled the end of the second griffon knight. Robin stopped running when he tried to place the location of the attack; he himself had yet to fire any spells for fear of hitting someone he knew.

Another burst of lightning erupted out from behind where the griffon knight had been situated, this one arcing toward a falcon knight soaring through the sky. Anna popped into view a second later, her levin sword flashing brightly before it shot off more lightning and brought down another falcon knight.

The merchant caught sight of Robin when he did the same, and flashed him a quick smile to convey her status. He nodded once and left her to the remaining falcon knights, as well as whatever other slaver forces managed to work their way over to her and Kjelle.

Turning back toward the bridge, which was now in the process of being crossed by the earlier bow knights, Robin strained his eyes in search for Ezra. The man would undoubtedly be the most difficult opponent among his entire group, if Robin's experience with fighting him hadn't already demonstrated his capability.

Now, with the assurance that his friends were safe and that he wouldn't be easily flanked again, Robin would be able to concentrate on taking Ezra down. One of the bow knights reared back to fire a shot at the grandmaster, but succeeded only in hitting his chest, dealing no more than negligible damage.

Robin fired off a bolt of thoron in their direction, not taking the time to aim as he continued searching for Ezra. He spotted him quickly, the slaver having apparently not moved since engaging him, and he returned his attention to where the bow knights were approaching.

He frowned when he realised that his last shot had actually connected, and that the rider he had hit was sprawled on the ground, likely to never rise again. Somehow, the thought that he hadn't seen the hit connect was an unhappy one. He raised his arms over his face to shield the only major unprotected part of his body against a volley of arrows, then fired off three more shots of thunder magic.

Each spell met its target easily, felling them all without remorse. Robin frowned again as he came to accept that these slavers were in no way Ezra's equal, and that the leader himself was likely the only true threat in the entire group, at least to him or most of the other Shepherds. He continued onward warily, knowing that he should never express so much hubris as to disregard the majority of an enemy faction, but finding humility to be difficult to find all the same.

No more slavers opposed him as he made his way to Ezra. By his count, there should still have been over a dozen more somewhere nearby, even including the ones Anna was engaging. Even so, he had no idea where they had gone, and could only assume that they had headed south to loop around on Kjelle and Anna.

Ezra turned to face him as he approached, a frown written clearly across his features. "There's no one out there, is there? No Shepherd ensemble, here to kill us all and undo our wrongs?"

Robin shook his head. "Only myself and a few others. Seems you made a bit of an error and overestimated me, huh?"

"Not at all!" Ezra laughed, his frown morphing into an equally disturbing smile. "If anything, I underestimated you. I mean, being able to take down my entire force with only a handful of people, at best? You're more fearsome than I had thought."

"I'm not like that…" Robin said, though the yellow glow encasing his right hand was more than sufficient a means of contradicting his own words. "One day, hopefully soon, there'll be someone far, far greater than me. Someone worthy of leading this world, and the Shepherds especially, to their greatest heights."

"Yeah?" Ezra said, loading an arrow onto his bow to match the shot being charged by the grandmaster. "You think someone will come along who's more fearsome than you? Hah, wouldn't that be the surprise of a lifetime! Someone who could outmatch the legendary warmonger of Ylisse… sounds like someone I should meet!"

"They won't be more fearsome, or a warmonger!" Robin shouted, earning another bark of laughter from his opponent. "She's not like that… she's strong, strong enough to see everything through to the end! Stronger than me!"

"'She'?" Ezra parroted, grinning. "Sounds like you've already got someone in mind… they out here, today? Once you're a corpse in the ground, I'd love to have a little chat with 'em!"

He fired his arrow, aiming directly for Robin's exposed forehead. Robin met the shot with his own thunder magic, annihilating the arrow in a stream of ether as his spell overpowered the smaller, weaker object.

Ezra shifted his horse out of the way of the shot, nocking an arrow as he went. Robin fired off another thoron spell before he could be shot at again, this time simultaneously battering the sides of Ezra's mount with enough wind magic that he couldn't move out of the way. Ezra's smile gave way to a frown for an instant before returning in full force.

He reared his horse back, forcing it high enough into the air that its chest absorbed the entirety of Robin's spell. Rather than pierce cleanly through the beast, as his thoron casts tended to do with humans or risen, it merely gouged deep into the mount's flesh before being rerouted throughout its entire body. Ezra allowed it to fall to the ground, apparently unfazed by the loss of his mount or the residual shocking, and leapt toward Robin by way of using its lifeless body as an impromptu trampoline.

Robin attempted to loose off another shot before Ezra could reach him, but failed, the slaver tucking into a roll followed by an upward slash that Robin couldn't bring himself to properly trace. He hadn't noticed the man equip his sword, let alone put away his bow. Yet again, his cloak saved him, the slash coming at such an intense speed that he wasn't able to try to move out of its range.

Rather than harm him, the silver blade merely caught on the exterior of his robes. Ezra cursed audibly when the hit failed to properly connect and retracted his sword.

"What the hell is that thing made of!?" he shouted impatiently, diving out of the way of another bolt of magic.

"You were right about the enchantments." Robin explained casually, throwing him off balance with another blanket of wind magic. "I'm guessing it's a step above whatever you've seen, though?"

"You're godsdamn right it is!" Ezra grunted as he dodged another thunder spell, the wind at his feet bringing him to the ground in an awkward collapse. "Who the hell enchanted that, anyway? I've seen my fair share of mages, and their enchantments… no offence, but this crap doesn't seem like something you would be able to pull off. I can't even scratch it!"

"I know, right?" Robin smiled, charging up another powerful cast of magic as Ezra scrambled to his feet against the pull of Robin's wind. "As for who made it… honestly, I'm not sure. Someone powerful, though, that's for certain."

"Seems like it might be worth even more than you, then!" Ezra shouted, attempting to bait him with a feint lunge. Robin didn't fall for it, his wind magic being strong enough to prevent any successful rapid attacks, if not hold his opponent in place completely.

This time, as Robin shot off his thunder magic again and Ezra dodged out of its way, Robin took care to accommodate for the kidnapper's sprawling movements. He aimed for the man's feet, the one part of himself he couldn't easily manipulate out of his spell's path, and one of his shots finally connected.

The magic sheared through the light armour around Ezra's ankle, zapping through flesh and disabling his foot entirely. Ezra gave a rapid shout of pain before he managed to reel in his voice, swapping his sword for his bow faster than he had made his scream.

Robin was ready for him, placing his arms protectively over his face to shield it as he passively charged even more magic. Ezra corrected his aim, and in a final hopeful gambit that he would be able to overcome the grandmaster, fired his arrow into the man's thigh.

Pain met Robin before he realised he had been hit, and he could feel the arrow grating against bone as the shot finally registered in his mind. He screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his leg at the where the arrow had lodged itself, having passed through almost the entirety of his thigh before getting stuck.

"You… you seriously didn't enchant your legs?" Ezra asked through a pleased smile, despite the pain radiating out of his own foot. "Ha! Seems like a bit of an oversight, doesn't it?"

Robin gasped in even more pain as he pulled the arrow from his leg, not caring for the lasting effects doing so would normally cause in a battle as he knew it would be healed soon anyway. Ezra loaded another shot on his bow, aiming for the grandmaster's other leg over his own, both men now laying on their backs.

Robin raised his right hand to fire another shot of magic off at him, and in a last moment of curiosity, Ezra redirected his shot yet again. His arrow collided with Robin's glove, as it had already done once in his attack over the river, but this time the shot pierced clean through Robin's entire hand.

"Agh!" Robin shouted in even more pain, hugging his hand close to his chest. His tome had fallen from his grip after the second shot, and once his nerves had calmed he pulled the arrow out and began to fumble for the book.

"You had your cloak and gloves enchanted separately, one by a piss-poor enchanter, and didn't enchant your leggings at all…" Ezra murmured, slowly rising to a stand without his useless foot. "You're actually a fool, aren't you? Going into a bottle so unprepared, thinking the tiny edge your cloak gave you would be enough… honestly, I'm a little disappointed. Maybe someone better than you really will come along soon, if that's the best you can give."

Robin raised his left hand, his right proving immovable in its horribly wounded state, as he primed a new spell. Ezra chuckled to himself as he nocked another arrow, this time aiming once more at Robin's exposed face.

He fired the arrow at the same time Robin shot off his magic. The arrow collided with Robin's gloved left hand, the undamaged enchantments on the glove he wore proving strong enough to block a single shot, as its pair had. His own nosferatu spell hit Ezra in a haze of purple, the slaver being incapable of dodging in time thanks to his wounded leg.

Ezra collapsed down to all fours as the spell drained his vitality, causing him to cough violently into the ground. Robin's wounds healed as their pain faded, and he casted another nosferatu spell once he had regained full control of his right hand.

"Dark magic!?" Ezra gasped, his energy draining to the point where he wasn't able to raise his head high enough to confirm his suspicion. "You… actually are full of surprises, aren't you? You… ruthless dastard, you…"

Robin casted another, more powerful nosferatu spell, draining the last of Ezra's life into himself. The slaver leader collapsed to the ground in a motionless heap as the spell connected, purple light shifting to green as it transmitted from his corpse to Robin.

Flexing his leg and hand to ensure that there was no remaining damage on either, Robin found both to be as flawless as before he had fought. Accepting that they were in good condition, he returned his attention to Ezra's body, and initiated what he had found to be his preferred method of double tapping - he by no means wanted to face this man as a risen, even if by nature of being undead he was made to be significantly weaker than in life.

Some part of Robin urged him to reconsider, to allow Ezra to rise again in the hopes of somehow getting an even greater fight out of him. He silenced it with the promise of his double tap, and cast his draining spell before the nagging in his mind could act up again. He kept casting nosferatu spells, specialised and regular, one after another until Ezra's body had collapsed into what was effectively nothingness.

Robin stared at where Ezra had been, the slaver's body having been reduced to a deflated husk that could only be called human by a massive stretch of the imagination. He accepted his work as finished and turned to survey his surroundings, casting glances to where Anna had been and where he expected more slavers to appear at any moment.

Anna had moved from her earlier position, though the conglomerate of dead falcon knights that were littering the ground, visible even at Robin's distance, were sign that she likely hadn't been forced to do so. He caught a splash of colour and movement to his southeast, directly south of the building he had sent Anna and Kjelle to, and took out his wind tome to launch off in that direction.

* * *

"Godsdamnit, woman, help us!" A paladin shouted, seconds before he was knocked from his horse by a flaming lance.

Next to him, Andrea merely shrugged, watching him struggle to his feet while his armour glowed in the embers of Kjelle's ranged attack. "Sorry, I'm not really up for it right now. Maybe later, though?"

The paladin cursed and glared at her, turning from where his crew were being torn apart by a magical knight and her trickster friend to where his own comrade was casually brushing him off. "What the hell do you think-!" he started before falling silent, his words catching in his throat as he was hit with a thoron shot from the sky.

Robin touched down several metres behind Andrea, who turned with cautious haste to meet him. She smiled upon recognising that he wasn't one of Ezra's workers, even if she already had no reason to expect that he was.

"Hi, I'm Andrea." she greeted him. "You must be one of the Shepherds, one of the ones who got picked up over the last war. Listen, I was with Ezra up until a little while ago, but I'm not your enemy right now. I'm going to wait right here for you to wrap up your business, and then we can talk, okay?"

Robin stared blankly at the scene in front of him, unsure of how to comprehend what he was seeing. Before him was a mess of uninterpretable grey in the shape of a human, similar to the ones he had seen before on the corpses he had felled, yet somehow entirely different.

Those had been messes of grey, swathes of dumped paint that obfuscated everything in a single, uninterrupted stroke. This was a patchwork of white and grey, tiny particles of opposite shades intermingling to form a barrier that blocked everything from sight; a wall of static.

Robin found it to be equally as terrifying, if less emotionally draining, than the grey he had come to know.

Sound still somehow worked its way through the static, and Robin was able to hear the woman's - or possibly the incredibly effeminate man's, for all he knew - introduction.

"Uh… I'm… Robin." he introduced himself cautiously, though he couldn't tell if his statement got through to whoever was beyond the new grey. "I'm the grandmaster of Ylisse. It's nice to meet you?"

Everything about the person terrified Robin on a level he couldn't hope to understand. Somehow, they seemed erroneous, as though they were a dreadful monster that was never meant to exist, an error that deserved correcting. Whether it was the static grey that urged him to attack the being, or his own volition, the feeling was there - and it was immensely powerful.

He blinked, and the static disappeared. The switch to clarity was as jarring as its presence, and he could feel every muscle in his body tense when the being across from him was given proper form.

"Nice to meet you, too!" Andrea smiled, disregarding his apprehension. "I hope we can work together in the future, Robin. There's a lot I want to do."

She was dressed in the same attire as any of the other falcon knights, bar a helmet that she was holding underneath one arm, and a lance that she had seemingly discarded at some point. Her mount was nowhere to be seen, though Robin doubted that it would have wandered far from her side.

Her features were pleasant, made doubly so by the warm smile and piercing blue gaze that were undoubtedly common for her to be seen with, and Robin knew from a glance that she was only a few years older than himself, at most. Black hair topped her head and reached down to her shoulders, being slightly unkempt yet still somehow elegant in its simple, somewhat haphazard design.

Robin's terror faded, and he found that he had to chastise himself for having been afraid in the first place. Andrea was an ordinary, if unusually upbeat and potentially dangerous, woman. There was no need to fear her any more than Anna, or any of the other Shepherds, and she was probably less of a threat than Kjelle and the other time travellers.

Andrea held out her hand to Robin upon seeing that he was hesitant to leave. The action was intended to be for a handshake, cementing their position as not-enemies, but even then Robin was visibly hesitant to do anything.

He blinked several times, ensuring that the grey static wouldn't be returning anytime soon. Nothing happened, Andrea remaining herself with her arm outstretched in front of her, seemingly without a care for his trepidation or anything else in the world. Robin mimicked her easy smile, reaching out to shake her hand despite the unsettling feeling slowly infecting his entire body.

The static returned the second he touched her. Or rather, when he believed he would have touched her - though he could see the general shape of his hand and another of grey wrap around one another and move up and down, he felt nothing. Andrea's touch itself was nonexistent.

Robin's terror ignited again, but this time he was able to place it and understand its formation. He wasn't afraid of Andrea herself, of the woman across from him who was already proving undeniably likable; he was afraid of the utter nothingness which she represented. Andrea was endearing, but she was void. She was horrible, detestable, and terrifying, while also lovable, warm, and personable.

Andrea was lovely as an abstract, but she was nothing.

The terror overtook Robin, and faster than he knew he was capable he charged and shot off a blast of thunder magic. He didn't know whether it was from his tome or himself, or entirely why he had done it; all he knew was that the void before him was unyielding in its horror and needed to be destroyed.

Andrea toppled over from his attack, completely silent. His magic's sheer power had been more than enough to kill her instantly. The static void that had been in place over her washed away, yet when Robin looked at her again all she was had become the all too familiar grey he had come to know long ago. This version of the grey refused to fade, or make any hasty moves as its counterpart had, instead sinking in place over Andrea's body and promising to be immovable.

Robin froze in place, his hand still outstretched for his handshake, his gaze unmoving from Andrea's lifeless, grey body. Somehow, in a feeling that Robin detested the familiarity of, he found that he didn't entirely care that she had died, and was more concerned by the new and old greys than anything else.

In fact, it seemed like part of him was actively attempting to forget the woman. This forgetfulness was different than usual, though; normally he desired to forget people like her, to push them underneath the familiar shade of grey that promised to hide anything he wanted away in the recesses of his mind.

Now, it was as if the new grey had taken full control over the old one, hiding his memory of Andrea from himself and his grey both. It was an external force, one somehow working to correct some unknowable error that had been made, yet it somehow seemed weak.

It was as though his own grey was counterbalancing him, rooting him in his memory, even if it was actively repressing his memories all the same. Robin found that he simply knew his grey and the new static were opposites, that the static was something beyond him and that it was being countered - but also mimicked and supported - by his grey.

Whatever force the new grey was, it couldn't penetrate the truth that was Robin's grey. Nothing could ever make that grey fade, not even the static. His grey wasn't an ally by any means, but it was nevertheless now acting in opposition to the static.

In enveloping Andrea, Robin's grey had preserved her. He knew that the grey was his own, that it stemmed from somewhere within himself, and deep down knew that it was only his own ability to face the reality of his situation that allowed it to subsist. That truth itself was buried under a layer of repression, though, and he could already feel much of that truth fading away beneath the grey again, alongside whatever had happened to Andrea.

Robin didn't want to forget Andrea. The static was attempting to remove every memory of her that he held, however brief their interaction had been. His grey preserved her, and while he wouldn't necessarily consider it to have saved her, he knew now that her memory would be locked away somewhere within him for eternity.

"So? Not bad, eh?" someone said, a voice Robin knew but couldn't place while he was so distracted by what had been, or what was, Andrea. Kjelle rounded a corner near him, Anna at her side and Noire in tow, and he was then able to place the voice as hers.

"I'll admit, you weren't quite as bad as I was expecting." Anna said, and Kjelle beamed at what she was apparently taking to be praise. "That's not exactly worth celebrating, though. My opinion of you wasn't too high before all of this… or even now, for that matter. You've still got a ways to go."

"I'll take it." Kjelle shrugged and turned from her, only then catching sight of Robin where he stood, oddly dazed, nearby. "Hey, Robin. I think we're all done here, if you want to move out soon."

"Did you meet Andrea?" Robin asked, the intensity in his voice causing her to slow her previously carefree movements. "The woman here… her name was Andrea. Did you see her, or talk to her before she died?"

"Yeah, I spoke to her a little before going back to the building…" Kjelle answered cautiously. Her face brightened and she stepped to her side, revealing Noire, whose eyes widened considerably at the very sight of Robin. "Also, that commotion was one of my friends! Crazy coincidence, huh? Robin, this is Noire, Noire… well, you already know who he is."

Noire nodded and opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted before she could begin by Robin. "Did you talk to her, too?" he asked the archer.

"I… I only ever saw her." Noire said. "She was-" she began, but instantly fell silent, her eyes glossing over as her face turned blank.

"Uh… Noire?" Kjelle asked, waving her hand in front of her friends face. "Are you okay? Noire?"

Noire blinked, her gaze clearing and falling directly on Kjelle. "Huh?" her stare shifted over to Robin, and her eyes widened again. "Kj-Kjelle! Th-That's…! He's actually…!"

"Yeah, I know." Kjelle said plainly, moving to look directly at Noire's face, placing herself between Noire and Robin. "Are you feeling okay? It's not like you to space out like that."

"Space out?" Noire asked, confused. "I didn't space out. You introduced me to Robin, he asked about Andrea, and I said I had only seen her." her voice fell to a whisper as she continued. "A better question is for me to ask what the hell is happening here, that you're with him!? Where's everyone else, and why the hell is he still alive!?"

"It's a long story." Kjelle said. "I'll tell you everything I can soon, but for now, know that we're okay, even near him, for the time being. Things are really, really weird in this time, and I need some help sorting through it all, okay?"

Noire glanced to where Robin was standing and couldn't bring herself to nod. She shifted her attention back to Kjelle and merely stared at her, her own resolution clearly visible in her expression.

"Tell me about Andrea, Noire." Robin ordered, his voice losing the calm serenity he always attempted to exhibit, replacing it with an offsetting coldness.

"...Andrea?" Noire said hesitantly, as if she had already begun to forget the name. "You mean that-"

She stopped speaking abruptly again, her face and gaze becoming blank. Both Anna's and Kjelle's eyebrows shot up at the woman's apparent inability to speak any further, though Robin ensured his gaze remained purely analytical.

"Noire? Are you sure you're okay?" Kjelle asked again, and Noire blinked, not understanding her concern. "You're talking about Andrea, right? The-"

Kjelle, too, froze, and this time Noire was the one who grew most concerned. "Kjelle? Wh-What's happening?" she gripped her friend's shoulders before looking past her to Robin, her gaze and tone both growing accusatory. "What did you do!?"

Robin raised his hands in front of himself, showing his lack of guilt despite being the one to have incited whatever was happening. Kjelle blinked as she regained her faculties, narrowing her gaze on where Noire was holding her shoulders.

"Uh… what are you doing?" she asked her friend, who jumped back slightly.

"You were… Robin did something!" Noire said, looking back to the frowning grandmaster. "It's… I don't know, something about that woman, Andrea! He was able to make your mind freeze up completely!"

"I wasn't the one who froze up, Noire. You were." Kjelle said, not accusing her friend of anything, her concern being more evident than anything else.

"Okay, Noire, one last time…" Robin began calmly, too calmly for her situation to be considered normal or casual. "Who was Andrea? What did she look like?"

"She-" Noire said, mirroring her earlier cutoffs perfectly as her expression grew blank once more. In turn, Kjelle's expression grew all the more concerned, and she had to tap Noire's shoulders to bring the archer back to her senses.

"Hm? Kjelle?" Noire said, confused and only furthering her friend's concern. "What's up? Are you okay?"

Anna glanced over to Robin, silently mouthing 'what the hell is happening?' to him. He shrugged, mouthing back 'I have no idea.'.

"Oh, right, you wanted to talk to me about something, didn't you?" Noire said, though Kjelle's expression remained unchanged. "Are you wanting to talk about it now?"

Robin stepped over to Anna as Kjelle shook her head and tried to reason through what was happening to her friend. Anna stepped away from them to meet him, being as confused as the rest of them as to what was happening before their eyes.

"Did you meet Andrea?" Robin asked her quietly, being careful not to disturb Kjelle and Noire as they continued to speak to one another, one occasionally freezing up and disturbing the other.

Anna shook her head. "All I know is what you've told me, that it's a 'she' and her name is Andrea."

"So… in other words, the same info as them, apparently." Robin muttered, glancing over to where Noire and Kjelle were still struggling to come to terms with what was happening. He turned back to Andrea's body and, seeing that it was still a mess of grey, stepped toward it.

Her features and characteristics were still visible in his memories, albeit slightly muddied by the effects of the grey. Even so, he was able to recall them, even if by nature he despised going against the barriers put in place by his grey, the embodiment of his choices to forget.

Then again, the voice he loved didn't seem very fond of his choices to forget, so maybe he should be looking past the grey.

"Hey, you two. Noire, Kjelle." Robin said, Anna's attention already rapt on him in the hopes that he held some kind of answer. "Can you come look at something for me?"

Kjelle looked over to him, then back at Noire, but ultimately broke away from the archer in the hopes of a conclusion to their disarray. "What is it?"

"The body here. What do you see when you look at it?" Robin gestured, and Kjelle gave it a once over. Noire soon followed her, staying close by her side and away from Robin.

"It's… just a body…" Kjelle said before her eyes lit up. "Oh, wait, no! I've got this! Let's see, there are scorch marks, so… you killed them with fire… no, no, thunder magic. They were a falcon knight, so the spell would have to be pretty strong to bypass their natural magic resistance, so I'm going to guess that this was a little stronger than thoron-tier magic?"

Robin blinked. "Um… I mean, yeah, that's all correct, but it's not exactly-"

"Yes, I got it!" Kjelle pumped her fist into the air emphatically, cutting him off. She turned to Noire, a content smile plastered on her face. "I've started to learn magic. I'm getting better at it, little by little. You know, starting to understand more and more."

"How are you…?" Noire began before her mouth fell open a few centimetres, her voice becoming nothing short of a horrified whisper as she pointed to Robin. "Wait, from him!?"

Kjelle merely shrugged. "He's kinda messed up, but he's not too bad of a teacher for this kind of stuff. I even have my own tome! Kind of. It's more borrowed than anything."

Noire's mouth fell open further at how nonchalant her friend was acting, though she didn't manage to say anything before Robin began speaking again. While him interacting with her friends at all was too much for her to consider, the fact that Kjelle seemed almost friendly with him was far more disturbing.

"This woman is a falcon knight." Robin explained, slow enough that he was sure he wasn't missing any beats himself. "This woman is also Andrea, or was. Therefore, Andrea was…?"

Kjelle stared at him, wounded by how much he was appearing to spoon feed so easy of answer. "Therefore, Andrea was-" she cut herself off before she could finish, her expression growing blank again.

"Therefore, Andrea was a falcon knight." Robin finished for her when it became apparent that she couldn't, and that he was possibly the only one who could.

"Therefore, Andrea was a falcon knight." Kjelle finished as well, her brow knit together in misunderstanding. "What about it?"

"You didn't know that until he said so…" Noire muttered, then turned to Robin. "What kind of spell is this? What have you done to her… to us?"

"First of all, I didn't do this… I think." Robin said. "Second, I'm trying to figure out what's happening. So, could you tell me what colour her hair is, Noire?"

Noire glared at him viciously, but ultimately did as he requested. "Her hair is-"

"Does she have hair at all?" Robin prodded, wondering how much she would be able to know without his intervention.

"Her hair is-" Noire began again, but stopped in the same place. She blinked, apparently clearing her mind, before looking from Robin to the corpse. "Her hair is-" she tried again, but failed.

"Her hair is brown." Robin offered, intentionally feeding her the wrong information.

Noire blinked again, and this time she was able to complete her requested statement. "Her hair is brown. Look, I don't know what you're trying to pull here, but I'm not about to let it keep going on. Kjelle, can we go somewhere private?"

Kjelle held up her hand, refusing and stopping Noire without saying a word. She stepped toward the archer, studying her intently as she muttered to herself. "What the hell…? Do you know what's happening, Robin?"

"No idea. Maybe, vaguely… in the most vague terms of vague terms imaginable." Robin admitted, turning to Anna before she could ask for an explanation. "Anna, can you tell me what colour her eyes are?"

"Uh… probably not, apparently." Anna said. "I can try anyway. I think that her eyes are-" she, too, froze like Noire and Kjelle.

"This is weird as hell…" Kjelle murmured, looking at Anna before returning her attention to Andrea. "It's like… I can see everything about her, but if I try to say it out loud, I can't. Hell, I'm not even sure I can see her."

Robin furrowed his brow in confusion and turned from Anna to her. "Wait, what does that mean? You can see all of her features right now, and know what they look like… but you can't describe them?"

Kjelle nodded. "I can see everything, and I know that it's there and what it is… but I know that if I try to tell you what I see, it'll disappear, and I won't be able to say anything. At least, if Anna and Noire are any indication. I can't remember being asked anything you haven't told us about, but I can remember their questions…"

Robin scratched the side of his head, quite possibly more confused than ever before. The look on Anna's face confirmed that she was experiencing the same disorientation, and while Noire was taking great effort to remain completely stoic, she was undoubtedly undergoing the same.

"I can tell that you were wrong, too. Or maybe lying on purpose." Kjelle continued. "Her hair isn't brown, it's-"

"...Black." Robin finished for her. "Her eyes are blue, by the way." he said to Anna, ending her own intermittent bouts of confusion.

"Her hair isn't brown, it's black." Kjelle said, her eyes widening when she managed to say the entire thing, though her entire face fell an instant later. "You told me that, didn't you? I didn't get it out on my own?"

"Sorry." Robin confirmed her suspicions, and her head fell further with a sigh.

"How are you immune to… whatever this is?" Anna asked Robin, her gaze darting between her three companions and the body.

"Probably because he's the one who made it…" Noire grumbled, though no one else paid her any mind.

"This is going to sound kind of weird, but… I think it's because of the grey." Robin explained, and all three of his companions furrowed their brows in confusion.

Kjelle was the first and only person to understand what he meant. "You mean that stuff about how things seem literally grey to you? How does that make any sense?"

"It's not some kind of colour blindness… though that does happen at times, in a sense, where things seem grey rather than whatever they should be." Robin said, shaking his head clear before he was able to go off on a tangent. "It's more like a feeling, one that I can't avoid no matter what and weighs against me whenever it can. I feel like it, or maybe the cause of it, is somehow acting against whatever's making it impossible for you all to remember anything until I tell you."

"So this wonderful 'grey' is protecting you from what's happening here?" Noire asked pointedly. "Doesn't that sound like an amazing thing to have for no reason…"

"It's not wonderful. Not at all." Robin corrected her, though her frown told him that she didn't value anything he said more than the dirt at her feet. "It's not a good thing to have. Even now, where it's kind of helping me, there's still so much wrong about it."

"What, exactly, is so wrong about it?" Noire asked, and Robin visibly flinched at the question.

Kjelle watched both him and Noire, her gaze swapping between them before she sighed and resolved herself to a course of action. "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to, Robin. It'll all come out in the final duel anyway, right?"

"Then I won't say anything." Robin said, turning away from each of his companions almost shamefully.

Noire found that her mouth was caught halfway between falling completely open and being part of the most intense scowl she had ever given. "What? Kjelle, what are you saying? Why are you acting like… like…" she trailed off, leaving Kjelle to only guess as to what she had meant to say.

"In any case, I think that knowing about Andrea is somehow linked to some other stuff I know. Stuff I can't actually share with any of you yet." Robin said. "When the time comes, everything will probably make sense. At least, I hope so. Until then, I don't think there's anything I can say or do to have any of this make sense to all of you… so… yeah. Sorry."

"As long as it makes sense in the end, I suppose." Kjelle sighed, and Noire found that she was glaring at her friend.

"Thanks for understanding." Robin smiled, and Kjelle found that she couldn't help but smile in return, despite how infuriating it always was not knowing his answers.

Anna clapped her hands together, drawing their attention to her own nonplussed smile. "Well, I'm okay with that resolution, I guess. Probably a better excuse than whatever answer I would ever be able to come up with. Anyway, I've got some scaveng- no, wait, that sounds too bad. I've got some… ah… corpses to… no, that sounds bad, too…"

She sighed, resolving that she didn't need to bother trying to be eloquent around her new companions. "I'm going to go loot some dead bodies. It'll probably take me about an hour or so, but we can move out after then."

"Are you going to have space for more things?" Robin asked, concerned for how easily they would be able to travel with an even larger load. Noire was completely flabbergasted by how easily each person was willing to move on from what had happened, with even Kjelle seeming to not entirely care about their periods of memory loss.

"I'll make space." Anna smiled, and in a flourish of her overly elegant cape, dashed to the nearest corpses and began to take all of their weapons and personal effects.

Noire stared at the woman she had once revered in horror, forgetting herself how unsatisfactory Robin's answer had been. She turned to Kjelle, who merely shrugged.

"She's actually kind of adamant about being different than what we knew." she explained. "It's weird, at times, and moderately messed up, but it's something we're going to have to get used to."

She turned to Robin, who was still studying Andrea's body as though it held some manner of unforseen answer. "Hey, can you handle the double tapping solo for today? There's a lot she and I need to catch up on."

Robin didn't turn away from the corpse, unsuccessfully willing the grey to disappear. "Hm? Oh, uh, sure. Make sure to tell her about our mission and everything too, yeah? See if she wants to help?"

"I was already planning on it." Kjelle grinned, though Noire was still staring, not believing what she saw, at Anna. The merchant had moved on to her third body by the time Kjelle and Noire had left in the direction of the cart and Robin's horse, amazing Noire with her speed more than her callous nature.

* * *

Over the next few hours, Robin saw to double tapping all of the slaver forces while Anna set about looting each and every body. They both finished their tasks before Kjelle had fully informed Noire of what had happened since departing their future together, and so had joined back with them at Anna's wagon as they were wrapping up.

"So you've been here, in Ferox, for two years? And you never once tried to do anything in the Plegian war?" Noire asked Kjelle, having waited until the knight had finished her summaries before speaking at all.

"Yeah, I don't really know why I didn't do anything, at least in hindsight." Kjelle said. "I mean, now I can tell how wrong it was to sit by and not do anything, even though my knowledge of what was happening was incredibly limited. At the time, though, I was perfectly content not doing anything."

"Because you wanted to be happy, even though protecting the people you love is horribly out of character for you." Robin muttered, almost causing Kjelle to jump, having not noticed his approach and assumed for him to have still been at the Kidnapper's Keep. "It's almost like you were being acted on by an outward force you couldn't know about… one that wanted you to stay out of the war…"

"What? You're saying something influenced me to keep me in Ferox?" Kjelle asked. "That I have no idea what it was doing?"

"Er, no, I'm just… spitballing theories here." Robin said meekly. "To be sure, though, you never once thought about going to Ylisse? Ever?"

"I definitely thought about it." Kjelle said, and he frowned, part of his many theories proving impossible already. "It's that whenever I did, it was like I stopped caring. I knew that horrible things were happening, even if I didn't know the specifics, but whenever I wanted to go I found everything around me to be so good that I couldn't."

She winced, her hand moving up to her forehead. "Wait… what was so good about it all? Why didn't I leave?" she turned to look at Robin, concern and confusion written across her face. "What… what was my teacher's name? I can't remember it, or his wife. She was there, they were both there… gods, what did they look like? I can't…"

"Kjelle, are you okay?" Robin asked, attempting to move toward her to somehow help her, though Noire's glare and subsequent helping hand of her own stopped him. "I never got your teacher's name, and he and his wife died before I bothered to really study their looks. Are you saying you can't remember them?"

"I don't…" Kjelle muttered, her hand moving away from her head as she steadied her gaze. "Er, sorry about that. I don't know what came over me. Anyway, Robin, you were saying?"

Robin and Noire both blinked. "Uh… nothing. Sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted."

Kjelle merely shrugged, fully not caring about what had happened, though this time she at least seemed to remember the ordeal. Noire stared at her for a second before muttering something more about Robin and magic. Anna appeared at the grandmaster's side a moment later, no weapons or trinkets on hand.

"Ah, lady Anna… or, I guess, just 'Anna'." Noire greeted, and Anna smiled her signature smile in response. "Kjelle's been here for two years, and you and your sisters got this job to find us all a year ago, right?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right." Anna nodded.

"But I've only been here for about two months." Noire murmured, loud enough for them all to hear.

Anna was the first time react. "Wait, what? Then… how did Flavia know about you so long ago?"

"It's possible she talked things through with Lucina, though even she probably didn't know where Noire would be if she hadn't appeared yet…" Robin muttered, Noire's eyes widening at his casual use of her proper name regardless of how Kjelle had informed her of how much he knew. "Then there's also… uh… a certain you-know-who, though they too probably wouldn't know about something like that." he said, directing the statement more to Kjelle than Anna.

"You mean that traitor you made up?" Noire said, assuming what he meant from what Kjelle had shared with her.

Robin recoiled slightly. "You told her?" he asked Kjelle, the act of doing so apparently being a betrayal of the miniscule trust formed between them. "What if she's the traitor, and now we won't be able to catch her?"

"There is no traitor, Robin." Kjelle sighed, dismayed that he had yet to give up on his wild notion.

"I'm sorry, 'traitor'?" Anna asked both Robin and Kjelle.

"There's someone who's acting against everyone's best interests here, and I think they're from the future." Robin explained, leaving out anything too specific.

"None of my friends would do anything like that." Noire said. She glared over at Kjelle. "Though apparently, some would be perfectly content leaving the world to its hell…"

"I really don't think it was her fault." Robin defended Kjelle before she could do the same. "Right now, I'm thinking it might be Naga's."

"You're thinking that Naga was the one who somehow kept me in Ferox?" Kjelle asked, eager for the change away from what she still considered to be a fault all her own.

"And the one who made Noire appear only recently, and probably gave Lucina knowledge to relay to the Khans." Robin said. "Think about it, who else could possibly know where Noire would appear before she arrived? Naga has the power to send you through time, so she probably has the ability to decide when and where you go, too… she may have messed up Kjelle's placement or time, and so had to keep her in Ferox until recently."

"What benefit would it be to Naga to keep me away from the war, though?" Kjelle wondered aloud. "I could have saved Emmeryn, and Phila, even Gangrel…"

"Lucina didn't do anything major like that either, at least based on what you told me." Noire said. "She was the only one of us all who ever had a direct connection to Naga. Maybe there was a reason Naga wanted for things to play out like they have?"

Kjelle rubbed her chin before sighing and stretching her arms. "It's possible, I guess. Hell, maybe Naga was the one who made Lucina not use Falchion, or ordered her to not convince anyone about our future."

"Maybe she wanted us all to stay safe and hidden until the time was right." Noire added on. "Maybe she wanted all of us to stay out of the fighting until Robin comes by, meets us all, and we're able to kill him. Until now."

Robin rubbed his chin. "Hm… yeah, actually, that makes a lot of- wait, was that a threat?"

Noire glared at him "I'm not about to pretend that I know why Kjelle hasn't killed you herself yet, but I know that I'll do all I can to end you. To save everyone, to save my family - who, apparently, haven't gotten together yet because of you. You haven't even found my father."

"Are you going to try to fight me, too?" Robin sighed, and Noire's glare intensified into a glower.

"I know that Kjelle's attempts didn't work out very well, but I'm still going to try!" Noire said, her determination shining through for everyone to hear.

"You've got some interesting friends." Anna muttered to Robin. "Why would Flavia want you to find people who want to kill you?"

"Maybe she didn't know." Robin shrugged. "If Lucina was the one to help her out with everything, then maybe she, Lucina, left out that part of the story, and merely requested for me to be the one to find them in the hope that they would kill me."

"But that means Flavia was lying again…" Anna said, and Robin raised an eyebrow. "She said that Gaius found them before she showed us their info. Why would she lie to protect Lucina? She would've had to know that I would find out eventually, right? Or… maybe she didn't think you would recruit me?"

She furrowed her brow on him. "Why did you recruit me, anyway? I know, everything with the other Anna led you to me and all that, but why were you trying to recruit her? Did Flavia ask you to?"

Robin shook his head. "Flavia wanted us to handle some problems out here, like Ezra and the slavers as well as the bandits from before, but recruiting you was… uh… in line with the future."

"Did Kjelle want to recruit me, then?" Anna asked, thinking that was the only reasonable conclusion she could reach.

"Uh… kind of." Robin said. "She thought there was already an Anna with the Shepherds. I wanted to recruit you because the trai-... it's complicated, okay?"

"...Right." Anna said slowly, turning her attention away from the grandmaster and toward the two time travellers at a more measured pace.

"Hey, can we have a little moment of privacy here?" Kjelle asked as soon as Anna had finished, gesturing to Noire unnecessarily. "There's one more thing I want to go over with her."

Noire raised her eyebrows at the new matter, wondering what she couldn't say in front of the others and why she hadn't bothered to say it while they had been gone. Anna and Robin both complied, Anna shrugging as she walked back to her wares as Robin moved over to his own items on his horse.

Kjelle watched them move out, waiting until they were both far enough away that they wouldn't be able to overhear her, then guided Noire a few metres even further out. Noire regarded her cautiously, yet with more curiosity than when she had been explaining her time with Robin and the Shepherds.

"So, you understand what I was trying to get at with most of what I was saying, right?" Kjelle began. "That the Shepherds like Robin, and that I haven't killed him yet for a reason?"

"Though you never told me what that reason was." Noire reminded her, unintentionally cold.

"It's because I think that somehow, part of him is still good in some way, and I think that part of him can be helped to overcome the bad. That he's opposed to Grima, and is working to overcome that evil." Kjelle said. "I really, really need for you to understand that before I tell you what I'm thinking, okay?"

"Okay…" Noire agreed tentatively, though she didn't understand or believe exactly what her friend was claiming.

Kjelle took a deep breath before continuing. "I don't remember whether or not the one in our time had it, but this Robin has amnesia, right?"

Noire nodded and allowed her to continue. "You remember how I told you that he said something about hating 'loving all of this' when we were about to fight people a few days ago, right? And how he wants to actively forget something he knows?" Kjelle said.

Noire nodded again.

"Well, after that failed portal I told you about, I think I realised something about who he is, and how he's related to our time." Kjelle said, her tone growing more hushed with every passing second. Noire leaned in as though she were about to share a clandestine secret.

"I think that he's the Robin from our time."

Noire blinked rapidly. Her jaw dropped open before she managed to get any sound out of her mouth. "What!?"

Kjelle shushed her, casting a glance back to Robin and Anna to ensure that neither had heard her friend's outburst. "He has the power to make a portal, something only Naga has been able to do - and maybe Grima, her opposite equal. If he's the Robin from our time, then he'd already have all of Grima's power, and would be able to do something like that."

"The thing is, he still failed at making the portal." Kjelle continued. "If we buy the thing about him having amnesia, then I think there's actually a solid timeline we can establish: he follows us to the past, arriving earlier than any of us. He uses his powers to enchant his own cloak and writes a book to himself, the one he currently thinks is from a traitor. Then, he messes with his own memories, ensuring that whatever bad stuff he did is lost or sealed away or whatever, allowing him to act in the best interests of the Shepherds. Part of his power, or at least his knowledge about things like us and the portal, are sealed away as well."

"That sounds so… convenient." Noire said, her tone rapidly becoming venomous. "Everything that's happened, everything he's done, he simply doesn't remember? And to you, that somehow exonerates him!? Don't you remember everything that he's done to us, to our time and our families!?"

"I remember what he's done as well as anyone else." Kjelle said, her tone cold and hardened. "What I'm saying is that, maybe, something can be done about it. Something that isn't necessarily killing him. It may be possible to help him."

"Why!? Why would you ever think that someone like him, the literal destroyer of the world, could be helped!?" Noire shouted, though Robin and Anna had still somehow yet to notice.

Noire's tone was growing more impatiently furious. "Can't you remember anything at all!? How the ashes of Ylisstol burned into our skin while we were running away, how sunlight had started to fade from all the fires he had created, from everything we loved that he was burning? How the Shepherds themselves died, one by one, trying to save us? What about Frederick's and Aversa's accounts, telling us all about how he had betrayed everything we and the Shepherds ever stood for!?"

"I told you, I know what happened! It's not something I'm ever going to forget." Kjelle said, raising and lowering her voice unsteadily. "I just… I think that there's something else to be done, or at least tried."

"Think back, Kjelle. Harder than you are now." Noire ordered coldly. "Remember how he killed the last Shepherds. Hell, probably all of them from before that point too, for all we know. Think back to how we were forced to run because we simply couldn't hope to face him when he had so much power. Think back to how horribly we all cried, knowing that we were leaving everything we had behind in the vain hope that we could somehow change something, and now that we have the opportunity you-"

"Except Lucina." Kjelle cut in. "Lucina never cried, not once. Not even when the world was dying."

Noire blinked, the glare she had been using to appraise her friend giving way to uncertain confusion. "What?"

"Lucina… she was too strong to show a shred of weakness, even when everything and everyone else was breaking apart at the seams." Kjelle said. "I don't think that she would be able to save this version of Robin from Grima. Even she would want to kill him… which, if push comes to shove, I'll be the one to do anyway. It's an agreement we have, that I get strong enough to the point where I could kill him, and then we have a final fight. If I haven't helped him by then, I'll be the one to kill him."

Noire blinked again, her mouth falling open. "That's what this is about? You're perfectly fine with letting Robin live and potentially destroy the world just so you can prove that you're stronger than Lucina!? Are you insane!?"

"She's always been so strong." Kjelle said, disdain lining her voice. "Always so powerful, so perfect, as though she- good gods, I sound as perpetually jealous as Severa right now, don't I?"

"Little bit." Noire nodded.

"Shit." Kjelle groaned. "I still want to prove myself, though. I know that I can overcome him, that wanting to grow stronger and kill him on my own isn't some pipe dream. I have to prove that I'm not weaker than Lucina, or anyone."

"We all already know how strong you are, Kjelle." Noire said, her colder, scornful tone disappearing entirely. "No one would ever doubt that you're one of the strongest people from our time, or maybe even ever, if you keep training like you were in the future. You need to understand that working with, relying on, and helping others doesn't make you weak."

"You sound like Lucina. And Robin." Kjelle laughed dryly.

"I'll take that as a half-compliment, I suppose." Noire said. "So, Kjelle, please, trust and rely on your friends, on me, even if it's just this one time. Help me kill Robin."

Kjelle stared at Noire before closing her eyes with a sigh. "Fine. Let's try it one time. After that, I'm going to make sure that I myself get strong enough to defeat him, whether or not I have friends like you to rely on."

"You'd better give this your all, though." Noire said, and Kjelle nodded. "Good. Well then, how should we go about this? Do you think an arrow to the head is too simple?"

"I can go ask for a fight between him and us." Kjelle proposed, and Noire tilted her head. "He probably won't say no… probably. If he did, it's not like we couldn't start attacking him; he'd be forced to defend himself."

"Why would you ever tell him that we're going to try to kill him?" Noire asked.

"Uh… etiquette, and… honour, I guess?" Kjelle said, though Noire's gaze was as unbelieving and disapproving as she had ever seen. "Look, it doesn't matter. I'd feel bad about killing someone utterly unaware. I still don't buy that he's completely evil, either."

Noire's stare at her didn't shift in the slightest until the archer sighed heavily. "Fine. Why don't you go grab your lance, and then we can- wait, no, you said he enchanted that; he could have put some kind of evil Grima curse on it. How about you get one of those other weapons you said you picked up, and I'll go get a bow, and we can fight him, okay?"

"Sure. I could use the practice with different weapons anyway." Kjelle agreed, and began to move out to where her weapons sat at the rear of Anna's payload.

"Not practice, Kjelle. This is life or death." Noire reminded her, following her to the wagon to find a bow and quiver of arrows, having not bothered to retrieve her own from Ezra after the battle.

For a second, Kjelle tensed, considering whether or not her friend was actually correct. While she hadn't been any danger to Robin solo, and in turn he hadn't been a danger to her, it was entirely possible that she and Noire combined could push him too far and bring out a more vicious side of the grandmaster, like the one who she had come to fear in her future past.

The second passed, and she cleared her head of the ridiculous thought that he would act any differently from their previous fights. Knowing him, they would probably be finished dueling in time to train some more, make something to eat, and get to sleep soon enough to start their next day of journeying early in the morning.

She actively avoided the thought that they may be able to kill him, both for fear that he would be killed before she could prove herself, and for fear that someone else would be the one to end him.

Kjelle found her weapons faster than Noire, bringing a sword and axe with her in addition to her silver lance. If things truly did go someplace dire, she would rather be facing Robin with a familiar weapon than one with which she had barely trained. She left Noire to find her own weapons, making her way to Robin to initiate their fight.

The grandmaster and Anna had both moved away from their original positions, being now only a few metres from one another as they set about preparing a campsite. Anna had set to work on constructing tents while Robin had begun to prepare some light food over what appeared to be a magical fire, seemingly not accepting how poorly his previous foray into magical cooking had gone.

"Hey, Robin." Kjelle greeted, and he looked up from his work to see her with an easy smile that managed to make her uncomfortable about what she and Noire were about to do.

"What is it?" he asked, fully unsuspecting and seemingly carefree.

Kjelle breathed deeply, attempting unsuccessfully to mitigate the effect his smile had on her. "Noire and I want to-" she was cut off when an arrow whizzed past her shoulder, Noire showing that she had found a bow and ammunition by firing on Robin.

Hurriedly raising his hands as his easy expression was replaced with shock, a development Kjelle found she had to wince at, Robin managed to cast a weak wind spell an instant before the arrow connected with his head. He didn't manage to slow it completely, though he slowed it enough that it merely bonked harmlessly against his temple.

He caught the projectile before it could fall to the ground. "What's this? Uh, are you…?"

"We're gonna try to kill you now." Kjelle confirmed, almost bashful at having to make the statement.

"Um… thanks for the warning? Is it okay if we-" he slowed another arrow, this time being more successful than the last. "-can we eat first? I think I'm almost onto something with magical cooking… maybe."

"I think I would have better chances cooking us all gourmet meals right now than you succeeding with that, and I'm a notoriously bad chef." Kjelle laughed. Robin smiled and rose from his spot next to what he had apparently intended to be a fire, casually blocking a third arrow as he went.

"Alright, then." he said, unfazed. "Let's do this away from the campsite, though. I don't want to damage anything we have too badly."

"Fine by me." Kjelle agreed, having to turn back to Noire when she fired yet another unsuccessful shot. "Hey, Noire? We need to find somewhere to fight properly. You can stop with the arrows for a bit."

Noire, her face still set in determined anger at Robin, fell into a scowl from her friend's resoundingly relaxed behaviour. Robin picked up and tossed her back her failed arrows, and she caught the bundle he had formed with a single deft hand, ignoring the man's untroubled smile.

"Ooh, ooh, wait for me!" Anna piped up, abandoning her tent constructing duties as she rushed back to her wagon to grab a bag colour coded to match her clothing. She then rushed back to the other three, her trademarked smile never leaving her face. "Sorry, had to grab some vulneraries and elixirs. Don't want anyone actually dying out there now, do we?"

"Well, actually…" Noire began carefully. "That's kind of…"

"We really, really don't want anyone to die out there, do we?" Anna reiterated slowly, steadily enough that her meaning couldn't be lost.

"Whatever you say." Noire agreed calmly, too readily compliant to be considered genuine.

"After all, it's not like Chrom will accept a blank cheque from a dead tactician… will he?" Anna followed up, dampening the slightly warm feeling Robin had developed thinking that she may genuinely desire to help him.

"I didn't say it would be a blank cheque…" Robin muttered. "At least, not in the way you're thinking."

Anna shrugged. "Close enough. Who knows, Chrom might not know the difference."

Robin opened his mouth to counter her, but stopped and closed it when he realised that she may be correct. Issuing or receiving cheques would be more in line with Frederick's duties, or possibly his own, rather than something worth bothering Chrom over.

Kjelle led the others, almost aimlessly, toward the direction of the Kidnapper's Keep, believing that the battleground would be as good for their confrontation as any other, not to mention better than fighting in open plains, forests, a snowfield, or anywhere else where Robin's magic and mobility would grant him an advantage over her. She was proved wrong before she could pass any of the bridges leading further in.

"Is this place… covered in blood?" she asked, not believing when her eyes told her that every visible section of wall and ground was coated in red. "What the hell-?"

"I had to double tap the bodies, and I wanted to learn more about enchantments, so I combined the two." Robin explained.

"It was a pain having to douse whatever cool things I found in the aftermath in the river to clean them." Anna added, unfazed by the sight. "Ah well, loot is loot and profit is profit. I shouldn't complain."

"You seriously kept trying that stuff out? Really?" Kjelle asked as she surveyed beyond the spaces touched by blood for a suitable battlefield, though the task was proving difficult in the growing gloom of night.

"You melted all of those bodies with enchantments…?" Noire breathed, more disgusted than she was amazed. "Why? What reason would you have to something like that beyond your own desire?"

"Actually, 'exploded' is more proper of a term for it." Robin said. "Though I did learn from it, surprisingly enough. If the enchantment is too strong for the host, they explode. Too weak, nothing happens. There's a sweet spot in between that causes the body to melt. I don't think there's a way to actually enchant a living being, at least based on the results I got from here, since everyone would have died had they been alive."

"So no enchanted super soldiers." Kjelle surmised. "What about combat ability, then? Like exploding enemies instead of fighting them normally, or something?"

"And you were complaining about how eager I was to want to weaponise stuff…" Robin muttered before shaking his head. "There's nothing for it. The only way an enchantment like that could be pulled off would be if you could touch their skin for several seconds, possibly longer for most people if the enchantment has to be strong enough to kill. I don't think any trained enemies, or even risen, would allow that to happen."

"Hexes would probably work better." Noire chimed in, smiling at her ability to share some of her knowledge despite her situation. "If the intent is to harm or defeat someone, then they'd definitely work better than enchantments… though there's still the problem that most people are resilient enough to overcome anything practical."

"Hm… I've never been one for hexes." Robin said dismissively. Before anyone could notice the massive change in his behaviour, he raised his right hand and conjured a swarm of fires to light the darkened landscape, drawing attention away from himself in the process.

Noire tensed and gripped her bow, thinking that he was moving to attack her or Kjelle. On the other hand, Kjelle gave no indication that she was scared or shocked in any way, merely allowing the fires to fly out and illuminate her surroundings, helping her in her search for an area to fight.

"How about out there?" Kjelle pointed north, upstream of the river to an area coated in snow and surrounded by forests.

"Fine by me." Robin said. "No copious amounts of blood, open space for some nice spells, trees to hide from arrows or use to get an edge up on you in terrain… seems good for me."

"Then it'll have to be even better for us." Noire said emphatically, pressing on toward their new destination with the others soon following her lead.

As they all approached the open field, Anna curved off from the rest of the group. She found a waist-high ledge near where they had exited the keep, one that stuck out so irregularly that whether or not it was natural was debatable, and brushed away some loose snow from it before sitting down. Her bag found its way to the side of the ledge next to her, sitting atop a small amount of snow she didn't necessarily care about.

Noire and Kjelle both moved out across the open plain, nearing the forest at the far end before they stopped, ensuring that they could use the copious pine trees as cover from his spells at a moment's notice. Several of his fires still lit their path, but as the moon crept higher and higher into the sky, it proved bright enough for their purposes and he soon ended his magic.

No clouds were obscuring the sky when they were finally prepared to fight, moonlight acting like a second, calmer sun, lighting the ground around them extraordinarily well. As the last of Robin's fires faded, he found that he could see Kjelle and Noire almost as easily as during the day, albeit in less vibrant colour.

He looked back to where they had entered the plain from, and found himself frowning. The river had previously run toward them before breaking into small trickles and then disappearing entirely into the swarm of loosely fallen snow lining their location, but not anymore. Rather, it was running away from them - water was trickling out from somewhere underneath the snow, seemingly without pause, and gave no indication of continuing into the surrounding forests.

Robin stomped his foot experimentally, the snow around him already reaching up to the top of his boot before he lifted it up. His foot slid when he pressed down, the snow being loose enough to fail at shielding the massive slab of slippery ice underneath.

Further across from him, Noire and Kjelle were fully prepared to fight, with Noire thumbing the string of her bow compulsively while Kjelle gave her sword a few preemptive swings. Robin grinned as a new plan for overcoming them formed in his mind. He whipped out his wind tome and knelt in the snow.

"I'm ready now!" he shouted to his opponents, wanting to pull off his magical and strategic show of strength but also not wanting to jeopardise the integrity of their match. Not after Kjelle had been so unnecessarily kind as to inform him of their fight.

Kjelle held up one of her hands to show that she had heard him, though he had already returned his attention to thawing the ice at his feet. She turned to Noire, who had begun to load her bow and train it on his body.

"I can get in close and try to throw him off balance with some close quarters combat." Kjelle suggested. "Then you should be able to season him with arrows, all without having to leave the safety of the forest, once I give you an opening."

"How will I be able to get that opening, though?" Noire asked, aiming at Robin with her bow before lowering it and turning to address her friend. "I don't think I can get a clear shot on him now, especially not with his cloak. You being nearby would make this a lot more complicated."

"It's not like we can take him down separately. Or, at least, I couldn't." Kjelle said. "If possible, get closer until you can get shots off. Just stay safe, okay? I don't think he'll go too far, but anything's possible,especially if we go hard."

"You don't need to worry about me." Noire smiled. "I may not be as strong as you, but I'm certainly not weak, either. Now, let's go kill Robin, okay?"

Kjelle winced slightly at the casual conviction in her voice, but nodded nonetheless. She took a deep breath, then began to run toward Robin, trusting that neither he nor Noire would put her in any undue danger as she was dashing out toward the opposite end of the plain.

As soon as she stepped foot on the same area as Robin, she could tell that something was wrong. For starters, she could actually tell that it was a different area, with her feet losing purchase and sliding under the added pressure of her more intense movements.

There was also the fact that Robin was still kneeling in the snow for reasons she couldn't determine. He had brought his left forearm up to cover the majority of his face, shielding it against plumes of steam that were continuously shooting upward. His left hand held his thunder tome, his green wind tome also barely visible atop the snow he had set it in.

As Kjelle struggled to maintain her footing and momentum on what she now recognised to be ice, Robin finally looked up from his work and smiled disconcertingly at her. Noire had followed her closely, but was now lagging behind, struggling more than her to remain upright on the ice after having sprinted onto it full force. Apparently, Kjelle's order for her to stay as far behind as possible had gone wholly unheeded.

"There's another thing you should know about magic, and strategy in general." Robin spoke through his smile, rising from where he had knelt. He grabbed his tomes and used wind magic to dash further away from Kjelle's impending reach.

"The key to winning against more seasoned opponents, or even newer ones, is to keep things unexpected." he said. "Keep trying out new strategies or attacks, even if your old ones work, because eventually your enemies will learn how to overcome them."

Kjelle gradually slowed to a sliding stop near where he had been kneeling. She saw that he had managed to cut, burrow, and melt his way through the thick ice beneath them, a small hole no larger than her fist and approximately the length of her forearm piercing the layer of frozen water at her feet. An eerie yellow-orange light was glowing somewhere underneath a massive supply of dark water that shuddered under the frigid surface.

Robin had placed away his thunder tome within his robes, keeping it close at hand for the next phase of his plan. He began to read directly from his wind tome, taking care to ensure he had read the passage correctly before amplifying and manipulating the cast for his own purposes.

The mere fact that he was taking so much care with his spell, something he had rarely done since meeting her, gave Kjelle cause for concern. She backed away from the hole he had made and stabilised her footing, wholly expecting him to unleash some grand spell that she decided she would be better off weathering rather than fighting against.

Robin finalised his cast, waving his hand out in a wide, unnecessarily grandiose arc that was mostly for the sake of showmanship. A powerful wind washed over the plain, whisking away all of the loose snow that lined the area and revealing beneath their feet an utterly massive frozen lake.

The wind wasn't powerful enough to destabilise Kjelle, though Noire didn't fare as well and had to wobble back to her already insecure position on the ice. Though the surface atop the lake was thick, there was clearly liquid water underneath the topping, with unnatural yellowish auroras shining up through the ice from equally unnatural balls of light.

To look down at the ice now proved blinding, so while Kjelle would have preferred to glance down and check her footing, the unrelenting yellow waves of light washing up to her made such action impossible.

Anna silently applauded the sight before committing it to memory, knowing a profitable portrait when she saw one. At the same time, she knew to pull her bag nearer to herself, foreseeing how brutal her companions' fight would soon become if Robin was preparing such a unique spell.

While Kjelle couldn't look down, the edges of her vision revealed to her that Robin had used his hole in the ice to launch a series of balls of magic, similar to the flares he had used in the past. Each was humming in some unknowable rhythm, the feeling being only slightly noticeable as it transmitted through the ice, and they had collectively spread out in a web under the entirety of the lake.

"Now then, let's see if this keeps things unpredictable." Robin grinned, equipping both of his tomes to his left hand, keeping them available as a source for his magical power without the need to open either.

He waved his hand out in front of himself, and this time a horde of the lights swarmed toward the outer edge of the lake, lining its perimeter. For a second, Kjelle thought that he may have simply finished his display at that instant, that his entire play was to light their arena and use its blinding radiance to his advantage.

Then the submerged flares exploded. All at once, the magic lining the perimeter burst, fracturing the ice and shooting geysers of steam high into the sky. The web of lights under the centre of the ice, away from the perimeter, remained untouched.

The entirety of the laketop ice shifted, slanting one way and then another as the slab of ice broke free from its frigid connections to the shore. Part of the ice, far from any of them and near the river that fed down to the Kidnapper's Keep, fractured further and began to float downstream.

Kjelle flailed her arms out to balance herself as the ice plate broke free, ultimately falling to her knees to avoid face planting. Noire did the same, though with less grace as she attempted to keep her bow shakily trained on Robin the entire time.

Robin was fine as he stood, with each wobble or spin of the sheet of ice failing to make his feet shift in the smallest of degrees. Whenever it tried to destabilise him, a burst of wind magic met his lower legs and feet, holding him forcefully upright at the cost of his full mobility and his constant need to concentrate on keeping the spell active. With the need to sustain and move his thunder flares constantly, as well as secure his footing with his wind magic, he was incapable of letting go of his tomes for fear of losing the additional power and control they offered him.

Kjelle rose to a stand on wavering legs, and found that she had to rely on her sword as a support to stay in place. Eventually, the shifting stopped, and she was able to stand properly again despite her constant sliding and hesitation in stepping.

Robin smiled to her again, though she could barely see it through the brightness that was shining up from the lake. "Well, this'll be interesting, yeah?"

"That's one way of putting it." Kjelle replied, her voice wavering between a shout and normal speech to ensure that she would be heard.

An arrow soared past her, avoiding her by a large margin and connecting with Robin's chest. His cloak protected him from any serious harm, but Noire's signal to advance and attack was clear all the same.

Even so, Kjelle held back on attacking.

"How do you think this is going to end?" she asked Robin, not moving at all from where she was standing. "What happens if we start to win, here and now, without our final fight or anything else?"

"You won't win." Robin replied simply. It wasn't a threat, or goading, or anything of the sort; he was simply giving his honest opinion. The same way in which Lucina would tell her of how she had lost their duels before beginning.

"But what if we do?" Kjelle asked, now indignantly. "If we manage to defeat you here, if we end up killing you, are you going to die hiding what you know? The secret of the 'traitor'?"

"What do you care? I thought you didn't believe in their existence?" Robin said.

"You know something. Something about our time, or… something." Kjelle said. "You need to let us know what that is."

 _You need to tell us that we're wrong._ she added silently to herself. _Both of us, Noire_ _and I. You need to tell us that you're not the one who destroyed our time and our families. You need to let us know that you're not guilty of everything_ _that happened… please…_

She cleared her mind of her idle thoughts by the time Robin had processed her statement. Behind her, she could already tell that Noire had prepared another arrow, and that she was waiting for an opportune moment to strike.

Robin frowned at her, his grip on his tomes tightening. "Let's get this over with."

Kjelle, too, frowned, though the expression faded when she sighed and prepared to fight. If he wasn't going to reveal the truth he was hiding, be it beneficial or not, then conflict was unavoidable.

Robin pulled out his levin sword without using his left hand, taking care to keep the tomes in his direct possession at all times. He crouched low to the ice and then sprang in her direction, using his wind magic to keep himself stable and then as propellent to soar over the surface of the lake.

Kjelle braced for his attack, knowing she would fail to dodge out of the way properly while she was sliding around. She managed to plant her sword in the ice in his path, and accepted that his levin sword would shock her in return for her inability to outright evade.

The shock never came, his hit instead merely skidding her a short distance across the ice, without so much as bringing her out of her standing position or forcing her to drop her blade. Robin fared worse, her simple block causing him to tumble at an angle away from her, crashing and sliding across the ice in a mess of sparks, though he maintained his grip on his weapons all the same.

"That's harder than I thought it would be!" Robin said as he struggled to his hands and knees, going without his wind magic after his horrendous landing.

"Have you never tried that before?" Kjelle asked, slowly rotating to face him without slipping or falling.

"Nope." Robin answered, managing to claw his way up to a shaky stand. "I thought it might be something cool if I pulled it off, and I somehow managed to land a pot shot earlier today that was kind of like this, involving some fast flying… but honestly, that was already insanely hard and lucky. So much care and precaution that has to be put into every tiny movement, solely to ensure there's no catastrophic failure…"

"Sounds like something you should learn, then." Kjelle said. She shifted her footing around before deciding that it was stable, and began to move in his direction.

"I'm sure I'll have more than enough time to practice it after tonight." Robin replied, reestablishing his wind magic to help hold himself in place.

One of Noire's arrows clipped the side of his leg. The projectile tore through his pants, creating a small gash on his thigh that caused him to quietly curse. Robin flipped up his hood, growing wary of how easily she could land a lethal blow were he unattentive.

Kjelle charged into Robin's direct range, knocking his levin sword away when he raised it and barreling directly into him. His wind magic held them both up, and Kjelle had to push awkwardly off of him to ready another strike.

Robin brought his sword back around to counter a series of slashes from her, his lightning never taking effect when their blades connected. Kjelle pushed away from him again when she slid too close, and another arrow from Noire clipped his leg, a few centimeters below the first spot she had hit.

Robin glanced down to his leg, realising that Noire was attempting to cripple him for Kjelle's sake. He extended his wind magic by a small margin, covering his upper legs in a weak veil that would slow her shots. They may still be capable of harming him, but not to the same degree as before.

"You aren't too bad with a sword." he said to Kjelle, preparing a more defensive stance for when she inevitably charged him again. "I thought that, being a knight and everything, you wouldn't have had much experience with other weapons. Guess I shouldn't underestimate you, huh?"

"You aren't using your sword's enchantments." Kjelle replied, ignoring what she thought may have been a compliment.

"Keeping up so much magic can be a strain, you know?" Robin said, answering her unasked question with a wave of his hand, showing off the lights that continued to shine under the ice.

Kjelle kept her gaze from him, knowing he would use any opening to absolutely decimate her. As he waved out his hand again, she charged, lunging close to him while he was preoccupied with his movement.

Robin clenched his hand and the floor beneath them exploded, a thunder flare detonating and separating them in a spray of water and ice shards. Kjelle slid into the spray, but kept away from the hole that it made, slipping through the geyser and emerging on the other side largely unscathed, albeit wetter and colder.

Robin was nowhere to be seen, and she quickly swiveled her head from side to side to try to catch sight of him before he could attack again. An arrow from Noire soared past her right side, and she whipped her gaze in the direction it had travelled in time to see the grandmaster lunging at her. He had swapped to his steel sword following the explosion, apparently seeing no value in an enchanted sword with which he couldn't cast spells.

Kjelle brought her sword up to block him again, and this time Robin didn't spin out on the surface of the ice. He held in place, his blade against hers, before sliding the steel down and attempting to cut at her hand.

She deftly parried the hit with the hilt of her sword, pushing back against him leisurely enough to press away without sending him sliding. Robin staggered, giving her space to slice at his exposed legs, but he was able to quickly propel himself across the ice away from her with a small burst of wind.

Noire fired another arrow, this one meeting its mark in the same spot as its predecessors, though to less of an effect thanks to his weak shield of wind. Robin, deciding that the archer was still a threat that could prove problematic, detonated a flare near her, sending her staggering. She remained upright, shakily standing as the disc of ice shook beneath her.

"Kjelle!" Noire shouted, and Robin set off another flare in an attempt to silence her. The attack failed to stop her, and she continued to shout. "I think there's something I can do - a play that can end this! I need to get close to-"

She was silenced when a third flare detonated, this one being almost directly underneath her, sending her sprawling on the ice. Her message still got through to Kjelle, who checked to make sure that her friend was okay before turning back to Robin.

First of all, his flares had to be stopped. Both their light and explosions were nothing but impairments to fighting, and Robin would use them to his advantage whenever possible. To do that, Kjelle surmised that she would need to get his tomes away from him, since they were reasonably the most important part of the flares' sustainment, given how tightly he was holding them.

Then, there was the actual problem of what was going to happen after he and his tomes were separated. Robin would still have his swords and blood magic, and would remain a threat all the while. Kjelle would need to have faith that Noire knew what she was doing, and would be able to counteract his fighting style when the time came.

Kjelle charged at Robin again, this time using the ice to her advantage to slide into him and push him down. He resisted her attack, using his wind magic to hold himself in place and return her assault with a slash of his sword.

His hit met with her defensively raised sword, and she held his blade in place with her own. Surprisingly, Kjelle found that there wasn't much weight behind Robin's swing, meaning he was either purposefully holding back or simply wasn't as physically strong as her. She preferred to think of the latter as being true.

Regardless of whether he was holding back or not, the fact of the matter was that he had proper use of only one hand and she had no risk of being electrocuted, and possibly not hit with a flare given her proximity to Robin. Kjelle switched her grip on her sword to be one handed, matching his, and even then was able to hold his sword away from herself without too much difficulty.

Robin attempted to pull his blade out of their stalemate and swing again from a different angle, but was stopped when she pressed harder against his sword and brought it downward, pointing it into the ice and holding it in a tense lock to her side. Noire was approaching them from where she had stood near the edge of the lake.

Kjelle reached behind her back and grabbed hold of her axe, with Robin continuing to struggle under her lock on his sword. She slashed out at his left arm with the axe as she drew it, the head of the weapon bouncing harmlessly off of his protection enchantments.

Robin's eyes widened as he realised what she was doing, and he outright dropped his sword to get out of her range. Kjelle pursued him as he scrambled away from her, hammering away again and again at his arm. He detonated flare after flare as she hit him, most of them failing to keep up with her and detonating in the empty space at her back.

With another, more powerful swing of her axe that was aimed directly for his glove, Kjelle finally managed to knock Robin's tomes from his hand. He fell with them, reaching for the books futilely. Kjelle swung the head of her axe to send them skidding across the ice.

Robin blinked, now lying fully on his back and staring at where his tomes had been only a moment ago. "That was well done." he complimented Kjelle, who resisted the strong urge to beam at his praise. The yellow auroras shining up from beneath him had yet to fade, or even begin to dim.

Kjelle continued to grin regardless. "You shouldn't have made your greatest opening so known." she said, keeping at a distance from him until Noire was able to arrive.

"Your only mistake was falling for the long feint."

Kjelle started a little, her eyes widening as she looked at him again. He was smiling, though it was barely visible in contrast to how horrendously bright the lights under the ice had grown.

Without moving his hands, Robin detonated a series of the flares between them. The geysers that erupted blocked him from Kjelle's sight, but once they cleared, she was able to see him standing again and placing the tomes he had somehow blown in his direction away within his robes, no longer having need for them.

Kjelle's footing shook as the explosions calmed, cracking a small platform free of the rest of the ice disk. She glanced back to Noire to have the archer help assess her situation, and to possibly warn her about underestimating Robin, only to find that she had been separated further from her friend. Robin's explosions while she had attacked him had cleaved a gap in the ice between her and Noire, and had now served to separate her from the rest of the lake itself, leaving her stranded on a tiny island of ice all her own.

Noire had moved to circumvent the explosions as soon as they had formed, and was nearing Robin from his side, circumventing the entire island Kjelle was moored on. Robin had apparently yet to notice her, as he was still looking at Kjelle, seemingly unconcerned with Noire's whereabouts.

"See? Unexpected!" Robin shouted to Kjelle, who was struggling to remain upright as her ice wobbled beneath her. "Feints are something you'll have to learn to expect from any opponent. They're a great way to get an edge up in any kind of fight, and if you're going against a mage, they could be initiated before the fight even starts!"

Kjelle didn't bother responding to him, instead putting all of her effort into slowly shuffling toward the edge her island. The platform shifted underneath her as she moved, dipping into the water of the lake while she struggled to not fall off.

Noire nocked an arrow as she came within a few metres of Robin, the grandmaster swearing as he finally became aware of her presence. As Kjelle leapt haphazardly from her position on her floating platform, barely landing on the comparative steadiness of the main ice float, she found herself wondering why Noire had bothered getting so close if she was only going to fire more ranged shots.

Robin spun to face Noire, detonating another flare to keep her at bay as he prepared some form of magic in his right hand. He never got his attack off, with Noire diving into a slide beside him and firing off her shot into the same spot as every other one, cutting his pants further and grazing his thigh. A small, roughly circular segment of the clothing flapped open, exposing his lightly damaged skin.

Stepping away from her to avoid any further direct attacks, Robin began to question what she was doing. Why would she, an archer, ever bother getting close to someone who could outmatch her with both a sword and magic?

His brow furrowed as he considered her actions. _It's Noire, who knows how to cast enchantments._

She stopped herself by digging another arrow into the ice, coming to a complete halt a short distance from him. She didn't bother rising from her position, with Robin at an arm's length away being enough space she for her to operate.

Robin's eyes began to widen. _Noire, who both knows how dangerous enchantments can be and now how to harm someone with them._

She lunged toward him and clasped her hand over the exposed area on his thigh.

 _Noire, who can see that I'm always almost completely covered in clothing, and has been working this entire fight to expose my skin._

Whether it was from an enchantment or his own compounding fear, the skin Noire had placed her hand over began to tingle. Robin, dread building faster than he had thought possible, did the only thing he knew to do in his situation: he panicked.

Before she could finalise her enchantment, Robin brought every single flare in their proximity underneath her and detonated them all. Now, there were a minuscule number of flares remaining within the waters of the lake, their auroras having grown dim from the low count.

Noire lost her grip as the flares exploded. She wasn't launched into the air, but was shaken off of Robin's leg and dumped into the freezing lake's water. She flailed about near the surface and managed to cling to an edge of the main ice floe, and pulled herself up onto the frozen sheet.

Robin had staggered back from her, and had drawn his levin sword while she was recovering from the explosions. He slowly approached Noire, but stopped entirely when he was only a single step from her, the archer still heaving on the surface of the ice with her bow and quiver a short distance from her reach. Robin knew his expression was growing far too calm, but he could do nothing to stop it.

All he could think about was killing her.

It wasn't her fault, he knew the fault of his thoughts would always lay with him, but at the same time there was nothing he could do to stop them from occurring. He didn't want to stop them.

He could envision what it would be like, how he could lift her up, her own weapons out of her reach and leaving her defenseless, and run her through with his sword. How he could electrocute her, then drop her body back to the ice.

He could use his wind magic to lift her head up into his hands, all without moving his own body, then use his wind magic again paired with his own weight and strength to drive it into the ice. He could see how the ice was too thick to break, but how her head would still shatter a web of cracks into the lake's surface, and how the web would gradually fill with red as she bled out.

Robin began to smile. She wouldn't be able to move properly, maybe breathe properly, with her head caved in, beautiful shards of glistening, fractured ice dancing away from her body in the aftermath of his attack. He could see how she wouldn't be able to fight back, and how he would be able to watch as she slowly bled out and choked through her last breaths.

Kjelle broke his thoughts, tethering her weapons to her back and running into him from behind. She didn't knock him down, and instead snaked her arms up around his biceps and then back around to the back of his head. By applying force to her hold, she pushed him to use knees, holding his arms and hands in such a way that he wouldn't be able to aim any magic or swing his sword. He hadn't so much as noticed her approach.

"Whatever you were doing, Noire, it was working!" she shouted, her friend rising to a stand at her words. "You got him to mess up his flares! Keep doing that!"

She could feel Robin try to swivel his head in her grip, though the action wasn't strong enough for the movement to be considered an attempt at breaking free. He began to weakly shake in her hold, though Kjelle didn't know why and assumed it was for something nefarious, and so tightened her grip.

Noire hobbled toward Robin, one of her legs refusing to respond properly to the rest of her movements following Robin's flare attack. She didn't bother reaching for her bow and quiver, instead using only her hands as a weapon. She clasped one of them over Robin's face, his widened eyes visible between her spread fingers, and she stared into them to ensure her fury was known.

Kjelle's own eyes widened as she realised what Noire was doing, what had happened that had caused Robin to react so violently. She subconsciously considered releasing him, giving him the opportunity to fight back or struggle free of her friend's grip before he could be destroyed.

Ultimately, she screwed her eyes shut and waited for the inevitable, her grip on him forced to be unwavering.

Under her hand, Noire could see the fear in Robin's eyes. A primal horror, one that begged for him to be released and be safe. She had expected for it to fall on deaf ears, for her to be able to overcome any obstacle that would prevent her from saving her future and, above that, her family.

But she couldn't, and she faltered. She could see the shred of humanity in him that Kjelle had witnessed before her, some human trait in his fear, and hesitated for a fraction of a second.

Robin let all of the magic he could muster burst out of his right hand, launching him and Kjelle both across the ice. Having hesitated with her grip, Noire was left standing in place, and then scrambled for her bow when she realised what had happened, cursing her moment of weakness.

Detecting that the battle was drawing to a close, Anna hopped off of her perch, pulling her bag of healing potions along with her. She could tell from Robin's magic, and Kjelle's shouted statements, that whatever was about to happen wouldn't be pretty.

Robin and Kjelle crashed into the ice far from where they had initially stood, skidding to within a few metres of the lake's shore. Kjelle released her grip on Robin as she slid on her side, Robin himself dropping his levin sword, which skidded past them and landed on solid ground.

The sheer force behind Robin's explosive burst of wind magic had broken his upper arm into an impossible shape, though he didn't seem to care. Kjelle began to push herself up to a stand, but Robin was already above her, his undamaged arm raised above his head.

His entire forearm began to glow a ferocious green, and before Kjelle could say anything or begin to react, he brought another spell down on her. For a moment, the world was silent. His cast tore everything from the air around them before it slammed into her. Kjelle's heart had begun to race from the silence, the lack of sound being too close - yet somehow distinctly different from - the void of his failed portal.

All sound returned in a single, deep burst, the plane of ice shattering around Kjelle. Blunt blades of wind carved into her armour, and as the ice beneath her was obliterated, she was thrusted down to the depths of the lake.

Noire shouted something behind him, a wordless cry for her friend that was met with silence. Robin turned to see her loading an arrow on her bow, taking aim for him. He swept his arm out again in response. Before Noire could fire, she was met with a storm of ice shards and wind that slapped her off to one edge of the ice floe.

Robin jumped to the nearby shore, heaving as the draw of his magic began to catch up to him. He faced where Noire was struggling to stand, the shards of ice having cut into her skin repeatedly, the damage had dealt being visible even at his distance.

His face was set in an expression that was neither a frown nor a smile as he prepared his next spell. As Noire slowly began to check her surroundings for Kjelle, fearing more for her friend's safety than her own in that moment, Robin unleashed his spell.

A forceful wall of wind crashed into one side of the ice platform, opposite Noire and near Robin. It pushed into the lake, the entire platform spinning in place and raising its opposite end until the entire ice floe was perpendicular to its starting position. Noire clutched what was now the definitive top of the sheet, knowing that she would be in as poor of a situation as Kjelle were she to fall into the lake, which now stood dangerously far below her.

Each of Robin's few remaining flares floated into place between him and Noire, forming a targeting ray as he readied yet another spell. The sheet of ice slowly began to rotate from Robin's magic, placing Noire directly in his sight, with the entirety of the platform facing him directly. Noire's eyes widened as she realised what he was doing, and she scrambled over the top of the ice wall in an attempt to evade him.

His flares traced her movements, following her as she began to slide and fall down the other end of the ice wall, placing it between Robin and her. Once she had reached what was approximately the centre of the ice sheet, Robin fired off his spell. A bolt of thunder magic struck into the heart of the wall.

Each flare amplified the raw might of his cast, bolstering the spell with each ball of thunder it passed through. Once it had reached the ice, it was powerful enough to spread over its entire surface, shattering it in its entirety.

The spell wasn't able to hit Noire outright, having lost much of its power destroying the ice wall, and instead transferred its momentum and launched her to the shore of the lake. She landed hard on her upper back and rolled to a stop, struggling to move in her new collapsed position.

Robin heaved again, falling to his hands and knees as he grew lightheaded and unable to properly breathe, his lungs constricting and loosening at unnatural intervals. He didn't care for the cold snow that he knew he should feel to a degree through his gloves, but he was oddly perturbed by how he couldn't manage to feel anything from the ends of his limbs.

"Don't overexert yourself, Robin! You'll collapse!" Anna yelled, already partway to where he had sent Noire. She pulled an elixir from her bag and threw it to him. "Drink this, then go help Kjelle! She'll need medical attention too!"

Robin attempted to reach for the potion with his right hand, missing the elixir entirely when he realised how badly damaged the whole limb was. Before the effects of his shock and adrenaline could wear off, he grabbed the elixir with his left hand and drank half of its contents. Somehow, it knew how to properly set his arm back into place and heal the damage he had wrought on himself with his magic, though he didn't yet bother to question how.

He crawled toward the edge of the lake, peering into its depths in search of Kjelle. The water proved too dark for him to see through, and so he hesitantly placed a seal of wind over his face, knowing and feeling that the smallest uses of magic would be costly to him after he had done so much, even with the elixir's aid. He quickly tried to calculate Kjelle's approximate whereabouts after everything that had happened, and dove downward.

Kjelle had been floating down into the furthest reaches of the lake after his attack, unable to properly move her body. She could tell that her armour was fine, albeit significantly damaged, and that it was her own muscles that refused to cooperate. It took all of her power to refuse to take a breath, giving her next to no power remaining to reach for the surface.

At some point in her descent, the lights around her had disappeared, shortly after she had been pushed across and deeper into the lake by the spinning sheet of ice. She found their absence more disconcerting than their presence.

As the last of what little light remained in her vision faded, Kjelle could feel the faint struggling of someone else nearby. She couldn't bring herself to move toward them, or do anything other than hold down the searing pain in her lungs, and so continued to float downward.

Robin grabbed one of her legs as she floated, those being the closest limb to him, and launched them both out of the lake with more wind magic. They touched down hard on the shore, near where Robin had departed, and he combed for the dropped elixir before his inevitable collapse could hit him.

Kjelle gasped and sputtered, straining for breaths as she coughed up freezing water. Robin passed her the elixir once he had found it, and she gladly drank the remainder of its contents.

They both looked over to Noire and, seeing that Anna was tending to her, collapsed onto their backs next to one another. Kjelle continued to heave for air. Robin had grown silent.

"I really… need to avoid fighting by water." Kjelle weakly joked between gasps of air.

Robin said nothing in reply.

"I guess you won, huh?" Kjelle asked, though yet again he gave no reply. "Figures… ah well. That was a good fight. Everyone on the ropes at one point or another, even you. Heh, I kind of thought that someone might've ended up dying if we kept going."

"But I guess you wouldn't allow that, would you?" she continued when he said nothing. "When Noire was about to kill you, you resisted with everything you had. Then, when I was almost drowning… again… you saved me. Again. Thanks, Robin. You're a good person."

Robin still gave no reply, and she glanced over to him. He had brought both of his hands up to his eyes, covering his entire face. Kjelle shifted her gaze back to its original position, leaving him to do as he pleased in the aftermath of their fight as she began to study the bright stars of the sky, the cold of the night slowly setting in as she waited for a cue to move.

For a moment, she thought she could hear the faint, muffled sound of Robin crying.

* * *

 **Well, I'm technically two days late on this one. That's entirely my bad. Trust me, I have an array of excuses I could use, but I doubt they matter much. Long story short I've fallen behind a little on writing recently.**

 **The worst part about that is that, for the first time ever, I've actually recently failed to reach my 1,000 words a day goal. So much for self-discipline, huh? Rest assured, it wasn't me intentionally missing it; I literally passed out as I was starting to write and woke up the next day.**

 **I've implemented a contingency to account for this, and the fact that I may have to do so much work soon that I may literally be incapable of writing for a while: any missed day is added to the next. If I fail to get to 1,000 words on day one, I write 2,000 the next day. If I fail that, I write 3,000 on day 3, and so on regardless of how much I actually got down the day prior. There has to be some kind of standard for work ethic, right?**

 **Anyway, some actual notes on this chapter: hopefully my plan for Robin is pretty clear now, because it does get a little more weird as the grey and correlated antagonist are developed. His story still has a ways to go, but I'm getting there.**

 **Andrea, Tracie, and Leopold (the guy Robin killed in a flashback a while ago) are all likely once-playable characters for Awakening who were cut before being fully developed, AKA they weren't given character data beyond a name. Their names appear alongside other playable characters in the game's files (source: Serenes Forest). They don't come up again much after this, mostly because they're all dead, but the fact that they're here is also a pretty big tell for some stuff that's going to go down way later on.**

 **Status: As of 16-09-18, I'm on chapter 31. RIP the 1k a day goal, you will be honoured to the best of my ability. Seriously, though, I've got a massive amount of stuff I need to do, but I'm not going to stop working on this. I'll keep updating regularly, and will hopefully finish my other story soon, too.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	17. Chapter 17

"I really do need to apologise for all of that. The fighting, it all got so out of hand. I didn't mean to go so far."

Kjelle waived Robin's apology with her hand, only partially paying attention to him as she struggled to remain awake. "Don't apologise. I wouldn't expect anything less than your best. Hell, the fact that we managed to push you so far is practically a compliment."

"I still shouldn't have done what I did." Robin said, with Kjelle rolling her eyes at his incessant attempts to right a nonexistent wrong. "I didn't need to use such strong magic, or to flip the lake like that. I could've killed someone."

"Same here. I was acting as dangerous as you." Noire chimed in, yawning and stretching in her position across from Kjelle in the back of Anna's cart. She and Kjelle had both accepted placements among the merchant's merchandise after their duel at the lake, with Anna having somehow made enough room for them both to lay comfortably in the short night they had used to rest and recover.

Since Anna was the one piloting their miniature caravan, Robin had been assured that they would reach their next destination within two days, rather than the many he had anticipated. Their group had made a slight detour for Noire, though it was one they would have had to make sometime or another for the archer - she had been in a place that didn't mesh well with any other, save the island that supposedly held Nah and their previous stop at the bandit hideout.

Robin, trailing closely behind the two women and the cart on his horse, frowned. "But… you weren't." he reminded her. "You could've killed me, used your enchantments on me and make me explode, or melt, or whatever, but you didn't."

Noire winced, bringing her arms up to hug her own body at the memory of the duel, and the shred of humanity she had seen in Robin when she had held his life in her hands. "It was a moment of weakness. If you'd like to try me again, I'd be more than happy to take you down."

"Of course you would be." Robin smiled, erasing his frown. Noire winced again, causing him to question why she would do such a thing for what to her should have resembled praise.

Kjelle cleared her throat, awkwardly pulling their attention back to her. "I feel as though I should apologise, too, if that's what we're doing. I knew that Noire was going to kill you, and rather than try to stop it, I didn't do a thing. I closed my eyes and waited for time to pass."

"That's not something you should be apologising for." Robin said. "To have me die has been your goal since before you even met me."

"Yeah, you really shouldn't be apologising." Noire added on, regarding her friend curiously, though she had quickly learned that Kjelle's interactions with Robin were all highly questionable.

"Okay, but I… nevermind." Kjelle said, collapsing back to her unusual seat of rubbish and merchandise and turning her head away from them both.

Noire stared at her friend for a moment longer before turning back to Robin. "Out of curiosity, why didn't you kill us? I get the whole 'prove I'm good and get stronger' thing Kjelle told me about, but we nearly killed you. You nearly did the same, but you could have easily killed us both by now."

"I don't want to kill you, or any of your friends." Robin said. "Except the traitor, since they're not going to be a help to anyone, to say the least."

"And how do you know that I'm not this 'traitor'?" Noire asked, causing Kjelle to look over at her again. She was acting as though she intentionally wanted to provoke Robin, though to what end Kjelle didn't understand.

"Kjelle told you everything about the traitor and the journal, right?" Robin asked, awaiting Noire's confirmation before he dared to reveal anything further.

"I think so." Noire affirmed, looking to Kjelle, who nodded in support of the statement.

Robin himself nodded, using the motion to remain steady and help articulate the small amount of information he sought to unveil. "Well, I don't know how much of it all has made sense to you, or if this has clicked yet, but the traitor is strong. Really, really strong. Like, probably 'kill any of us before we can lay a finger on them' strong. No offense, but after our fight yesterday, I can tell that you don't fit that definition."

"Let me guess, the reason you know they're strong is something under the grey that you won't tell us about." Kjelle said, already exasperated yet not bearing the more typical scorn Robin had come to expect.

Robin nodded solemnly. "Sadly, that's the way things are right now. Eventually, maybe things will be better."

"Are you certain that this traitor is from the future?" Noire asked, and Robin gave her a confident nod. "And that's all you know about them for certain, or at least the only thing you're willing to share with us?"

Again, Robin nodded. "Like I said, things will be different eventually. I'll be able to tell Kjelle everything for our final duel. I'll have to be able to."

Noire narrowed her eyes on Robin. "Have you never considered that you yourself might be-" she was cut off when Kjelle dove over to her and clamped her mouth shut with her hands, and turned to smile disarmingly at Robin.

"Nothing! She wasn't saying anything!" Kjelle offered weakly when he furrowed his brow in confusion.

"That I myself might what, Noire?" Robin asked coldly, bypassing Kjelle's efforts to dissuade him. Kjelle released her hold on Noire, who stared at her with a blank expression before addressing Robin, never turning away from her friend in the process.

"That… you yourself might… not know anything about the traitor?" Noire muttered slowly, deciding to cover for her friend and herself, trusting whatever reasoning Kjelle had reached. She had already accepted how wildly dangerous Robin could be, especially if his hand was forced in regards to his true identity; the idea of exposing him was regreattbly almost too tantalising to pass up.

She began to grin when her excuse sounded viable, Robin himself lowering his gaze from her as he considered her statement. "Yeah, what if they lied to you?" she continued. "You only have their info to go off of, so what if they lied to make themselves sound better, or more prevalent?"

"I don't think so." Robin shook his head. "They aren't the kind of person who would lie, at least not like that."

"How do you know that, though?" Kjelle asked, building on to Noire's surprisingly effective cover. "You haven't interacted with them before, only what they left behind for you. Right?"

"Right." Robin confirmed after a short pause, something that might have made the girls suspicious if they hadn't been as absorbed as they were in their own lie.

He sighed, bringing their attention away from themselves as he dispelled thoughts of his beloved traitor from his mind. "Anyway, Kjelle… you really thought you could have died last night, right?"

"Mhm." Kjelle confirmed, wincing when he winced. "Not like that, though. Not because I thought you would kill me, or anything. I thought that I might drown, or be too weak to keep up with you and Noire, or maybe screw up and get myself hurt… not something that would have been caused by you."

Robin winced again, replacing her concern with confusion at his response. She couldn't see Noire, but she could already tell that her friend's eyebrows were raised high on her forehead in a stupefied abhorrence.

"When I was drowning, I knew that you would come help me." Kjelle said, offering him a truth she hoped would help. "I was scared, but I knew I wouldn't have to be, because I knew you would do what you could to help me, and… well, you're you, so I wasn't really in any danger at all."

Noire stared at her friend, her mouth open and one eye screwed up in disgust. She didn't know what to say, how to begin speaking about or attempt to rationalise what Kjelle was saying, beyond accepting it at face value and being even more disgusted.

"Uh, that's… nice?" Robin said before she could do anything. "I honestly don't really know what to make of that, though. Did you really never think that you might be in serious danger? That you might die, and lose everything? You weren't afraid?" He may not be ready to admit it, but when he had been at Noire's mercy the night before, when she could have killed him, he was genuinely terrified. He found that he hated that fact more than anything in his recent memory.

Kjelle paused until she managed to think up an answer, noticing Noire's strange expression but paying it no mind. "I know that, no matter what, there's always the chance that I'll mess up and lose the duel, but at the same time, I can't accept that outcome. So, I don't think about what could happen if I lose, since victory is all that'll matter. It's probably not the best way of handling it, but oh well. It works for me."

"You have to win, so you don't even bother thinking about any other outcome." Robin murmured to himself. "That's the way things have to be, so it's like everything else doesn't matter, since it's already decided…"

"That's the spirit." Kjelle smiled warmly. Noire's stare remained unchanged. "If you think like that too, that you have to win no matter what, then I'm sure our fight will be something to remember. Two powerful people, going all out… sounds like something of legends, right?"

"In a sense, I guess." Robin agreed passively, his voice falling back to a murmur an instant later. "I shouldn't concern myself with any other outcome, since they won't happen anyway…"

"Hey, Robin?" Noire spoke up, her expression wholly unchanged and unmoved as she was talking. "Can I talk to Kjelle for second? Alone?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. Of course." Robin said, maneuvering his horse over to pass the cart. "I'll go check in with Anna. Call if you need me."

Kjelle watched him depart, Noire remaining fixed in her position staring at her friend. Once Kjelle turned back to Noire, she was wearing a thin frown on her face. "What is it?"

"What is wrong with you!?" Noire burst, her composure changing to become rapidly less stable. "What the hell were you saying!? What have you been saying all this time!?"

"Um… what?" Kjelle asked, not following what the archer intended to convey.

"The way you're talking to Robin…" Noire continued, disgust returning to her face. "It's… it's like he's your… your friend, or something! Why!? What happened to the Kjelle who was going to kill him at the first opportunity!?"

Kjelle winced under the accusation, but when she focused her gaze on Noire again, there was nothing but a steady, cold determination in her eyes. "She tried, and she lost. Again, and again… I haven't been able to hurt him since the Ruins of Time. He's too strong for me, maybe even for someone like Lucina, but if he's willing to help me get stronger, I'm not about to vilify him whenever possible. I thought he seemed down, so I wanted to help."

"He murdered our families! Everyone in our time!" Noire reminded her unnecessarily. "How is it possible to look past that? How could you ever think that he's not completely evil, that there's any shred of humanity left in him?"

"You saw it, didn't you?" Kjelle asked cautiously, wary of how horrible the conversation could become if she were wrong in her assumption. "That's why you didn't kill him, why you had that moment of weakness when we were fighting him. You saw something about him that resonated with you."

Noire grimaced, averting her gaze from Kjelle's. "I thought he looked… afraid…" she admitted quietly. "The same kind of fear that I've seen on too many people, the kind I've felt myself…"

Her gaze snapped back up to Kjelle, her resolve steeled once again. "But that doesn't mean it's real, or that he should be pardoned. He was the cause of that fear in so many people; he should feel the same at some point."

Kjelle's face fell, her mind burning with the memories of her own version of the fear common in her time. "No one deserves that kind of fear. Never, ever again."

Noire's cold expression eventually gave way to one of remorse, her eyes closing as she sighed. "Fair enough. That's the point of all the time travel anyway. No more fear, no more suffering. For anyone."

"Not only the strongest, or the ones we think deserve it." Kjelle muttered. "That's what Lucina wants… that's what we all want, what we swore to make a reality. Make the world a place where people like Robin, like Grima, couldn't make us so afraid."

Opening her eyes and tilting her head back until it touched solid canvas, Noire sighed and stared listlessly at the ceiling of the wagon. "When were you ever afraid, Kjelle?"

"Hm?" Kjelle raised her head, locking her gaze back onto Noire.

"Whenever something awful happened in our time, whenever people were lost or villages and cities destroyed, you got angry. You weren't afraid, or sad, only angry. More and more anger welled up until I thought you would burst."

Kjelle winced, unfavourable memories of when she had truly been afraid resurfacing in her mind. She opened her mouth to say something about them, but found that she didn't want to share something so sensitive with Noire; she had been equally as tentative years ago when discussing it with Lucina and Severa, and back then the promise of getting wasted afterward was what had kept her going.

And, of course, Lucina's calm, unwavering, caring guidance and friendship. Something that she found herself both loving and hating simultaneously.

"In the end, all of that anger came from fear, in one way or another." she offered instead. It was the truth, or at least partially, though the greater reality was something she wasn't entirely intent on sharing.

"You know, I kind of looked up to that, at times." Noire admitted timidly. "How you never seemed to be afraid. Between you always being strong and fearless, and Lucina being calm and collected, I always felt safe. Even at the worst of times."

Kjelle paused, knowing that she could have been removed from that statement and the effect would have been negligible. She allowed her eyes to close, an uneasy serenity rushing over her at the thought.

After not speaking to her friend for what she considered to be too long, Kjelle opened her eyes again and searched for something to say. "Hey, Noire, have you been afraid before? Even with me and Lucina and whoever else around, have you been truly afraid, like what we would see in our time?"

Noire nodded, slow and solemn but willing to be open with her friend. "When my father was dying. For my mother, I was too young to really understand what was happening, and when I did I was more sad than anything… but with my father, I really was terrified. To think that I could lose him, maybe end up losing everything I know and love to risen, or to Robin… it was awful."

"And that fear, the fear of losing what you love, that's what's driven you all this time?" Kjelle asked, knowing deep down that she was trying to reflect her own image in Noire.

"Not always, but definitely sometimes. I mean, come on, I'm not as one-note as Yarne or anything." Noire joked, uncertain but hoping to lighten their atmosphere from the darker tones it was adopting. Kjelle smiled, but didn't laugh, and so she continued. "I would want to be with everyone more than anything; that's what kept me going. Knowing, or hoping that I'd be by my friends' sides, and my family's… I want that so badly."

"Enough that it outweighs your fear?" Kjelle asked skeptically.

"Usually, yeah." Noire nodded. "There are times where I get so scared, that I don't really know how to function, and since I lost my talisman back during those fights during Ylisstol's fall, I haven't been able to deal with it too well, but I try. I want to control my life, not have my fear control me."

Kjelle gave a short, sardonic burst of laughter. "You're more noble than me, then. All I've ever wanted was to not be afraid, and to live my life peacefully as I please. Get stronger so I don't have to be afraid, save the world so I don't have to be afraid, become more powerful so I never have to fear being too weak ever again. After everything we've all gone through, I keep putting my friends second."

"That's not true!" Noire refuted her emphatically. "Even if you're not sensitive enough to admit it, I know that you have all of our best interests at heart, and that you're getting stronger to help us all; that's the kind of person you are."

Seeing that Kjelle wasn't entirely convinced, she pressed further. "Besides, no matter how tough you are, there's no way you wouldn't be our friend. Don't you remember how happy Lucina was to spend time with you after training, or how Cynthia always wanted to fight you no matter how many times she lost? That's because they were your friends, and always will be."

"Lucina would always kick my ass, sometimes before we started the duel itself." Kjelle remarked, coming close to smiling at the memory. "Cynthia won… what, two or three times against me, ever? I would think she would resent me or something, but no. She was always happy to hang out."

"Of course, Kjelle. Friends are always happy to spend time with friends." Noire said. "Well, almost always. Remember when Nah kept trying to read alone, nonstop, in the library for like a month, so Severa had us try to get her to go shopping with us in Ylisstol?"

Kjelle snorted air at the memory. "She kept trying to transform to attack us, but she didn't want to hurt any of the books. Severa had to literally drag her out of the castle."

"Then, when we actually went shopping, it was only Severa who was actually buying anything, and we were all along for the ride." Noire smiled. "Nah hated it, but she seemed to genuinely enjoy herself when we stopped for lunch, and when we were walking around the streets, not doing anything."

"She was happy to be doing nothing with us, even when she could have been doing something she wanted to do… because she was with her friends." Kjelle said.

Noire nodded, smiling warmly. "Those memories, and the ones we can still make, are why I know you'll always be there for us. They remind us that we're friends, and always will be. No matter what, we're as close as can be, and we'll always be there for each other."

Kjelle smiled, losing herself to her memories of her future. "I remember one time, Lucina, Cynthia, Gerome, Severa, and I were training in the castle courtyards when Inigo showed up to watch us. He asked me out, I said no, and he immediately turned to Severa and did the same. She said no, then Lucina, then Cynthia… then he asked Gerome as a joke, who called his bluff and said yes."

"I remember that, too!" Noire giggled. "Gerome was being completely serious about it all, as usual, and Inigo spent the rest of the day running from him and hiding away in the castle."

"Actually, he took the entire thing really well." Kjelle said. "He laughed it off, and Gerome nearly cracked a smile… but Nah somehow found out, and spent the rest of the day trying to plan their wedding. Very, very forcefully."

"Oh, yeah!" Noire laughed. "She asked me to officiate… I can't believe I forgot that part. Come to think of it, Gerome spent that entire day hiding too, didn't he?"

"Probably. Nah can be scary when she wants to be. Though, none of that stopped Inigo from asking us out in the same way, day after day… until Lucina too eventually called his bluff. He freaked out so much that he actually had someone say 'yes' that he didn't know how to respond, and ended up choking the entire thing away, even though it was a joke."

Noire's glowing smile beamed brighter. "Severa gave him weeks worth of relationship lessons, and used me to roleplay a date with him. Back then, he had confidence, but only up until he actually had to do anything. Then he would become an absolute mess."

"He once tried to ask me out - yet again - right before I left for a few weeks to visit home." Kjelle said. "Owain tried to explain that I was leaving for me, and I really didn't care enough to bother telling him off myself anymore. It took Owain almost an hour to explain that I was going away, even with Lucina translating his speeches. I thought it was kind of stupid, but… I still stuck around to watch the entire thing, and had a little fun."

"Owain can get way too into his characters sometimes." Noire muttered, her happier tone returning soon after. "Did I ever tell you about the time I tried to teach him to cook, and he decided that a roast chicken was his sworn enemy, and then he lost to it in a fight?"

Kjelle laughed. "He sounds like he might actually be worse of a chef than I am. Wait, was that the time that Frederick started freaking out because some 'foul monster' was attacking one of his charges in the kitchen?"

"That's the one!" Noire laughed. "Owain messed up his 'fight' so badly that Frederick actually had to step in and try to stop him from dying, thinking that he was in legitimate danger. I remember that you and Gerome were fully armoured up and ready to fight by the time I had stopped Frederick from ruining the kitchen. Though, it was already kind of on fire…"

"Knowing Owain, he may actually have been at risk of getting himself killed against that roast chicken." Kjelle said. "I don't think you were there for this, but do you know about the time I was showing off some of my mother's old armour to Yarne? Owain happened to walk in…"

* * *

"And then you were like, 'bam!' and launched away from her! But Kjelle held on, and you had to be like 'wah-boom!' and fought her!"

"I keep telling you, Anna, I was there. I don't need your play-by-play to-"

"Noire was still ready to fight, though, so you had to deal with her." Anna continued, not giving Robin enough room to speak properly while she waved her hands around theatrically, almost dropping her reigns in the process. "So you were like, 'fwoosh!' and spun the entirety of the ice on the lake!"

Robin groaned, the animated merchant's recounting of last night's duel having already pressed on for far too long to be reasonable. He resigned himself to allowing her to finish her retelling unopposed, knowing that all the time he had already wasted trying to get her to talk normally to him was a perfect indication that she wouldn't be stopping.

"And then, your thunder depth charge things lined up and pointed at her, and she scrambled off the other side of the ice, and you were like 'byoom!' and destroyed all of it!" Anna exclaimed, concluding her tale.

"Thanks, Anna. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time." Robin said dryly, his unamused expression doing nothing to dampen her bright smile.

"The cleanup afterward wasn't as exciting, though." Anna commented, her previous enthusiasm no longer as prominent. "Kjelle and Noire lost pretty hard, and I had to look after the latter. She was pretty hurt, and since I gave you my elixir I had to use concoctions. I hate sitting in snow, but I still had to do it for an hour until she got up again…"

Robin winced, her information being new to him - though he knew it was something he should have expected. "Was she that badly hurt?"

"Not really." Anna shrugged, remaining carefree. "I mean, not physically. Emotionally she seemed kinda out of it, but that's probably to be expected when she lost to her archenemy."

"Archenemy…?" Robin repeated slowly, weighing whether or not Noire actually saw him in such a light. "Do you think so?"

Anna shrugged again. "Probably. That'll happen with the whole 'another you destroying the world' thing."

"Another me…" Robin murmured before shaking his head, freeing himself from his thoughts. "Anyway, Anna, I wanted to talk to you about what's coming next."

"I'm not done talking about yesterday, though." Anna pouted, and Robin's face fell knowing that he wouldn't be able to stop her from talking for as long as she wanted.

Anna's smile returned, falsely promising him that whatever happened next would be painless. "It's one, simple little question, okay?"

"Okay." Robin agreed, though he could already tell that vow to be hollow.

"Do you think people would pay to see fights like that?"

Robin blinked, her question being unexpectedly expectable. "Um… maybe, if they're into watching fighting? I don't think it would be practical for business, though."

"That'd be something for the Anna logistician network to decide." Anna said, then smiled. "Thanks for the input! You're fine not taking any royalties on a finished product, right? Right!"

Robin stared at her blankly. "You can be an incredibly shallow person when you want to be. You know that, right?"

"Or maybe my lack of depth is depth in and of itself?" Anna proposed, her faux wisdom almost succeeding in making her sound genuinely wise.

"Uh… I guess that- wait, no, that makes no sense. At all." Robin said.

"Eh, whatever you say. I'm fine with the way I am, shallow or not." Anna said blithely. "Anyway, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"Right. So, first of all, we're going to be reaching a village soon that has to deal with risen attacks constantly, at least according to Flavia." Robin explained. "I can count on your support for fighting the risen, right?"

"Of course!" Anna replied cheerily. "I'm here, with the Shepherds, to stay. As long as I get paid, at least."

"I guess I won't have to worry about risen buying you out." Robin remarked passively.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Anna inquired, her lighthearted tone losing itself to an accusatory edge. "I'll have you know that loyalty is a very important concept, especially for merchants and Shepherds like me. I'm not about to be bought out by an enemy faction… probably. They would have to offer a lot to get me to pass on a massive deal with Ylisse."

"Right, right, of course." Robin said, and Anna snapped back to her unbearably pleasant state an instant later. "Once we exterminate the risen, the village shouldn't have any trouble for a while, and there's not supposed to be anyone there to find. That means we'll be able to move on to the next location pretty soon - that island off the east coast, I believe."

"The one with the manakete." Anna swooned, and one of Robin's eyebrows shot up.

"Manakete?" he muttered, more to himself than her. "Who was that again… some woman named Nah, right? Hm… cool."

"Do you think Kjelle would be mad if I tried to sell her friend?" Anna asked, completely serious through her ever-present smile.

Robin blinked. "You're not selling a person, Anna."

"Yeah, I know, morals, and ethics, and integrity, and crap." Anna mumbled angrily. "Ah well, I'm sure money can be made with her voluntarily, as well. Who knows, I might even be able to make even more that way."

"Anna. You're not selling people, or exploiting them." Robin commanded, using an authoritative tone he had rarely found himself using, even in his careers as a tactician and grandmaster.

"...Fine." Anna acquiesced, bitter for only a moment before her chipper mood returned in full. "I solemnly swear, on all of my earnings as a merchant and my honourable reputation as an Anna, that I won't do anything bad to Nah. Are we good?"

"We're good." Robin confirmed with a small, authentic smile. "Thanks for sticking with us through this, Anna. I can already tell that you'll be a great help to the Shepherds, and everyone who'll need saving in this world when the wars come."

"Thanks. That was vaguely ominous, but also kind of heartwarming." Anna said.

Robin relaxed into his horse, adapting to his usual conditions of near constant travel, knowing that there were hours left before they stopped for a break and days more of journeying on the horizon. He both hoped that Anna would press on ceaselessly and stop constantly, his drives to finish his little adventure and never have it end conflicting greatly.

Anna glanced to him several times before returning her attention to the path ahead of them. "Hey, Robin? What do you think'll happen when we find more of the time travellers?"

"Hopefully, they'll be willing to join the Shepherds and help save the world." Robin answered without missing a beat, practically lying down on his horse as he attempted to relax.

"Aren't they going to want to kill you, like Kjelle and Noire?" Anna asked. "Do you not think that they might end up succeeding at some point?"

Robin rose from his resting position, shifting his body to speak to her seriously. "Maybe. If they do, though, then I can be sure that the future is in the right hands, so there's nothing really worth worrying about."

"Except for a dead Shepherd." Anna said. "Do you really think that Chrom, or anyone else, will be perfectly fine with them if they kill you? Do you honestly think the Shepherds wouldn't hate them?"

"I hope they would all be fine with each other. They're family, after all, in one way or another." Robin said. "Even if something bad happens, they should get along. Even if someone ends up dying."

"I doubt Chrom would see it that way." Anna muttered, Robin's tilted head telling her he had overheard the statement. "Seriously, I've pretty much only operated as a merchant and observer, and even I can tell how much he cares about you, and every other Shepherd. Any one of them dying would probably be seen as something unforgivable to him. Kind of like with Emmeryn."

"He's still a sensible person, though." Robin argued. "He should be able to understand their situation, at the very least. Besides, I already sent word ahead about them, so if he doesn't believe them then he'll probably believe me. If he does that, he'll come to accept whatever happens later on."

"Is that how you're trying to justify this? All the unnecessary risks you're taking by helping Kjelle, and Noire, and whoever else is here from the future?" Anna asked, giving a small, empty laugh. "Please. You know Chrom would be devastated by any deaths. There has to be some explanation other than 'he'll be okay' for you to be fine with how dangerous everything will become, and already is."

"Well, it's to help him out, too. All of the Shepherds, really." Robin said, taking care to hide his expression from Anna. "Kjelle and her friends can be a massive help with everything that's coming. If there were people from the future who were close to the Shepherds and could help out, but if Chrom or anyone else were here instead of me, I'm sure they would all be doing the same. Practically everyone in the Shepherds wants what's best for everyone else, so they'd want to do this too, not only me."

"But anyone else in the Shepherds wouldn't be marked for death, like you." Anna refuted.

"The core concept is the same." Robin said indignantly. "I want to be as good of a person as any of them. As good as they think I am."

"Oh. I honestly thought it was more to impress Kjelle." Anna said, the gravity that had appeared in their conversation disappearing in an instant.

Robin blinked, then stared at her blankly. "What?"

"C'mon, you have to admit that makes way more sense than actively wanting to be a good person." Anna said. Robin's expression remained blank. "Though, I suppose it would make more sense for you to do something dangerous for Chrom than for a lady…"

Robin narrowed his gaze on her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing!" Anna smiled, failing to disarm his cold glare. "You two seem really close, you know? You and Chrom. Like really, really close."

"Right." Robin agreed slowly, keeping his expression hidden from her. "We're pretty close friends. I'm willing to do practically anything for him, and he probably feels the same."

"But are you just 'friends'?" Anna asked, her voice forcibly sultry as she raised and lowered her eyebrows suggestively.

"What? Yeah, what else would we be?" Robin said. He could see the rapid movements of her eyebrows become faster in response to his question. "Shut up, Anna."

"Hm? Whatever do you mean?" Anna leaned toward him, her eyebrows somehow moving even faster as she perfectly feigned an unassuming innocence.

"I could technically fire you, Anna." Robin reminded her coldly.

"But you wouldn't, right? ...Right?"

* * *

Once the cart had ground to complete stop, Noire and Kjelle hopped out of its back and began to stretch away the soreness they had accumulated throughout the day. They shared a small smile, their reminiscing having continued for several hours longer than either had thought would be practical, though practicality wasn't a concern when they would have otherwise been doing nothing but waiting.

Having never called for Robin, he had never appeared, leaving them to their time together peacefully. Instead of interacting with them, the grandmaster had taken to staying with Anna, discussing nothing with her and later lighting her path when darkness had begun to fall.

Their group had arrived at a stop in what was essentially the middle of nowhere, a road that possibly only Anna knew of having lead them close to their next destination. The moon had long since risen in the sky, illuminating their small, snowy clearing and the stark forest in which it was situated.

"Gods, I can already feel it getting warmer out." Noire remarked, rubbing a hand over the back of her neck to alleviate a sore muscle.

"Barely." Kjelle said, herself attempting to massage a few knots of muscle that had formed on her upper back, though to little success. "I've been in Ferox for so long I can barely remember what not-snow is like. It'll be nice to finally see Ylisse again, maybe have some summers in the Farfort like old times."

"Isn't your father still in the Shepherds?" Noire asked.

"I think so. Probably gearing up for the Valmese war already, if he hasn't decided to stay behind, like in our time." Kjelle answered.

"But… he stayed behind to look after you." Noire said. "If he's still in the Shepherds, and isn't in a relationship with your mother, then will he let you stay at the Farfort?"

"I don't see why not." Kjelle replied, seemingly unconcerned. "He's still my father, and once I get him to see my mother as my mother, then we can be a family again. No complications there."

"You're going to try to set up your own parents?" Noire asked, pausing her ongoing routine of stretches to do so.

Kjelle blinked, having not expected the slight resistance her friend was giving. "Aren't you?"

"I mean, I never met my mother. At least, not that I can remember." Noire said. "My father was practically all the family I ever had, and if what you said about my mother in this time and sir Virion is true, then I don't think my family will ever get together."

"And you're fine with that?" Kjelle asked, almost appalled. "Your own family wouldn't…"

"If my father marries someone other than lady Tharja, it'll make no difference to me." Noire said calmly. "I know that coming back in time may have changed things; that was something we all had to accept - and believe in - when we came here. If my father marries someone else, as long as they aren't a horrible person, I'll be fine treating them as though they were the mother I never knew."

"But… but what about you?" Kjelle argued futilely. "You won't have your mother. What if you're never born, or stop existing, or something?"

"I never had a mother in the first place." Noire reminded her coldly, though without any trace of resentment for Tharja, knowing the sorceress likely never held any dominion over her own death. Also, I don't think I'll stop existing. We should have been born around or by now, but we haven't been, and we're still here. I don't think time travel would or could erase us like that."

"But… why? Why wouldn't you want to have the life that was stolen from you in our time?"

"I do. More than anything, I want that." Noire sighed, resenting her future one more time, an incredibly common practice for her. "That doesn't mean I'll have to interfere in this time for that. My father is my family, and once I find him, I know I can be happy, regardless of who he ends up with."

Kjelle stared at her for a moment longer before slowly nodding in acceptance. "Right… you're right. As long as they're happy, we can be happy. Of course."

"You don't sound very sure of yourself." a new voice remarked, causing Kjelle to jump at the unexpected intrusion. Robin had appeared behind her, with he and Anna having finished constructing their camp for the night in the short time she and Noire had been talking.

"Ah, well, it's nothing." Kjelle dismissed her words, turning to face him as she calmed her startled nerves. "What's going on?"

"Not much." Robin shrugged, also dismissing what she had been saying. "Anna's handling food tonight, so I wanted to see if we could train."

"Right now?" Kjelle asked, and he nodded, already reaching into his robes for one of his tomes. "Sure, I'm game."

"Wait, you two are going to-?" Noire began, falling silent when Kjelle armed herself with her enchanted lance and Robin pulled out his thunder tome. "Oh, uh, okay then. I'm going to… I don't know, go do something else, I guess. Don't get killed, Kjelle."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine." Kjelle waved her off, taking a spot on the edge of their clearing away from Robin. The grandmaster stood patiently as he waited for her to be ready, and when she flashed him a thumbs up he began to prepare his magic.

"You learn anything from that fire tome yet?" he asked passively, watching her acutely as she cautiously drew near.

"I haven't exactly looked at it since you last asked." Kjelle admitted, both her approach and words never faltering.

Robin stared at her, visibly unimpressed but oddly understanding. "I see. Work on that as soon as you can, and as much as you can, okay? We need to have that final duel of ours sooner or later."

"Yeah. Got it." Kjelle nodded in agreement, though somehow with less enthusiasm than his measured tone.

She rushed at Robin, almost managing to hit him with the head of her lance before he shot his spell at her feet, destabilising her. He then promptly knocked her to the ground with another weak spell to the chest. Robin let her rise to a stand without attacking her, switching to his wind tome to deal with her in a less direct and potentially harmful manner.

Kjelle fired off a flame effigy of her lance, aimed at his head, and began to charge him once again. Her attack yet again almost collided with him, only to be blocked by the sleeve of his cloak and glove, though it managed to temporarily blind him. She swiped at his legs, but even with her flame attack he was able to correct his vision in time and counter her, pushing her weapon to the ground with wind and holding it in place underfoot.

Robin stood over her, his wind magic primed as she struggled to free her lance, seemingly not possessing her typical physical strength. She sighed and let go of it, standing up and brushing off her legs, surrendering the round to Robin in a way that made him more cautious than anything else.

She stood straight and stretched slightly. Robin eyed her carefully as he struggled to keep his wind magic in check without overcharging his spells. Holding out her hand for him to shake, showing that she was forfeiting the round to him, Kjelle smiled as disarmingly as she could manage. Robin narrowed his eyes on her outstretched hand, evaluating it prudently before firing off his wind magic harmlessly and accepting the handshake.

Kjelle used the handshake to immediately yank him off of her lance, bringing her spare fist around to hammer him in the gut, winding him. She bent and picked up her lance as he staggered back, coughing several times. She began to charge another shot of her enchanted weapon.

"That… wasn't fair…" Robin groaned, holding his hands protectively over his sore stomach, his tome still gripped tight.

"Practically anything's fair in a fight." Kjelle grinned, her lance illuminating her body as her magic charged. "Honestly, that felt pretty awful, that I had to rely on such a dirty tactic to hit you. Good gods, is that the first time I've hit you since the Ruins of Time!?"

"You hit me yesterday… a lot." Robin reminded her, still struggling to overcome her punch.

"That didn't count." Kjelle rolled her eyes, shooting her flame lance at him only for it to be passively blocked by his cloak. "Noire was there. It wasn't a real fight between the two of us, since I wouldn't have been able to hit you without her help. Besides, I'm pretty sure that was all part of your feint."

"Felt real enough to me." Robin said, finally restored to his previous condition. "I can still feel hits, you know. They're nowhere near as strong, but they're there."

Kjelle didn't bother to charge at him, knowing he was already prepared enough that she would simply be blown away by his magic. "So, other than that, I haven't hurt you at all, have I?" she asked, unintentionally conveying her dissatisfaction to him.

"Um… no, there was one time you managed to hurt me." Robin said, rubbing his head as if doing so would help him remember better. "When we had left Port Ferox, and I hadn't enchanted my gloves, you managed to cut one of my hands."

"Meaning I haven't made any progress in about a week. Meanwhile you've only gotten harder to hurt." Kjelle muttered. "Great."

"That's no reason to get disheartened, though." Robin encouraged her, passively aborting and resetting his magic periodically to ensure that he wouldn't be caught off guard again. "You've made a lot of progress since then, especially with the enchanted lance. I'm sure you'll be casting magic that can harm anyone in no time."

Kjelle's face fell at his need to encourage her, but even then she couldn't hide the small smile his praise gave her. "I guess I'll have to keep at it, then. Until I'm stronger than you."

"Keep telling yourself that." Robin grinned. He took to the offensive, ending their conversation with a burst of wind magic.

They fought well into the night, with Anna delivering meals to the edge of where they were dueling before she and Noire sat down to watch their battles. Kjelle didn't win once, and didn't manage to get any more hits off on him, though she never appeared to care too greatly and was pleased instead with the slow progress she was making.

Eventually, Anna retired for the night, knowing that another full day of travel was waiting for her in the near morning. Noire stuck around for a short while longer, never involving herself in the duels beyond a few shouted words of encouragement to Kjelle before she too left to sleep.

Once Robin and Kjelle finally stopped fighting, their food was practically frozen. Both combatants were still eager to eat, though, so while Kjelle placed away all of the weapons she had retrieved from her bags and the wagon, Robin promised to reheat the food with his fire magic. In the few seconds Kjelle took to set down her weapons, he had already burned the food as well as the dishes and snowy ground surrounding where Anna had set the meals.

Robin beat down the flames with an excess of wind magic, fully ruining whatever little food remained untouched by the fire. Kjelle struggled to contain her laughter at his plight as she approached him, despite the pangs of hunger in her stomach that begged to be sated.

"I'm going to go get something else." Robin announced, briskly walking away from where he had destroyed Anna's meals. "Something that doesn't need to be cooked. Or prepared."

As he passed Kjelle, the food burst into flames again, not caring for how badly it had already been damaged. Robin spun back to face it, his jaw dropping in shock as the flames burst into a radiance somehow more intense than before.

Kjelle failed to contain her laughter this time, having to bring a hand over her mouth to avoid waking Noire and Anna. "Godsdamn, you are awful at this."

"I'd like to see you do better with magic." Robin challenged her with a frown, and while the comment did sting her and her inability to cast spells, it didn't deter her from laughing. "Ugh. I'm going to go see how much food I have left. I forgot to stock up when we were at that village a few days ago."

"Don't worry about it too much." Kjelle laughed, the sound being surprisingly sweet. "We can catch a larger breakfast before we head out. I had some light snacks and stuff to eat in the carriage, too, from some of the stuff Anna was going to sell… er, don't tell her that. Seriously."

"Promise." Robin said with an agitated frown, using more wind magic to douse the flames before stamping out the embers with his boots. "Goodnight, Kjelle. Thanks for the fights, and everything."

"Ditto." Kjelle smiled. She left for the tent that had been constructed for her, falling asleep in a matter of minutes in spite of the discomfort of her stomach.

Robin did the same in his own tent a few moments later. He found that, though he was hungry, he was more than satisfied enough to sleep well.

* * *

Noire boosted herself onto the back of Anna's wagon, perching on its waist high edge and then swinging her legs over and up into the little free space she had. Kjelle scrambled up beside her in a decidedly far less dignified manner, holding part of a makeshift sandwich in her mouth as she heaved herself into the wagon and scooted over to her spot across from Noire.

After a few moments of nothing, Anna propelled her horses forward, beginning their second day of travel in full. Robin followed behind them on his mount at a staggered pace, alternating between keeping up with them and taking inventory of himself and his bags intermittently.

Kjelle wolfed down her entire sandwich in a few large bites, passively dusting her hands free of crumbs before reaching for the fire tome next to her lances. Noire watched her lethargically, yawning once when her friend had settled in.

"Are you still trying to learn magic?" she asked.

Kjelle nodded to her over the top of her tome. "I can use the enchantment on my lance, and probably a levin sword or bolt axe, but not raw magic." she explained. As if to prove her point, she set the book down next to her and raised her hand to cast a spell, with no magic whatsoever coming out of her open palm.

"Maybe the tome is the problem?" Noire suggested, and Kjelle raised a half-hopeful and half-unbelieving eyebrow. "Here, let me see if I can use it. Maybe Robin gave you a purposefully bad edition."

Kjelle tossed Noire the book, and she caught it with both hands before flipping to a random page. Kjelle watched her expectantly. "For the sake of being clear, I want to say that I doubt you, but let's be certain on this. That's a way better explanation than me simply not being able to use magic. Though, do you know how to cast stuff like this?" she asked while Noire searched for any problem in the book's structure or formatting.

"It's not too different from an enchantment." Noire replied simply, more focused on the tome than their conversation.

"So I've heard." Kjelle muttered, leaving Noire to work on the tome without further interruption.

Noire read one of the spells in the book and, deeming that nothing was wrong about the passage itself, held her hand out toward the rear of the wagon to attempt casting her spell. Flames manifested around her hand and shot off in a matter of seconds, with Noire not bothering to look away from the tome as the spell released.

"Hm…" she muttered. "It doesn't seem like there's anyth-"

"What the hell!?" Robin shouted.

Noire's back shot straight as her eyes widened, and she cast a rapid glance out of the cart to where Robin was following them. The grandmaster had a hand over his cloak, holding a spot on his chest where her fireball had apparently collided with him. There was a bewildered, almost angry expression on his face, though he was visibly more shocked than anything else.

"Oh gods, he's pissed!" Noire whispered hoarsely, hiding her glance from him furtively. She sounded more like she had been caught with a hand in a jar of treats than someone who had accidentally assaulted a potential destroyer of the world.

"He doesn't really get pissed." Kjelle said, dismissing her concern with a wave of her hand before turning to Robin. "Sorry! Trying some stuff out here!"

"You nearly hit my horse!" Robin shouted back, patting his mount protectively.

"Maybe you should get a better horse!" Kjelle yelled back. Designating the matter as more or less resolved, she turned back to Noire, an easy smile written on her face.

Robin frowned and bent toward his horse's head, rubbing its neck as he cooed in its ear. "She's only mad that you're cuter than her horse. Yes you are!"

"I don't see anything wrong with the tome, or any of the spells." Noire announced, passing the book back to her friend in a less abrupt manner than it had been given.

"Wonderful. The problem is me, then." Kjelle sighed, opening the book to its most basic of spells. She read the writing on the page as best she could and aimed her hand out of the wagon, taking care to point it away from Robin. Nothing happened.

She huffed, snapping the tome shut and holding it against her forehead in frustration, then reopened it and tried the spell again. Again, nothing happened, and she huffed again, more violently.

"This shouldn't be something you need to force." Noire advised. The spell should kind of flow out of you, and out of the tome. You'll probably learn to not even feel it once you cast enough."

"I can't help but force it if nothing works!" Kjelle seethed, trying and failing a spell a third time.

"Stay calm, and work through it." Noire said. "Magic doesn't happen easily, and most people aren't naturals. I struggled way too much trying to learn enchantments, and even Laurent couldn't cast anything properly when he first started out."

"Being calm… working through it…" Kjelle echoed, her hand raised as she studied the tome intently.

After a few seconds of nothing happening, Noire began to frown. The magic never gave any indication of manifesting despite Kjelle's seemingly genuine attempt at casting a spell. Robin approached them while they were focused, silently nodding to Noire in greeting, with the archer doing the same as Kjelle struggled to do anything.

"Godsdamnit!" she eventually cursed, letting the book fall from her grip to the wagon floor. "This still isn't working!"

"Maybe you should use your lance more?" Robin suggested, surprising but not startling her. "I'm pretty sure that when you launched it a while ago, you were close to accidental normal magic. If you keep doing that, you might be able to cast magic easier. Maybe."

"I can't launch my lance while we're moving." Kjelle stated plainly, shooting down the idea after only a short period of consideration.

"I'll set up a barrier of wind magic for you." Robin offered. "Laws of magic - opposites repel. It can be strong enough to keep your lance in place, catch any misfires, and contain any mistakes, and it might help form the spell, too. Sound good?"

Kjelle paused for a moment, but ultimately nodded. "Set it up. I'll keep trying until I get an actual spell, though, so we might be here all day."

Robin blinked, somehow missing her point. "But… we're constantly moving. We literally can't be- oh, oh. Never mind."

"You good?" Kjelle asked through a small laugh, not quite concerned but also not quite humoured.

"Shut up." Robin ordered playfully, blushing at his mistake while Kjelle struggled to hide some legitimate laughter.

Noire eyed Robin warily before turning to Kjelle. "Are you sure that he won't… I don't know, suffocate us?"

"Seriously?" Robin asked, his expression as unenthused as his voice.

"Go ahead and set up the barrier, Robin." Kjelle commanded, dismissing Noire's concern. Noire glared at both her and Robin, who was already in the process of casting his magic, but allowed their infraction to pass unopposed.

A wall of vibrantly green wind appeared at the rear opening of the cart, between Robin and the two women. The grandmaster held onto his tome closely, the magic in its current state not proving difficult to maintain, though he knew that could change at any given moment. Noire tentatively reached a hand out to the wall, and when neither Robin nor Kjelle stopped her, touched the wind.

Her fingers passed through it easily. She waved her hand up and down, disrupting part of the barrier, though it reformed an instant later as though it had never been touched.

"Can you hear us, Robin?" she asked, wary of his magic but curious nonetheless.

"No, not at all." Robin replied without missing a beat.

Noire rolled her eyes. "Are you sure this'll work? How is it even going to stop the lance if it goes flying?"

"I'll have the wind magic strengthen in response to force. Nothing too complicated, really." Robin said. "Magical dissonance will help out a lot, too. Your hand or normal weapons won't be affected by it, but a weapon enchanted with fire magic will be."

"That sounds very… unique." Noire said, furrowing her brow. "Like, specialised and obscure, more than anything I've learned. How do you know how to cast this?"

"Like I said, it's nothing that complicated." Robin shrugged. "Apply a little magic theory to spells, and you can do a lot of stuff. You might not have learned to do this, since I'm given to understand that your education for this kind of thing was cut pretty short, but I'm willing to bet that any of the mages in the Shepherds could pull this off without difficulty."

"Do I count as a mage yet?" Kjelle asked. "Because if I do, I will absolutely take you up on that bet."

"Cast your magic, Kjelle. Then we can talk about whether you're a mage or not." Robin said.

Kjelle picked up her lance with her right hand as she held her tome open in her left, shifting her position around so that she could more easily point her weapon at the wall of wind. She trusted that the barrier would hold, but even so she pointed her lance away from Robin. She didn't want to accidentally hit him.

"Try to keep your magic in your lance, without firing it off." Robin instructed. "Once it compounds enough, you might be able to use it as a basis to form a proper spell, but try to not let it compound too much. I don't know what would happen, but it probably wouldn't be very good."

Kjelle set about priming her spell, confirming his words without physically acknowledging them. She didn't actually know how to properly store her magic without releasing it, but she tried as best she could, her lance glowing brighter and brighter as the enchantments on it took effect.

The weapon grew blindingly bright and began to vibrate in her grip. She continued to feed magic into it, even as Noire curled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them protectively.

Robin's eyes began to widen as the lance's vibrations grew borderline violent. "Um, Kjelle, maybe now would be a good-"

He didn't get to finish his suggestion. The lance exploded in Kjelle's grip, throwing flames in every direction. Robin cursed and rapidly curved his wind barrier inward, wrapping it around as much of the explosion as he could and containing the majority of it in a small, confined space. A tiny amount managed to slip past his wind, though it failed to hit either occupant of the wagon and instead latched itself onto the floor around them.

Once the flames cleared and the brightness died down, Robin returned his wind barrier to its original location and curvature. Kjelle's expression was locked in as a grim wince, visible only now that her lance had stopped reacting to her attempted magic. The weapon

had remained in her hand the entire time.

Noire stamped out a spot of flames next to her, reacting far more calmly than she had anticipated under her circumstances. "Well, that was interesting."

"I'm guessing that wasn't supposed to happen…" Kjelle muttered to no one in particular.

"Let's try again." Robin said matter-of-factly, his magic waiting for Kjelle to make a move. She hesitated, then sighed and began to charge another shot.

Noire's eyes widened slightly as Kjelle channeled her magic, but she refrained from saying or doing anything that would show her skepticism toward her friend's efforts. Kjelle's lance began to glow again, then vibrate, though this time she knew to release her spell before it could explode.

A flaming effigy of her lance shot into Robin's wind barrier, dissipating on contact as his wind blocked any extraneous movement. Kjelle's lance remained in her grip, and with a quick nod to Robin that confirmed there weren't any immediate issues with his magic, she repeated the process. Another fire lance shot into the barrier.

Over the hours of their day's journey, Kjelle fired shot after shot of attempted magic at the barrier. She never once succeeded in casting true magic, and there were many times where she accidentally exploded her spell, though those instances grew to be fewer as the day progressed. Noire and Robin intermittently voiced their support for her, offering ultimately ineffective guidance and potential casting methods to help her along.

Kjelle took breaks sparingly, giving herself little time to reevaluate and reflect upon her work as well as little time for Robin to rest his own magic, though neither ever voiced a need for rest.

* * *

"We're here!" Anna sang, stepping off of her driving platform and away from her wagon.

The sun had begun to set over Ferox, calling for an end to their day of nonstop travel. Anna had guided them to their destination with a small amount of time to spare, thanks largely due to her accumulated knowledge of the land's roads and her own pressing desire to sell off her gathered merchandise. Now, they were inside the walls of a fortified village - the very one Flavia had designated as in need of aid.

Robin appeared along the side of the wagon, placing away a green tome in his robes as his horse trotted toward the merchant. "Any word on the risen?"

"We can probably catch them tomorrow." Anna said, unconcerned. "During my scouting time, they would appear daily in the forests and mountains around here. They would never attack the village, mind you; it was more like a herd of animals that had laid claim to the land."

"Will we be able to hunt them down quickly?" Robin asked. "We're still kind of on time constraints here, given everything with the Valmese invasion."

"It'll probably take the better part of a day, but no more. They're not much of a threat, as far as I could see." Anna said. She then clapped her hands together happily. "In the meantime, though, I have things to sell! This village is isolated enough that its only trade comes from a few neighbouring towns, so it's practically an untapped market!"

Robin slid off his horse, giving it some much deserved time to relax without his weight on its back. "Are you going to be free to fight tomorrow? If you're going to be selling stuff all day, I mean."

"About that…" Anna began, smiling too sweetly at him. "I started wondering if I could have a day off from the battles. I won't try to lie and say that it's for anything other than selling my wares, but…"

"Seriously? Even after you said you would help?" Robin asked, with Anna offering nothing more than a sheepish grin in response. He sighed and asked, "do you think these risen will be something Kjelle, Noire, and I can handle on our own?"

"They're something any one of you could handle on your own." Anna answered. "Seriously, they aren't threatening. Doubly so if the stuff you pulled off at the lake was any indication of your skill, not to mention that Kjelle held up well against Ezra's slavers - who, by the way, would be like Grannvale mixed with Rigel compared to these risen."

"Go ahead, then." Robin said. "Shepherds still have a fair amount of autonomy. I'm not going to make anyone fight who doesn't want to, at least as long as it isn't some insane life-or-death battle."

"Thanks!" Anna smiled, then darted toward the rear of the wagon, shouting to him over her shoulder. "You've got some free time, right? Come on, help me set up shop!"

"We haven't even found an inn yet!" Robin reminded her. She paid him no mind, rushing out of his sight and leaving him to sigh and follow her, pulling his horse along with him to ensure it didn't wander off anywhere in spite of its training.

Kjelle and Noire had moved from the positions they had assumed in the wagon for the day, stretching now in the open air of Ferox. Noire was holding Kjelle's fire tome, flipping through its pages in search of nothing when Anna appeared next to them.

"You two are free right now, right?" she asked exuberantly, failing to surprise them any more than they had come to expect. "Help me set up shop! You have no idea how much we can make here!"

"Um… what?" Kjelle blinked. "Aren't we supposed to be saving people right now?"

"That can wait until after we make a profit." Anna waved her concerns away, smiling as she appraised her own wares. "I'm thinking we set up weapons and armour first, since people will be interested in defending themselves for now. Once you handle the risen, they'll probably want refunds, so we should make for Nah before then. In the meantime, I can set up some of my miscellaneous stuff and sell as much as I can to the non-fighters out here."

Kjelle blinked again, them narrowed her gaze on Anna. "You're selling weapons and armour, knowing that people won't want them after we do our job. That's predatory."

"Pretty sure you've told me that already." Anna shrugged. "Or, well, someone has. A lot of people, come to think of it. Ah well, let's get set up."

"Don't prey on innocent people, Anna." Robin appeared from the side of the wagon, his voice already cold. Despite how little he enjoyed using the leverage of his position, he was ordering her more than anything else. "I will absolutely make you refund them if you do. You're a Shepherd now; your actions reflect on every other Shepherd and all of Ylisse."

"Oh, come on, it's not like they're going to get hurt." Anna said, her unassuming doe eyed gaze warring with his cold stare until she sighed deeply. "Fine. I won't sell these poor, defenseless people the weapons and armour they need to defend themselves from risen, or slavers, or bandits, or whatever other monsters are lurking about."

"Thanks, Anna." Robin smiled, causing her to sigh again.

"You're a horrible influence, Robin." she said plainly, turning back to her wares to set up shop, evidently with less ill intent than before.

Kjelle watched Anna calmly sort through her goods before turning to Robin. "Wanna fight?"

"We're in a village right now." Robin replied, shooting down her idea with little more than a glance.

"We can step outside." Kjelle said, angling her head to where a group of villagers were closing the village gates behind their wagon.

"It's almost night, we need to find an inn and some stables, and we would probably get locked out." Robin countered.

"Sounds like you're afraid of fighting me." Kjelle taunted, frowning when Robin shrugged dismissively.

"You've been making some pretty good progress recently. Maybe I don't want you to actually win a duel." he joked without a hint of malice.

"Well, how about we don't fight, then?" Kjelle suggested, and Robin tilted his head, urging her to explain. "We can work out. You know, go through an exercise regimen. I'm pretty interested in what the Shepherds in this time do for workouts."

"Gods, not Frederick's regimens again…" Robin breathed. "I'm going to go not do that. I'd rather we fight and destroy the entire village…"

"It's exercise. It can't be that bad." Kjelle argued.

"Frederick's routine, though… ugh. Seriously, ugh." Robin said, his shoulders sagging in a memory of all-encompassing weariness.

"Sounds like it would be a great thing to try out, then." Kjelle smiled, his hesitation only fueling her anticipation.

"Hey, guys!" Anna called out from within her wagon, interrupting them without turning to face them. "Are we setting up shop here, or what?"

"Sorry, I've got a friend who needs some help." Robin said to Kjelle, jumping on the opportunity to escape as he literally jumped into the wagon, passing his reins to Kjelle as he went. "Do me a favour and find some stables and an inn while I'm doing this, please?"

"Seriously?" Kjelle asked, holding the reins out from her body with an open hand as though he would come back and take them from her. She sighed and shook her head, and began to move away from them in search of a stable for their horses, temporarily giving up on her plan to learn his workout regimen.

Noire followed her, running up beside and then walking in time with her. "I'm game to work out a little, if you want. I haven't done very much to stay in shape since leaving our time…"

"It's fine." Kjelle said, waving her off as she began to unshackle Anna's workhorses. "We really should be looking for somewhere to stay, anyway, at least before doing anything else. It's getting late."

Noire narrowed her gaze on Kjelle, in equal parts confusion and suspicion. "You wanted to work out because it would have been with Robin, huh?"

Kjelle turned to face her friend, her brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing, nothing." Noire said, expelling the thought from her head. "At least, I sincerely hope it's nothing."

* * *

 **Had to cut into that grace period with this one. My bad. I'm trying to get as much of this story done as possible and keep up with my goals, but I also have to balance that with a lot of external stuff now that has cut my free time into practically nothing.**

 **Things have started to move a bit faster in the story, both because I don't have enough time to elaborate on small things and because there's honestly a fair amount of said small things that aren't pertinent to the main theme or plots I'm going for. Robin and Kjelle's relationship will still be a slow burn, and my overall concepts won't change much, but there are a few small things I'm changing in the chapters I'm currently working on to streamline everything.**

 **Also, because I forgot to mention it last chapter, I totally thought of the Grima!Robin thing before they were added to Heroes (though I'm willing to bet hundreds of other writers have done the same, too). Also also, my Grima!Robin is way less of an asshole (though still not peak asshole yet) than the ones in Heroes. That literally doesn't matter at all, I just wanted to make it known. There's also going to be a bit of a spin to that way later on, but that's a long ways away.**

 **Status: As of 09-10-18, I'm on chapter 33. The Valmese war is now officially underway, and it's going to be pretty fast in order for the endgame to be reached by about chapter 50. I swear I'm not rushing it; there's a lot of content there, it's simply going to be way more smooth than what you've read so far. Hopefully.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	18. Chapter 18

"Thanks for stopping by!"

Anna watched happily as yet another citizen exited the makeshift shop constructed in the quaint village she, Robin, and the time travellers had reached. She had set up promontories as adjuncts to her wagon, using the back entrance as a countertop to both protect the remainder of her merchandise and use as a place for her many transactions.

Thankfully, the villagers seemed all too eager to part with their gold, though Robin's insistence on not selling weapons until later was dampening her sales. However, having already made five quality sales in the few hours since dawn, Anna was showing no signs of slowing her operation, knowing that her profits would only increase as the day progressed.

Kjelle, having vouched to stay at an inn like Robin and Noire as opposed to in the shop overnight like Anna, was leaned against the edge of the wagon, observing the merchant at work with crossed arms. She was already covered in armour, awaiting the call from Robin that told her she would be moving out to neutralise any risen in the area. The unease she had expected from having to face risen again for the first time after leaving her future was surprisingly absent.

"Are you going to stand there creepily, or are you actually here for something?" Anna asked, finally paying her mind now that any potential customers had wandered away from her shop.

"Just gonna stand and creep." Kjelle replied casually. "I've got to make sure you don't scam anyone, after all. At least until we have to leave without you."

"Ugh, are you still mad about that?" Anna rolled her eyes. "I told you already, these risen are easy. You'll be done in a few hours, max, and you'll be able to see that my time was better spent here than anywhere else."

"You really can be an awful person at times." Kjelle remarked.

"As you keep saying." Anna replied dryly. "Want to help me actually sell something, rather than drive away potential customers?"

"I'll pass. I'm going up against the risen soon, anyway." Kjelle said. "You might know something about that, if you, well, you know…"

"Bite me, Kjelle." Anna glared at her. "Tell you what: while you're gone, I'll earn so much gold that you won't know what to do with yourself. Then we can see who gets to be smug."

"I'm more concerned about someone getting hurt than about getting to be an ass." Kjelle said. "What if you're wrong, or something goes wrong, and Robin or Noire die?"

"Nobody is at risk of dying." Anna contended, exasperated. "You know what's going to happen? You're going to go out, find the risen, and kill them all without a hitch. Then, you'll find their chieftain, kill them, and go 'wow, that was slightly more difficult than those other ones', then you'll come back here and see how much money I've made in the hour or so it took you to do all of that, and go 'oh my gods, Anna, you were so right about everything! Here, let me buy the rest of your stock to make up for being an idiot and doubting you!' and I'll mark up the prices to spite you."

"I don't doubt that it'll be an easy task for me." Kjelle said, then frowned. "But what if something bad does happen? Noire's only been away from our future for a few months; maybe she isn't prepared to face risen again, and maybe she'll choke when it comes time to fight them."

Anna's gaze shifted from one of derisive scorn to one of empathy she rarely ever used genuinely. "It'll be fine, Kjelle. These risen are easy. Noire isn't going to have any difficulty fighting them, and neither will you, regardless of whatever memories you have from your future. There's nothing for you to be afraid of."

"I'm not afraid!" Kjelle abruptly shouted, being honest but a little too quick to reject the notion. "Besides, even if something does go wrong, I'll be there. Robin too. It's not like he'll be afraid, or let anyone die."

"That's way more trust than I would think you to have for him." Anna observed, but then shook her head and shrugged. "Eh, you're probably right. He's definitely more afraid of you than the living dead, anyway."

Kjelle blinked and furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"

"Seriously? You've been trying to kill him since you met him, like what Noire's been doing, right?" Anna asked, and Kjelle nodded in hesitant confirmation. "Well, you may not have seen it because of the whole 'destroyer of the world' thing, but I think he already sees you as an equal. I can tell that he's trying to make you stronger, but based on how you two've been interacting, I think it's more so that you can surpass him, not match him."

"How could you possibly think that?" Kjelle asked, trying to wrap her mind around the merchant's claims. "He's still so much stronger than me, and I can't even use magic… he himself has said that I'm not that strong."

"You've already proven that you can outmatch him physically, if the fight at the lake was any indication." Anna said. "You got close to him, and he wasn't able to keep up with your attacks, or break your grip without breaking himself. I think he uses magic so much against you because he knows you would win a traditional fight."

"You think so?" Kjelle asked hopefully, albeit with a notable amount of uncertainty. "Wait, then why would he ever agree to have a duel without magic, if he knows he'll lose…?" she muttered to herself.

"I think he's showing you how to use magic so that you'll be more threatening to your foes than he is." Anna said, ignoring Kjelle's question. "I don't know why; maybe he wants to make sure you're ready for the coming war, or maybe to somehow prove that he isn't the evil you think he is, or maybe he simply wants you to be stronger than him for no real reason, but I can tell how powerful he wants to see you become. He sees something in you, Kjelle, and I'm pretty sure he's trying to help you in the best way he knows how."

"Why would that make him afraid of me?" Kjelle asked, returning to her original interest in the conversation and putting Anna's theories on hold.

"Ah, right, that. Sorry, got a little off topic." Anna apologised, smiling innocently. "So, he sees you as an equal, and as a capable fighter. And you've been trying to kill him since you met him. I don't know about you, but if I had someone I thought was really strong, and had that person constantly wanting to kill me, I would be on edge nonstop."

Kjelle blinked, Anna's words coming as nothing short of a complete surprise to her. "Robin isn't… he wouldn't be afraid, not of me."

"That's simply my thought process here. Maybe he isn't." Anna shrugged.

"Right, of course, he wouldn't be afraid of me…" Kjelle said, hesitating on every word.

"Um… Kjelle? Are you okay?" Anna asked, leaning toward Kjelle and snapping her fingers to unsuccessfully pull the time traveller from her thoughts. "It's only a little fear, Kjelle, and a theory at that. Kjelle?"

* * *

Robin yawned into his hand, resenting one more time how early he was waking up as if late. Beside him, Noire was tapping her fingers on her bow impatiently, herself resenting how long she had been made to wait, especially in such close proximity to Robin. Together, they stood in wait in the main room of the inn they had chosen the night prior, awaiting a conference with a village official that would point them in the direction of the risen.

"Why are you here again?" Robin asked Noire drowsily, subduing an additional yawn. Before she could say anything, he turned to one of the simple wooden tables at his side, pulled out a chair, sat down at it, and sleepily planted his head on the polished wooden surface, all in one swift movement.

"To make sure you don't get in trouble." Noire said, sitting down at the same table as him in less resigned and far more careful movements. "Also, I thought this would be over in a few minutes, and that I could grab a late breakfast…" she added, mumbling.

Robin groaned, a long, monotonous sound that gave way to yet another yawn. Noire regarded him curiously, having not expected the grandmaster of the Shepherds or the destroyer of her time to have ever acted so unbefitting of his titles.

"How are you still tired? You've been up for over an hour."

"I'm always tired." Robin said into the surface of the table. "Especially in mornings… and evenings… and nights… and-"

"I get it." Noire cut him off, more frustrated with the lack of any developments in their situation than with him. She leaned back in her chair, tilting her head over the headrest, and sighed deeply. "How much longer are we going to have to wait?"

"We've been here for… about ten minutes." Robin said plainly. "They probably won't be here for a little while. You can leave whenever you want, you know."

"And leave you here to scheme and plot on your own?" Noire laughed. "Not a chance."

"Right, because I spend all my free time with my hands steepled in front of my face, muttering under my breath about how I'm going to destroy the world." Robin mumbled into the table..

"I wouldn't put it past you." Noire grinned, though the statement was far more factual than a quip.

"Was I really that evil of a person in your time?" Robin asked, raising his head to look at her.

Noire found that she had to look away from him, his hurt expression coming across as all too sincere. "You did destroy the world, and killed practically everyone."

"But was there nothing at all good about me? No trace of anything wholesome whatsoever?"

"You destroyed the world and killed everyone."

Robin sighed and lowered his head back to the table. "Yeah, but… was there really nothing good? Nothing at all that I loved, or would have been redeeming in some way?"

"You destroyed the world and killed everyone." Noire repeated again, with Robin groaning in response. "If there ever was anything good about you, or anything that you ever loved, you definitely never showed it. Why does it matter to you?"

"I don't want to think that the me of your time was completely evil." Robin sighed. "I know they destroyed everyone and everything, but I want to believe that there was still some shred of good in them, that the love they have for the Shepherds hadn't entirely faded. That there's some way I won't end up being like them."

Noire looked at Robin for a moment before turning her nose up and away from him. "Do you really think you can overcome Grima? That the good in you will somehow outweigh the bad?"

"That's all I have left to hope for." Robin mumbled into his arm, with Noire managing to catch it all the same.

"Then maybe you can. Anything's possible." Noire said, Robin raising his head again in a glimmer of hope. "You still have a long, long way to go, though." she added, his hope dampening but not dying out completely.

"I'll take it." Robin smiled. "Any chance to avoid the horrors of your future is welcome. Any at all."

Noire nodded in agreement. They sat together in silence for several minutes longer, neither having anything they wished to say until Robin hesitantly cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry about everything that happened in your time." he said. "I promise, I'll do everything I can to stop it from ever happening again."

"...Thanks." Noire mumbled, his sincere tone and expression once again proving to be something she couldn't quite manage to get over.

After a few more minutes of waiting in silence, something both Robin and Noire found to be almost painful knowing that they still had an excess of topics they could discuss, a villager entered the inn. An older man, he lacked any armour or unique robes despite carrying the air of a socialite - or the closest such a small settlement could come to having a socialite - about him, with a traditional Feroxi heavy fur coat lining his shoulders and hiding all but his grey bearded face from sight.

"You are the esteemed grandmaster of Ylisse, yes?" he greeted Robin with little fanfare, ignoring Noire, save for a curt nod in her direction.

"'Esteemed' is honestly pushing it a little, but yeah. That's me." Robin said, rising from his seat to return the man's abrupt greeting with a customary handshake.

"The risen are swarming to the southeast of the village." the man said, wasting no time. "Several knights, fliers, mercenaries, and fighters, with one chieftain. Three citizens of Woodham, a nearby village, are caught in the forest beyond our walls, and we refuse to take them in until our own safety is secured. Understood?"

Robin blinked, taken aback by the man's incredibly straightforward nature, one that wasted less time than Lon'qu. "Um… yeah."

"Then I trust you will handle the matter immediately." the man said, turning to leave the inn. "If the Khans haven't yet paid your wages, our people will be able to reimburse you for your work - provided you complete the task fully. Goodbye."

"Wait!" Robin called after the man, stopping him in his tracks and causing him to grow visibly agitated. "Uh… what's your name?"

"You may call me Campell." the man said plainly, not waiting for Robin to say another word before he turned and exited the inn.

"Got it." Robin muttered, committing the name to memory in an instant as best he could. He turned to Noire, her expression showing that she was as taken aback as Robin.

"What was that about?" she asked, glancing between Robin and the door to the inn.

"Doesn't matter. We got the info we wanted, and he gets to go do… whatever someone like him does." Robin said. "Now, more importantly, what was his name?"

Noire blinked and furrowed her brow. "What? Um… he said it was Campell, right?"

"Right, right." Robin nodded, causing Noire to tilt her head in confusion. "I didn't see the grey this time, so… I don't know what that means. Maybe it's good?" he muttered to himself, ensuring his voice was low enough that Noire wouldn't hear.

* * *

"Godsdamnit, Anna! Why do you even have so many spiders on you!?"

"To prove that it's okay to be afraid!" Anna shouted, throwing another handful of assorted arachnids at Kjelle.

"Are you always carrying those things around!?" Kjelle asked, blocking her face with her arms to keep the spiders away from anywhere sensitive. "For gods' sakes, stop throwing them at me! I'm not afraid of spiders!"

Anna stopped immediately, frowning deeply as she shoved a handful of spiders back into one of her coat pockets. The merchant's frown only deepened as she analysed Kjelle, a bewildered look lining the other woman's features, though sadly it appeared to have originated from Anna's actions rather than from her many pets.

She snapped her fingers together and pointed to Kjelle in one movement. "Risen. You're from the future, so you'd have to be afraid of the risen."

"More than spiders, I guess?" Kjelle said, failing to shake her bewilderment.

"Got it!" Anna smiled. "Now, how to get risen inside of the village…"

"No, Anna. You aren't jeopardising an entire village to try to scare me." Kjelle instructed.

Anna frowned in response. "Unlike Robin, you technically aren't my superior." she said. "I can scare you all I want, and you can't do anything about it."

"Why do you want to scare me?" Kjelle asked, part of her legitimately dreading the answer she may receive.

"You learn to read people as a merchant." Anna explained. "I can tell when a grown woman is on the verge of a breakdown, and I don't want you to start bawling in the middle of my almost pre-peak business hours!"

"What!? I wasn't about to cry, or have any kind of breakdown!" Kjelle shouted indignantly, fury at Anna's perception of her potential weakness wholly replacing her dread.

"Keep telling yourself that." Anna said, her smile no longer present. "I know what I saw. Just be afraid, Kjelle; it's not always for the worst! You don't have to be sad about scaring people, and you definitely don't have to turn away customers as a result!"

"I don't scare people!" Kjelle yelled. "I'm the one who faces fears, who saves people from their nightmares! Not someone who makes terror and anxiety and everything horrible like that a reality!"

"That's it! Get angry, not sad!" Anna shouted in encouragement. "Then, take that anger, and use it to leave and not screw up my sales, okay?"

Kjelle reined in her rage, quietly seething at the merchant she had long ago revered. "Go to hell, Anna."

"See, normally when people would see a pretty woman crying, they'd want to comfort her." Anna said, explaining her logic to a thoroughly disinterested and increasingly antagonistic Kjelle. "That would actually be good for sales, but the problem is that you aren't exactly… demure. You would probably try to punch out anyone trying to comfort you, then get angrier about how you totally weren't a nervous wreck, and then I would have to deal with the fallout."

"I wasn't about to cry." Kjelle restated firmly. Anna merely rolled her eyes in response.

"Though you're right to believe she would punch out someone trying to comfort her." Noire entered the conversation abruptly as she approached Anna's makeshift storefront. "Well, at least most of the time."

"Damn right." Kjelle nodded, thanking her friend for her intrusion as well as the support her presence provided. "Please tell me that we're leaving now, so I can get away from this madwoman."

"We're leaving. You can get away from Anna." Robin spoke up, maintaining a greater distance from her than Noire. "The risen are swarming to the south, beyond the village gates. We have to clear them out, then we can come back here and leave by tomorrow."

"Thank the gods." Kjelle muttered, taking the opportunity to leave in an instant.

"See ya!" Anna waved the three off happily, her typical smile returning in full force.

"You know that if you really are afraid of anything, you can talk to us, right?" Robin said. "Noire is here now, and I'm sure she would be happen to listen, and I'm here too, for however much that matters."

Noire quirked her head at Robin, turning to Kjelle as they began to walk together toward the village gates. "Is there something you need to talk about? Fears?"

"I'm not afraid." Kjelle said, reinforcing her stance stubbornly despite the basis of truth in her statement.

"Okay, I was only curious." Noire said, raising her hands placatingly. "I'm here if there is anything, though. Any of us would be."

"Yeah, of course." Kjelle sighed. She turned around to find Robin once she had approached the village gates and, seeing that he was still a ways behind them, stopped to wait for him. The grandmaster had his head buried in his wind tome, with little care being paid to the outside world despite their impending battle, and Kjelle sighed again when she realised he would be taking his time to reach them.

"I think I might be afraid, you know…" Noire muttered from beside her, breaking her annoyed focus off of Robin. Kjelle stared at her uncomprehendingly, silently urging her to explain.

"O-Of the risen, I mean…" Noire elaborated shakily. "I haven't faced them since our time… I don't know what's going to happen today, but I know that if I can be as tough as you, things'll be okay."

"Noire…" Kjelle breathed, wincing once she finally began to take her friend's personality into consideration. Noire wasn't a fighter, at least not as much as her or some of the other time travellers; Kjelle couldn't reasonably assume that anyone, including Noire, would be as willing to kill risen as she was. "I'm sorry, Noire. I haven't been as strong as you think, but I promise, no matter what happens, I won't let anything bad happen to you. None of the risen will get past me."

Noire smiled warmly, her worries fading away. "Thanks, Kjelle. Coming from you, I think that's actually a reassuring promise. I vow to do the absolute best I can, too."

"We'll be unstoppable!" Kjelle grinned, punching Noire lightly on the arm. Noire continued to smile in response, passively rubbing her now wounded arm until Robin had reached them.

"This should be easy." he said, his eyes still hugging the pages of his tome. "There's a chieftain out there somewhere, and I want to be the one to handle them, so I'm going to go find them. I want the two of you to clean up everything else - mercenaries, fighters, knights, and some other classes, all easy kills."

"Got it." Kjelle confirmed his ordnance, arming herself with her enchanted lance in anticipation of what lay beyond the closed village gate, coincidentally silencing Noire before the archer could dissent any plan he had made. "How are you going to find the chieftain?"

"Hopefully… like this!" Robin said, pointing his right hand down at the ground at his feet. He shot out a powerful jet of wind magic, launching himself high into the sky at an angle, over the village walls. A second later, another jet of wind shot out horizontally, telling Kjelle and Noire that Robin had propelled himself forward at a different angle.

"I kind of want to try that." Noire commented, watching where Robin had soared into the sky with restrained awe.

"Let's get walking." Kjelle said, frustrated once again with her own inability to cast magic.

* * *

Kjelle tore her lance free of a risen mercenary's torso, the added damage of its removal causing the undead man to crumble into violet ash. Behind her, she heard the death throes of another if the undead, signalling that Noire had covered her and was ready to advance into the forested snowfields of their battleground.

Accepting that she wasn't in immediate danger from any risen skulking about nearby, Kjelle returned her focus to her lance and fire tome for the umpteenth time that fight. Ever since taking to the field, she had attempted to use her lance's enchantments whenever possible, convinced that continual use would prove to be the path to success.

"Do you think you've gotten any better yet?" Noire asked as Kjelle fired a large, overcharged fire lance into a nearby snowdrift.

"I'm working on it." Kjelle said lamely, bringing another flame lance into existence and still failing to cast a proper fire spell.

Noire hummed in acknowledgement. A risen appeared form within the depths of the forest, locking its animalistic gaze on Noire only to have its forehead be met with a lazily fired arrow.

"I think I'm bored." Noire admitted, playing with an arrow in one of her hands until such a time as another risen decided to make its existence known. "These things are going down so easily. I can't believe I thought I would be so afraid of them that I would go catatonic."

"They're still vaguely spooky, being undead and all." Kjelle offered, charging another shot of her lance.

"Yeah, I guess…" Noire agreed with a sigh. "They're so pathetic, though. I almost feel bad shooting them."

"They wouldn't feel the same." Kjelle said coldly, and Noire shrugged in agreement, the notion of pitying risen in no way being welcome.

A blurred object fell at speed into a snowbank in front of the two women, and both instinctively began to trace their weapons on the landing site. Robin and his iconic cloak popped up out of the snow a second later, causing Kjelle to sigh and lower her lance. Noire took a moment longer to do the same with her bow.

Robin stepped out of his tiny snow crater before placing his hands on his knees, bending over. His face paled for a stretch of time until he managed to get himself under control, his urge to vomit forgotten as he took a deep breath and corrected his posture. The urge to vomit promptly returned in an instant, and he hunched over again to subdue it, this time holding a hand to his forehead to quell the throbbing within.

Kjelle shot him an amused, almost concerned look that he barely caught out of the corner of his eye.

"Flying is hard, okay?" he offered feebly, teetering as he took a few shaky steps toward her and Noire.

"Did you find the risen chieftain?" Kjelle asked, cutting to the chase of his efforts as she moved to offer one of her arms to him in support. He refused to take it, insisting on standing on his own, with Kjelle's action doing nothing aside from earning her silent ilglare from Noire.

"Not yet." Robin confessed, his voice clearly disheartened but determined all the same. "There aren't too many places left for them to hide, but I think I'll stay on the ground for a while. Flying around like that really is difficult."

"What do you have to do for it?" Noire asked curiously, her waning hatred for Robin temporarily forgotten.

"Launch yourself up into the sky with strong enough wind magic," Robin explained, using one of his hands to demonstrate the hypothetical movement, "then, launch yourself in a different direction once you're high enough, taking care to not fall to the ground. That's pretty much all there is to it."

"That's a lot of raw force. How are you not tearing yourself apart in the sky?" Noire asked with the same curiosity.

"By being absurdly careful, and measuring every single spell much too accurately." Robin said. "Except for landings. Those are always rough."

Kjelle nodded knowingly, glancing to his crater before looking back at him. "Anyway, I don't think there's that much for us to do here. These risen are weak. Like, pathetically weak."

"Nothing wrong with that." Robin smiled, running a hand through his hair but wincing when the action caused his head to throb again. "It's good to relax once in a while. Not every battle has to be some intense, life-or-death affair."

"Yeah, I guess. Still would have preferred a bit more of a workout, though." Kjelle said. She stretched her arms above her head casually, tapping her lance against her back in pensive thought. "Hey, Robin, do you see me as your equal?"

Robin blinked in confusion. "Huh? Am I supposed to see you as anything else?"

"Seriously?" Kjelle asked, elated but surprised nonetheless. "Even after you've beaten me at every opportunity, you still think I'm as strong as you?"

"I could probably beat about… I don't know, maybe half the Shepherds by larger margins than I've beaten you. They're no less my equals, and neither are you." Robin assured her with a smile.

"I'm your equal, even though you've defeated me so much…" Kjelle reiterated, wrapping her mind fully around the concept.

"You may not have accepted it completely yet, but might doesn't make right." Robin said. "You aren't less than me because I've won some fights; no one is. All me winning means is that you still have room to improve, and I have no doubt you'll be able to exceed anyone's expectations."

Kjelle stared at him for a moment before looking away, studying anywhere but his person intently. "Robin… are you afraid- no, no, never mind."

Robin tilted his head. "Am I afraid of what?"

"Sorry, it's nothing, really. Forget I said anything at all." Kjelle said, eagerly dismissing her line of thought, much to Robin's vaguely interested confusion.

"Um… okay, then." Robin said warily, cautious of whatever topic had caused Kjelle to grow so hesitant. "If you ever want to talk, I'm here."

"Of course." Kjelle nodded. She shifted in place for a few seconds, all too aware of how both Robin and Noire were studying her every move in hope of an answer to her actions, and began to study her surroundings in search of somewhere to divert their attention. "Um… have you checked the plains by the rivers yet? They're kind of sandwiched between the mountains and forest, so if you haven't looked them over yet, there wouldn't be much place for a risen to run."

"I'll go do that right now, I guess." Robin said, picking up on Kjelle's disquiet and deciding that whatever had happened, distancing himself from her and her Noire would likely be for the best. He turned to the direction of where he knew the snowfields would be, and hunched over in preparation of launching himself into the sky.

Then he thought better of it, and took off at a brisk jog along the edge of the forest.

Kjelle let go of a deep breath she hadn't intended to hold as he disappeared from view. She cursed under her breath and, after a moment of doing absolutely nothing, returned to practicing her magic without her earlier vigour.

"What was that about?" Noire asked tentatively. Another risen shambled out of the forest several metres from her, and she nocked an arrow to deal with the foe, leaving Kjelle to her practice.

"Do you think he's afraid of me?" Kjelle asked, her voice conveying her fear of an answer.

Noire blinked, cancelling her shot on the risen to spin and face Kjelle. "Him being afraid is in no way the same as our fear. At all."

"But what if he's still afraid?" Kjelle asked, taking note of the risen over her friend's shoulder and preparing a flame lance for it to meet. "Even if there's the chance of him being evil, he might still have that fear, the one we swore to eliminate from the world. From everyone."

"He doesn't count as part of 'everyone'!" Noire shouted, swinging her arms emphatically.

"You saw his humanity, too." Kjelle argued, her lance overcharging. "You saw that he could be afraid. That he doesn't deserve to be."

Noire grimaced, her face falling by a considerable degree. "Part of me wants him to be afraid, to get back at him for everything he caused, but there's another part, one that sees the same as you. I don't know which one to believe."

"I choose to believe the one that helps him as well as us." Kjelle said without a trace of doubt. "I want to be someone who guarantees that no one is ever afraid again, not even him. Especially not him, if he can still be helped." A wave of contented calmness washed over her once she finally said her conviction aloud.

Noire laughed, the noise genuine but dry. "Heh, I think you've changed a little since we last met. By your standards, I'd say that you've gotten weaker, but that's not true, and I'm afraid that if do say that, you'll want to punch me."

"I'm not weaker. Not by a long shot." Kjelle confirmed, taking aim for the risen as it slowly approached her and Noire. "No, I've learned how to be like the Shepherds, like Robin and Lucina. How to be strong."

She shot her lance's enchantment at the risen, only for her flame replica to slowly crawl off of her weapon and remain inert in the air. It spiraled in on itself, forming a rough ball of pure fire that floated in place without purpose.

"What the hell?" Kjelle asked herself more than Noire, failing to hide the excitement building in her voice. She and Noire both gawked at the fireball until Kjelle flicked out her wrist experimentally, mimicking what she assumed a mage might do. The fireball flew into the risen, crashing waves of flame over its body and reducing it to a swathe of dissipating purple ash.

"Holy shit!" Kjelle shouted, her eyes wide and filled with the same enthused exhilaration as the rest of her body. "I did it! Yes, yes! I actually did it! I casted magic! Holy shit, yes!"

As if to check whether her own eyes had deceived her, Kjelle charged and casted another magic lance. She took care to concentrate on the apparition and secure it in place, and much to her delight the lance morphed into another fireball she was able to whisk out harmlessly toward a ridge of snow.

"Oh my gods, I can't believe I've actually done it!" she sang, almost jumping in the air in glee, but instead satisfying herself with casting another shot of fire. "Ha! I can actually cast magic!"

Noire stared at where Kjelle had launched her fireballs, blinking at the spot several times before breaking into a wide smile. "That's amazing, Kjelle! You've actually done it! Ooh, can you try casting it without the lance at all? Like, as a normal spell?"

"Absolutely." Kjelle said, hiding her uncertainty with a grin. She returned her lance to its holder on her back and read carefully from her fire tome. Without the enchantments of her lance to expedite the process, she found herself casting the spell at a far slower, more cautious pace, taking care to build the magic and recite its verses to the best of her ability.

A fireball flickered into existence on her free hand, shining an unnatural brightness on the excitement in her expression. She flicked her hand out in a similar manner to before, and the fireball flew harmlessly into the snowdrifts by the forest. Her magic wasn't as powerful as Robin's or what Noire had been haphazardly casting the day before, and Kjelle knew that, though that knowledge did nothing to dampen her spirit.

"Ha! Yes!" Kjelle laughed, casting another blithe fireball at the forest. "I've actually got this down! I'm a mage!"

"Careful, Kjelle. Magic can wear you down as much as any other weapon, especially if you use it so callously." Noire warned through her own empathic happiness.

Kjelle flexed her hand, looking the appendage over as though she were appraising a legendary artefact. She tossed her tome up in the air and caught it on the way down, smiling intensely at her own ability as she placed the book away in the makeshift carrier of a natural crevice in her armour.

"I've got to show Robin this!" she announced over to Noire, and turned to begin moving in the direction the grandmaster had taken.

Noire beamed and began to follow her friend's path. "You may be able to get that no-magic duel out of him now!"

Kjelle froze in the middle of her step, locking in place with her back to Noire. The archer slowed as she approached her friend, hesitantly nearing her and placing a hand on her shoulder, rousing her from whatever had caused her to stop.

"Hello? Kjelle?" she spoke softly, gripping her shoulder tighter when no response was given.

"Uh, yeah, yeah, I guess I'll have that duel, come to think of it." Kjelle said dismissively, brushing away Noire's hand but remaining in place. "Let's go find Robin."

Noire nodded and began to move again, stepping past Kjelle and stopping when her friend still refused to move. She turned back, only to find that Kjelle's gaze was scanning across the ground, visibly conflicted in a way that caused Noire to sigh.

"Look, Kjelle," she began, "I know that you want to help R-"

"No, no, it's fine." Kjelle cut her off, raising her head and flashing a hollow smile. "There's risen, in the forest. They were distracting me a little bit, that's all."

Sighing again, Noire stepped back toward Kjelle and placed her hand once more on the woman's shoulder. "Whatever happens, it has to happen, Kjelle. You know that." Once again, Kjelle brushed her hand away.

A small group of risen stumbled out of the forest while Noire was waiting on her friend, giving Kjelle a twisted reason to smile. "See? Risen. Let's handle them, then go find Robin. Everything else can wait until we're out of battle."

Noire's gaze grew remorseful, but with another sigh she accepted the change in topic and translated her focus over to the newly emerged undead. Kjelle drew her lance again, leaving her tome in its place, having grown somewhat unwilling to test her magical prowess on any foe.

* * *

A low, guttural growl sounded several metres away from Robin, causing him to stop and search for the noise's source. He frowned, then smiled as a risen chieftain slowly trudged through a thick patch of mountainside snow toward him.

"You actually were out here, huh?" he asked the risen - a berserker, if their simple axe was any indication. "Sneaky one, aren't you? I actually thought I combed this area pretty well while I was flying. Ah well, it is kind of hard to see when I'm airborne at speeds like that."

The risen growled at him, struggling through the last few segments of snow that blocked it from its prey. Its growls shifted in intensity and volume, mimicking the unsuccessful speech of a person long past their death date.

"So, you're one of the ones who can't speak." Robin murmured, stepping away from the risen as quickly as it approached him, keeping a stable distance between their bodies. He cautiously drew his levin sword. "Some of your friends can. Well, it's pretty much only whatever they need to say, like 'kill' or 'die' or something, and it was never very coherent, but it was there."

He stepped back further when the risen lunged at him, easily avoiding the aged corpse's swing, and he began to lure it around in a circle. "So, you used to be human, eh? Do you mind if I ask how, or who you are? Or how you're still able to swing a weapon around?"

The risen screamed at him, its lips held impossibly tight over the duration of the noise, causing it to be muffled.

"Didn't think so." Robin said. "How is this possible, though…? Shouldn't there be, I don't know, deterioration, or full decomposition, or something? You know, something that makes it impossible for you to be so agile in battle? Unless you're being purposefully held together by something…"

Another growled scream met his musings, causing him to frown.

"Can you not open your mouth?" he asked. "Hm… what happened to you? If you were a normal person, there's no real reason for you to be a chieftain. You would need to be strong enough to reign over other risen for that, so what were you? A soldier? Bandit? Something else?"

Growling again, the risen lunged, and missed yet again.

"Really, what makes you work? Why are you fighting me, or trying to kill anyone at all? You shouldn't have any reason left to fight now that Grima is- I mean, beyond your own drive… is there something else about you, something that makes you want to fight and kill? Or is it simply because you're a risen, and there's something more messed up about your existence itself?"

The risen snarled at him and lunged a third time. This time, Robin sidestepped the attack and casted wind magic at the risen's back, pressing it down into the ground and holding it in place.

"Now then… let's see what we can learn." Robin said. He leaned down toward the risen, receiving a snapping growl in response, though his wind magic kept him from any danger.

With a flick of his sword, Robin tore through the partially fused skin lining the risen's mouth. Now freed of the blockage, the risen howled furiously, the sound no longer being muffled in the slightest. A moment later, it closed its opened mouth, and when it screamed again the noise was once more muffled.

"Hm… are you doing this consciously?" Robin asked it, standing up and appraising the damaged body. "Do you still have some kind of personal thought, and the ability to make decisions?.No, that's too far of a jump in logic. You're more like an animal, aren't you? You have basic instincts, but rather than to survive, they're to help you kill."

The risen gave another muffled scream, scrambling its arms and legs around on the ground to try to swipe at Robin.

"You don't care about your own survival, only the damage you can deal and the lives you can take." Robin said. "Hm… what made you like this? I'm assuming that you weren't this way in life, that none of the risen anyone has defeated was ever like this, so what happened? Is there something about being a risen in particular that makes you so brutal?"

The risen continued to howl.

"What was that thing called again… 'thanatophage'?" Robin asked the risen, receiving another growl in response. "Forneus, and the death masks… are you one of those types of risen, one of the ones that could be controlled? Or are you more like Nergal's morphs, struggling with all of your will to be human again? Maybe something else entirely, brought about by different means, or by Grima itself?"

He crouched down again next to the risen's head, the only thing stopping him from rotating it with one hand being the notion of touching something that could so easily be contaminated with any number of viruses. "What are you, really? You don't fit any legendary descriptions very well, though those are legends. You should have deadlords in your rank, so maybe something out of Jugdral?"

The risen continued to scream incoherently at him, causing him to sigh.

"This isn't the time or place for this. I guess that, in all honesty, it isn't really a question that needs to be answered, or at least not by me." he said. "Maybe Miriel or Ricken will be able to find out what you are. I'm certain they will, if they put their minds to it."

Robin stood up, stretching his arms and legs before casually releasing the wind bindings on the risen chieftain. "Alright, then. Thanks for letting me look at you, but now it's time for this to be over."

The risen stood up and screamed again, and charged directly at the tip of Robin's lazily raised sword, proving again its lack of a sense of self preservation.

It stopped abruptly, freezing in place less than a metre from his blade.

Robin blinked, but before he could respond in any way, he was falling to the ground. A tone unlike anything he had ever heard before sheared through his mind, tearing his perceptions and senses from his brain before he could process anything. The last thing he saw was the risen, standing perfectly still and upright, its expression blank, with his eyes failing to process the snow rushing toward his face as he collapsed.

* * *

Kjelle stopped her approach on the risen at the edge of the forest. Each one had frozen in place, standing ramrod straight with blank expressions, their arms held at rest down their sides. Almost a dozen had emerged from the forest, though each stood as perfectly still as one another.

An arrow soared into one of the risen's foreheads, jerking the rotted body back with its force and reducing them to purple ashes in an instant. Kjelle glanced behind her to see Noire loading another arrow, her range offering her more security against the new behaviour of the risen.

"What are they doing?" Kjelle asked, holding her ground and weapon more forcefully as a new arrow destroyed another risen.

"Don't know." Noire answered, loading another shot but refraining from attacking. "I've never seen a risen pause like this, or do anything other than attack whatever it's pointed at."

"Is someone controlling them?" Kjelle wondered.

"That would mean that a deadlord, powerful Grimleal priest, or Grima himself is nearby." Noire said. "Do you think that Robin might be-?"

"No, I don't." Kjelle cut her off. "I don't think he remembers how, or would have any reason to do something like this."

"We should find him." Noire said, lowering her bow to scan the direction he had travelled. "If this is tied to him, or he's the one causing it, it'd be way more dangerous to not know where he is."

"He isn't dangerous." Kjelle stated confidently. "We should still try to find him, to get help understanding what's happening, if nothing else."

Noire nodded. "You go do that. I'll keep an eye one these ones, to make sure that nothing changes. They're not much of a threat anyway." To emphasise her point, she fired another arrow, killing another of the risen.

"Okay." Kjelle nodded, and began to move out in pursuit of Robin. "Stay safe, Noire."

Her friend merely nocked another arrow and took aim for the nearest risen in response. Kjelle glanced at the unmoving undead one last time before turning to leave, their completely unflinching countenances doing nothing to quell the unease rising in the back of her mind.

One of their heads began to twitch in her peripheral vision, stopping her once again in her tracks. This risen, nearer both her and Noire than the rest, began to shake its head at far too rapid of a pace, practically vibrating by the time Kjelle had rotated back to face it. Its arms began to do the same, whipping at large angles before snapping back to their sides at an unnaturally fast pace.

That risen began to scream. Not one of its conventional screams, one that struck terror into the hearts of any who heard the animalistic wailing, but one that started low and grew unceasingly louder and higher pitched. The risen wailed continuously, audibly running out of air in its decayed lungs but pressing on regardless. It began to spew internal waste that would once have been organs and flesh from its scabbed mouth.

Its arms and head began to move at faster paces, thrashing around and whipping into its body several times every second. A few thrashes heralded a sickening crack, signifying that some new bone or sinew of the risen had snapped to allow for its range of movement.

One of its legs buckled beneath it, causing it fall to one knee as its screaming reached a new impossibly high peak. Its movements reached a new crescendo in tandem, though its screaming then stopped completely for an instant.

A second of utter silence consumed the snowfield and forest, with Noire and Kjelle staring at the risen in horror as two more began to twitch violently. Then, the first risen exploded into purple ashes, becoming a plume that shot into the sky and a wave that washed over the land.

Kjelle braced herself against the wave, steeling her stance as the ashes swept over her lower legs. The wave proved weak, failing to so much as chill her before dissipating entirely, though the fear it commanded was all too powerful. She stumbled once it had cleared, staring in the same horror at the next risen that appeared to be undergoing the same process.

"Go find Robin! Now!" Noire ordered, her bow raised and swapping from target to target defensively.

"What!? Hell no!" Kjelle shouted in turn, her grip tightening on her lance as she prepared to defend Noire. There was no way on earth she would be leaving her friend to fend for herself.

An arrow slammed into her chest piece, pushing the air from her lungs and resistance from her body.

Noire glared and loaded another shot in her direction. "I can handle these things! Get a move on already, and make sure Robin isn't about to kill us!"

Kjelle blinked and frowned before nodding and dashing out to the grandmaster's supposed location. She could hear the sounds of another risen exploding as she left, and her deplorable fear of what the risen could do shook her to the core for the first time in many years. Their new behaviour was unprecedented, and she was as afraid of not understanding it as she was afraid of what it could cause.

She reached Robin in less than a minute, finding him laying face down in snow between the forest and a nearly unending expanse of whiteness. A risen chieftain was stood over him, standing as perfectly still as the risen from the forest.

"Robin!" Kjelle called out to him, receiving no response. She tightened her grip on her lance, taking in the risen leader's unmoving stance cautiously before beginning a slow approach toward them both.

The risen's head began to vibrate differently than its counterparts. It abruptly snapped to one side and then back to being perfectly straight, with the vibrating pausing for a moment before returning. One of its arms did the same, shaking and whipping at impossibly sharp angles in a fraction of a second before returning to a perfectly stable equilibrium, its head snapping to a different angle before becoming still and straight once more. Unlike the other risen, it made no noise.

Its second arm and legs began to follow suit. Kjelle reached Robin's side, kneeling down to shake his shoulder without shifting her sight away from the risen.

"Robin!" she hissed, quickly glancing to him to ensure that he hadn't sustained any vital damage, though his cloak as always showed no signs of harm. "Come on! Get up!" He still gave no response. Kjelle could hear more screaming and distant sounds of explosions as other risen perished across the snowfield.

Every one of the risen chieftain's limbs snapped out to their extended range, elongating and warping around its joints without growing smaller or larger. Then, its arms collapsed back to its sides and its legs planted themselves firmly in the ground, its head fixed in a stare at Kjelle and Robin.

Intelligence sparked to life in the red glow of its eyes.

Kjelle slowly rose from Robin's side, gripping her lance tighter as she fumbled for her tome, never averting her gaze from the chieftain. The risen leader stared at her intently, its previous blank and animalistic glares forgotten.

It brought one hand up to its face, tracing its fingers over a small cut on its lips that had gouged through a small layer of skin. The chieftain's arm appeared uninjured, with no damage at all remaining from its snapping and tearing mere moments ago. It ran its fingers over the wound one more time before lifting the hand in front of its face to stare at its palm.

For a second, Kjelle thought she could hear the risen groan, but she ignored it in order to focus on charging her lance, not taking any chances on testing her newfound magical prowess in unfamiliar conditions. She pointed her weapon at the risen and allowed her magic to flow through it, launching a flame replica at its chest.

The risen chieftain deftly dodged the attack, slamming its body down to the ground and lying prone an instant before the lance would have collided with its torso. It rose back up in the time Kjelle took to gape at its sudden movement, using stunted tenses and releases of its muscles to jerk up to a stand, acting as though it had overexerted every one of its muscles and was now barely able to use them.

It lowered one hand to its thigh and dragged its claws over its exposed skin, gouging out trenches of flesh that it held up to its head in a closed fist. After staring at its fist for a second, it dropped the flesh and staggered back, groaning unintelligible nonsense.

Kjelle began charging another lance shot, not giving the risen any time to approach after her moment of awe had passed. The chieftain stumbled forward, its legs seemingly failing to respond to its commands as its feet dragged through the plains' snow.

Kjelle shot her lance, with the risen this time failing to evade. Flames curled around its chest, staggering but failing to kill it outright. The chieftain continued to slowly shamble toward her, now limping.

It took the risen several seconds to close the short distance between it and Kjelle, keeping its arms hugged close to its sides as it moved. Fearing the possible repercussions on Robin that could result from hitting it with somewhat explosive fire magic, Kjelle calmed her casting and prepared her stance to simply strike out at the risen with her lance.

She struck as the chieftain drew near. The risen dodged instantly, allowing the lance to glance off of its chest, and grabbed the head of the weapon as it passed by its arm. It yanked forcefully on the lance, pulling Kjelle with a surprising amount of force as she struggled to maintain her grip.

The risen dropped its axe and whipped its other hand around to grip Kjelle's head, placing its palm over her face and lifting her high above its own body without showing any signs of stressing its muscles. Kjelle's eyes widened as she was hefted into the air, flailing her legs and attempting to kick out at the chieftain. She was lifted too quickly and too high to do anything, and the risen used its momentum to fling her out, sending her soaring away from Robin.

Kjelle hit the snow as hard as she could hit a soft surface, grinding to an immediate halt amongst the fluff. She pushed herself up to a stand and shook away what little snow clung to her armour, her lance still in her hand but her tome having been lost somewhere between her and the chieftain.

The chieftain was stood over Robin, staring at the grandmaster with its back to Kjelle. As Kjelle began to run toward it, the risen bent down and reached out toward Robin, causing Kjelle's chest to tighten in fear. To lose anyone, let alone Robin to such a poor opponent was unthinkable.

In an attempt to do anything at all to help Robin, Kjelle began to charge her lance once more. Relying almost solely on the enchantments on the weapon, her own knowledge of properly casting magic being less than limited, she succeeded in conjuring a small, thin flame replica of her lance and shot it at the risen.

As the spell neared the chieftain, its shoulders and hands flicked up, away from Robin. An instant before the shot connected, it was blocked and smothered completely by the grandmaster's enchanted cloak.

Kjelle's mouth fell open at the turn of events, and she watched in dismay as the risen chief pulled Robin's cloak over its own shoulders, protecting everything from its neck, to wrists, to thighs from damage. Her opponent couldn't make any formative noise in its state, or at the least didn't seem keen on doing so, but the low reverberation emanating from its throat almost sounded like laughter.

Swallowing dryly, an action which caused the reverberating laughter to only grow, Kjelle readied her lance. Now, she was expecting dangerous combat as opposed to a simple clean kill. The risen's muted laughter stopped as it bent back down toward Robin and picked up his levin sword.

Kjelle gave it no time to gain an advantage, charging at the chieftain with her lance aimed for its head. She almost managed to land a hit, but was stopped at the last second when they arced the levin sword upward, redirecting her attack into the sky in a simple move Kjelle had never seen a risen pull off. Weak sparks coursed along the blade, shocking Kjelle but doing nothing compared to what she had grown used to dealing with from Robin.

The chieftain pushed against her, knocking her back for a fraction of a second before she brought her lance back down on their sword forcefully. She staggered the risen in turn, pressing down harder against them than they had pushed up against her, forcing Robin's levin sword down toward its chin. The risen pushed back against her, locking them in a stalemate until Kjelle swiped to the side and dislodged their connection.

Kjelle slammed her shoulder into the chieftain with all of her weight, pushing them away from Robin and granting herself more space to operate. The risen snarled through its closed lips, growling lowly as it leaned into a lunge directed for her exposed head. Kjelle caught one of the levin sword's grooves with the hilt of her lance, shoved it aside, and dashed forward into the risen yet again, knocking them back further.

The risen's growl grew into an agitated shout as it charged once more at Kjelle. She evaded their first strike, stepping out of their range and then jabbing out with her lance. The risen allowed the hit to connect with their chest, holding in place while knowing that the hit wouldn't damage them.

It stood in place after her hit connected, processing her attack and determining its course of action. The chieftain tightened its grip on Robin's levin sword and shot a stream of sparks at Kjelle, but she was able to simply endure and brush away the attack, with the chieftain proving again that they were in no way as competent a spellcaster as Robin.

Kjelle met their magical attack with her own, launching a weak flaming lance at the chief's lower legs. It jumped out of the way, sending a volley of its own weak magic in response from which Kjelle too leapt away.

Kjelle pushed forward slowly as the chieftain remained in place, keeping Robin at her back to ensure he was kept out of harm's way. The risen huffed impatiently, angered by her refusal to die to any of its attacks. As Kjelle neared it, the risen tensed again, anticipating her blow despite its fury.

She fired a lance at its chest, and the risen endured its flames with the help of Robin's cloak, losing its line of sight on Kjelle as the fire curled up toward its face. Kjelle used her opportunity to rush toward it, raising her lance high in the air to strike down at her opponent's exposed head.

The risen raised their sword arm, hoping to counter the strike with the enchanted cloak. Kjelle darted her foot out while they were distracted, making her own footing unstable in order to smash in the side of the chief's knee and knock them to the ground. Their aged, partially deteriorated flesh and bone broke without much difficulty in response to her kick, and the risen fell to the ground with a sharp scream akin to pain.

Kjelle followed up by reaffirming her footing. She lashed out with her free left hand, grabbing the risen's sword arm above its hand. With a sickening snap of the chieftain's wrist, she sent the weapon flying.

The risen howled in greater fury and struggled to stand on its broken leg. It reached up for Kjelle with its clawed hands, grasping for anything it could damage and snapping its mouth at her in a desperate final bid. Ultimately, their desperation proved unsuccessful, with Kjelle's lance driving far into their skull and an instant later.

The chieftain crumbled into purple ashes within Robin's cloak, making simple the task of picking the clothing up and airing away what fading purple embers remain. Kjelle took a deep breath and collected herself, subduing the hint of fear of the risen's new behaviour that had begun to well up within her before she moved back to Robin's side, collecting her tome and his sword as she went.

She knelt down to Robin's side to appraise his condition in greater depth, but found that her initial examination had been perfectly accurate. Robin was completely unharmed, with both his regularly exposed skin and what was now visible without his special cloak showing no damage whatsoever. Kjelle placed his sword and cloak beside him in a disorganised heap, knowing that he wouldn't be keen on wearing his own clothing immediately after it had been used by a risen.

After a moment of watching Robin in silence, uncertain of how to wake him from his unusual slumber or go about aiding him in any way, Kjelle whipped her head back toward where Noire had been waiting. The sounds of the risen exploding had stopped completely at some point during her fight.

Kjelle knew that, even with the new development in their ability, the risen were still weak, but she still began to feel a new fear wrap itself around her heart. She had left Noire to fend for herself after swearing that she would be the one to protect everyone. Noire could handle herself by all means, but if something terrible did happen in Kjelle's absence… she found that she couldn't consider the possibility.

She cursed under her breath and apologised silently to Robin, rising from her spot next to him to travel back toward Noire. With any luck, the archer's experience with the risen was far more amicable than what had transpired with the chieftain.

* * *

Of the numerous risen that had once stood on the edge of the snow laden forest, only two remained - all others had unceremoniously exploded. Noire switched the sight of her bow between each body periodically, keeping both at a significant distance in case either decided to make a move. Both had calmed some time after the explosions of their companions, and no longer twitched, screamed, or flailed their limbs at impossible angles.

One of the risen suddenly whipped its head up toward her, blinking its lidless eyes and tilting its head at her. It swiveled its head side to side, taking in its surroundings for what appeared to be the first time before returning its full attention to Noire. She tightened her bowstring in anticipation of whatever action it may make.

The second risen raised its head to her as well, focusing solely on her without looking around at its surroundings. It tilted its head in similar fashion to the first, but without moving its vision away from her.

"...Noire…" the first risen muttered, a low and heavy sound that dragged every sound out longer than any normal form of speech.

Noire's eyes widened and her grip on her bow grew tighter. "W-What? W-Was that… my name?"

"Noire…" it said again, this time louder.

"H-How do you know my name!?" Noire shouted, pulling her bowstring back as far as it could go and locking her sights on the speaking risen.

"Tharja… Tharja, Noire… Henry, Noire… Tharja, Henry, Noire… Noire…" the second risen groaned, seemingly answering her, its voice practically identical to the first.

"W-What?" Noire stammered, switching her aim over to the second risen.

"Noire… stay…" the first risen moaned, taking a clunky step toward her. "Noire didn't stay… Noire, Henry… Noire didn't stay…"

Noire took in a sharp breath, tensing her entire body as the risen spoke. She could feel tears begin to stain her eyes at the very mention of her father's passing.

"Henry… could have lived…" the second risen said, not moving from its initial position. "Noire… didn't stay… Noire left Henry to die… Noire killed Henry…"

"Shut up!" Noire shrieked, barely holding off from killing the risen with her loaded shot. "I-I didn't know…! I-I couldn't have known!"

"Noire… killed… Henry…" the first risen said, stumbling ever closer to her.

Tears streamed freely down Noire's face as she fired her arrow. It connected with the nearer risen's head, killing it instantly and reducing it to ashes in seconds. The second risen didn't give any indication of caring.

"She looks… so sad…" it remarked, its voice becoming lighter. "Should… help her…"

Noire shakily nocked another arrow to take down the final risen.

"Noire… deserves to die…" the risen laughed, returning to its original tone. It broke into a sprint in her direction, stopping and dying instantly when its head was met with an arrow.

Noire took several shaky, uncertain breaths. She wiped her face clean of her tears with the back of her hand and made to regroup with Kjelle, her expression masked.

* * *

Kjelle slid to a stop along the edge of the forest. Noire approached her at a relaxed walking pace, nodding to her curtly with a completely unperturbed expression. Tentatively, Kjelle nodded back, and turned around to return and bring her friend to Robin.

They neared his prone form together, and this time Kjelle don't bother to kneel. Noire still had yet to put away her bow, and while it wasn't loaded, the weapon still oddly managed to put Kjelle on edge.

"Do you know what happened to him?" Noire asked, her voice unusually cold.

Kjelle shook her head. "I found him like this. There was a risen chieftain, one that acted… weirdly. Like it was alive again, and clever."

Noire tensed beside her. "Did it speak to you? To Robin?"

Kjelle shook her head again. "It only screamed, or groaned and growled. Why?"

"Some of the other ones spoke to me. About me." Noire said, her voice lowered and wavering. "They… they knew things I don't think they should've."

Kjelle's brow furrowed as she glanced between Noire and Robin. "What kind of things?"

Noire's face fell, her breathing growing uncertain and frail. "R-Remember when we were in our time, when I followed my father on his way to the Farfort? He and I ran into some risen, and I had to return to Ylisstol to get help?"

Nodding silently, Kjelle urged her to continue her explanation. "W-Well, after we… we failed… I learned that I could have saved him if I had stayed at his side. M-My enchantments didn't bring him back; he was still alive when I casted them. If I hadn't done that, if I had stayed with him and tried to help him then and there, I could have saved his life. The risen that didn't explode somehow knew that, and… and taunted me over it."

"Gods, Noire…" Kjelle muttered, feeling insecure herself from the revelation. "I'm so sorry."

Noire gave a short, sardonic laugh. "Ha, to think that you're the one saying that. You really have changed, Kjelle."

Kjelle turned to look fully at her friend. "What are you saying? I would never not try to console you."

"Seriously?" Noire laughed. "Are you saying you really didn't insult me for being weak, for failing to save my father?"

"That wasn't-!" Kjelle began to defend herself before realising how awful such an argument would undoubtedly become. "You're right. I'm sorry, Noire, I was… I was messed up at the time, and said some pretty harsh things. I shouldn't have said anything at all."

"But you did." Noire said. "You were right, too. I could have helped, if I had been strong enough to stay at his side, but I wasn't."

Kjelle stepped over to her friend and pulled her into a quick hug. "You are strong, Noire. You did everything you could, and I know for a fact that practically no one else could have done half of what you did. I'm sorry I was an asshole about it."

Noire slowly accepted the hug. "T-Thanks, Kjelle. You've gotten a lot more cordial since we last met." she pushed herself out of the embrace, now smiling.

"I don't think I've changed that much." Kjelle commented, blushing for a wide variety of reasons.

Merely shrugging in response, Noire turned back toward Robin. "So, do you think he had anything to do with all of this?"

Kjelle, too, returned her attention to Robin. "I don't think so. Maybe, but all we can do is ask him when he wakes up."

"Do you really think he'd tell us that he did something evil?"

"Not evil… probably." Kjelle said. "At most, this may have been one of his messed up experiments gone awry, if it was him at all. Part of me is hoping that's the case, since then we might get a proper explanation for all of this."

"Hm… I see." Noire said quietly. "What should we do, then? Take him back to the village and wait?"

"I don't know if we should move him." Kjelle muttered, kneeling down to his side once again and tentatively prodding his neck with her fingers. "He may be seriously hurt. Moving him could kill him."

"So in other words, we should move him to the village?" Noire said. Kjelle glared at her, though Noire's expression remained steadfastly serious.

"I'm out of vulneraries after that incident he and I had with the portal." Kjelle explained. "If you still have some, we can make sure he's healthy and move him back to the village."

"We could kill him, Kjelle. End all of this without giving him the chance to retaliate." Noire said calmly. "There's no way he wasn't somehow involved with what happened here. If you're right about him being from our time, then maybe he gave his memories to the risen, let them know about all of us and the things we've done. He's still a threat. There's so much more he could do to hurt all of us"

"We won't know for sure until he's awake." Kjelle said, a frown appearing on her face at Noire's cold conviction. "We've gone over this, Noire. Give him a vulnerary and lets be on our way."

"Got it." Noire said reluctantly, fumbling with an insignificantly small pouch on her waistline, pulling a vulnerary from its depths, and passing it to her friend.

Kjelle gently pulled on Robin's chin, opening his mouth. She poured the entire vulnerary down his throat, passing the empty container back to Noire and waiting for a few seconds to allow the healing magic to take effect. Then, she slipped her arms underneath his head and legs, lifting him effortlessly to begin making her way back to the village.

"Gods, you make that look so easy…" Noire muttered as she picked up the grandmaster's sword and cloak.

"That's what years of practice does for you." Kjelle grinned, eagerly lifting Robin higher to flex her strength.

"Brag about it, why don't you." Noire laughed, her darker wishes temporarily forgotten. Kjelle smiled in response as they began their short return walk.

* * *

The village gates stood resolutely, having opened only once after Robin, Kjelle, and Noire had departed. Anna frowned at the sturdy walls surrounding the village. Three villagers had arrived half an hour ago, having been welcomed into the village once Robin and time travellers had gone out to clear the risen in the vicinity, though no one else had returned in too long of a time.

Anna swished the bags of coins at her waist passively, a nervous tic to which she had found herself taking a great liking. Business had been as successful as she had anticipated, even without selling weapons and armour, and she had made more than enough to feel comfortable with bragging to Kjelle.

However, she couldn't brag at all if Kjelle never returned. Anna held no doubts that she would, that each one of them would be okay and wouldn't have had any difficulty dispatching the risen, but at the same time she couldn't help but experience a note of worry with every passing minute that her companions didn't return. They would undoubtedly be perfectly fine, but every moment of uncertainty was anything but welcome.

Her face lit up as the village gates began to creak open, heralding some form of new development. Then, her expression was caught between her usual smile and a strained frown as Noire and Kjelle walking in side by side as fine as she had anticipated, but with an unconscious Robin being carried in Kjelle's arms.

She approached them immediately, not having to ask what had happened before Noire began expositing. Kjelle pressed past them, headed for their rooms at the inn to allow Robin to rest.

"So you have no idea what happened? Or when, or if he'll wake up?" Anna asked once Noire had finished catching her up.

"No clue at all." Noire shrugged, relatively unconcerned.

Anna sighed, muttering angrily to herself before whipping around to follow Kjelle to the inn. "We're moving out in the morning, whether or not Robin is awake. We need to keep on schedule as well as we can, no matter what. But, tonight, we have some celebrating to do."

"We're really going to be moving out so soon…?" Noire asked in surprise. "Wait, what celebration?"

"The one for the villagers you saved, of course." Anna smiled over her shoulder. "With any luck, they'll be more than eager to reward us!"

"...We saved them?" Noire asked, only now remembering the conditions of a rescue mission during their battle.

* * *

Kjelle had pulled a chair up to the side of Robin's bed, resolving to sit next to him until she could decide upon a course of action. She stretched back into the chair, leaning against the backrest, already tired despite the day still being far from over. Robin gave no indication of waking, though Kjelle new that he wasn't injured and that any possible injuries he may have had would have been healed by Noire's vulnerary.

Anna pried open the door to Robin's room, stepping inside quietly. "Hey, Kjelle." she whispered, feigning the notion that Robin could be easily awoken. "Anything happen yet?"

"Nope." Kjelle replied simply, leaning back even further into her chair before releasing a held breath and standing up. "I don't know what happened, but he seems like he's going to be down for a while."

Stepping over to the side of the bed opposite Kjelle, Anna examined Robin. "We've got a celebration to attend later. Tomorrow, we're moving out at first light, whether or not he's awake. We have a timeline to keep up, after all."

Kjelle nodded, picking up Robin's cloak and levin sword from where they had been placed beside his bed. "Right. I'm going to wash these - a risen was using them, and I doubt Robin would want them as they are - so keep an eye on him for me, okay?"

"Sure thing." Anna said, maneuvering around to where Kjelle had brought in the chair. "I could try healing him, you know. I'm not the best with healing magic, but I'm probably better than most, and I have some nice staves locked away in my cart… unless, of course, you want to be the one here when he gets up?"

"Knock yourself out." Kjelle said, missing the merchant's suggestively raised eyebrows. "I'm going to go clean these, then get something to eat. I'll come get you when the celebration starts."

Anna blinked, frowning slightly. "Um… okay, sure." she glanced to Robin, then to Kjelle, trying to judge the state of the relationship the two held in before shaking her head and dispelling the line of thought.

As Kjelle was exiting the room, Anna spoke up again. "Kjelle… I know this might be a little out of place right now, but were you afraid today?"

"A little." Kjelle admitted, her face falling as she kept her back to the room.

Anna sighed deeply. "Look, I'm sorry for trying to make you be scared, and being an asshole about choosing my business over fighting today… I did make a pretty good profit, though."

"It's alright, really." Kjelle said, sending a smile over her shoulder at Anna. "No hard feelings, y'know? The risen were pushovers, anyway."

"Sure, whatever you say." Anna muttered, somewhat taken aback by Kjelle's placid response. "What happened with that, anyway? Noire told me that they were exploding, talking, and fighting differently, but to take down Robin…"

"The one I fought was acting smart." Kjelle explained. "It used Robin's gear, like I mentioned, and it started to seem agitated when I was fighting it. It didn't really feel like I was fighting a risen anymore, considering how it was able to learn and adapt between fighting him and me."

Anna nodded repeatedly as she took in Kjelle's testimony. "Behaviour like that is unique coming from a risen, to say the least. Honestly, though, I would be more concerned if they hadn't learned from fighting Robin."

Kjelle cocked her head, pausing in the room's doorway as she spoke. "What do you mean?"

"Well, it would make a little bit of sense for an opponent to adapt to your fighting style, even if it is a mindless risen." Anna explained. "What would be more disturbing would be if the risen knew about Robin's cloak without having encountered him before, meaning that it would somehow have foreknowledge relevant to fighting him."

She continued when Kjelle furrowed her brow, considering the effects of the statement and its possibility. "Noire mentioned that the risen she faced knew something only someone from her time could have known."

"Those risen may have come from my time." Kjelle said, reaching the same conclusion at which Anna had apparently already arrived. "That would explain how they could know about Noire, and possibly Robin's enchantments… and it makes more sense than Robin giving them memories. Er, I think."

"What I want to know is how. I doubt Naga would want more risen in the past." Anna said, directing the statement at Kjelle, knowing that the time traveller would be nearer to having a proper explanation than any theories she could brainstorm.

Kjelle grimaced, struggling to determine how much she should tell Anna. Eventually, she sighed and turned back toward the merchant. "I think that the Robin here is the Robin from my time, with no proper memory of what he's done. He may have brought risen back with him, probably accidentally, and whatever happened today activated them, or something."

Anna paused for a long moment and blinked before nodding solemnly and gazing back at Robin. "He doesn't strike me as being evil, or like someone who would destroy the world. Do you think he's changed from then, if that's really what happened?"

"I'm hoping so." Kjelle answered, matching her solemn tone and blocking the alternative from consideration.

"Do you think he'll be changed now?" Anna asked. "Do you think he will have been 'activated', like the risen?"

Kjelle blinked, then lowered her head to scan the inn's floorboards for an answer. "I don't know. All we can do is wait and see."

"If that has happened, if he has changed back to his old self, what will you do?"

"I don't know." Kjelle admitted slowly. "I would have to try to kill him."

Anna continued her solemn nodding. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that, then."

"Yeah. Let's hope." Kjelle agreed quietly, turning around a final time and exiting Robin's room.

She was able to find a washbasin within the inn, and the innkeeper proved more than pleased to allow her its use upon recognising her role in aiding the village. There was no visible waste or residue from the risen chieftain on Robin's sword or cloak, and for a moment Kjelle questioned why should bother cleaning either, but she ultimately set about washing them anyway.

Dipping the sword's hilt in the water provided to her, she wiped it clean with a simple cloth and set it aside. She set about cleaning his cloak as well, taking care to examine every crevice so as to remove his belongings and not damage them in the process of washing, pulling his tomes and several unremarkable books or notes from his multitude of pockets.

Naturally, she wouldn't read any of them without his direct permission, or at least that's what she would tell Robin if he asked. Sadly, each book was simple literature he seemingly used to kill time and every note appeared to only be records of strategies he favoured. None held anything of substance to her.

Kjelle pulled out a final note from a tiny pocket she had at first missed. She flipped the crumpled paper open to read it, only to immediately frown.

'Don't mess this up.

0505'

The note was written in two distinct styles, the first being one she could recognise as being Robin's from the 'traitor's' writing, but with the second one, that which had written the numbers, being markedly different and unknown to her. She flipped the paper over in her hand to check for anything on its opposite side.

'Ylissean royal library, bookcase 19-4. Bottom shelf, second to last book on the right.'

Kjelle furrowed her brow as she read the note's second half. This, too, had been written by Robin, though she had no idea why. Had it been written for her, with Robin somehow anticipating her snooping through his cloak? Was it a note to himself, or another Shepherd? Was it worth investigating?

She studied it intently for another moment before stuffing it into her armour, deciding that there would be no harm in visiting the designated coordinates once she returned to Ylisstol. Dunking Robin's cloak in the washbasin, she cleaned it quickly but thoroughly.

Once she pulled it clear of the water, a grin fell over her face as she realised a new opportunity available to her. She laid the cloak flat and open on the ground, and pulled her fire tome out from her armour.

She took care to restrain her magic carefully, though she wasn't certain if she could cast anything more powerful than the simplest of spells, and she began to bathe the cloak in flames. Her technique sputtered and choked on occasion, and she began to feel lightheaded as she neared the end of her series of casts, but she managed to persist until she was certain the enchanted clothing was perfectly dry.

She picked the cloak up and ran one of her hands over it, searching for any remaining moisture. Satisfied by not finding anything after several seconds of searching, she collected Robin's sword and started to return to his room. The cloak was colder than she had expected, undoubtedly due to the resilient effects of its enchantments.

Almost immediately she found herself slipping on a massive puddle of water. Somehow, she had failed to see the liquid that had remained under Robin's cloak, that which had been shielded from her magic and had yet to evaporate. She discreetly casted another fire spell at the remaining water, frowning when she remembered that Robin's cloak had enchantments that allowed it to dry itself and that her efforts had been wholly unnecessary.

A fire ignited on the inn's floorboards where she had directed her spell, though the water somehow remained unaffected. She cursed and smothered the flames with her only available blanket, Robin's cloak, before anyone was able to notice her mistake.

Deciding that Robin's enchantments probably somehow covered burns as well as water and stains, Kjelle bundled up the cloak and made to return to the grandmaster's room. As she was leaving, the fire reignited, causing her to spin back around and gape in amazement at the magic's unending insistence on existing.

She smothered the flames with Robin's cloak again, making sure to hold the clothing down on the floorboards for far longer than she thought would be necessary, before actually returning to Robin's room.

* * *

Noire tapped her fingers against the long wooden table at which she was sat, her other hand lazily supporting her head. Beside her, Kjelle was doing the same but with both hands supporting her head, and one seat further down Anna was stretching her hands out as far as they could reach.

The village's celebration had been in the form of an unnecessarily large feast, one that dragged long into the night and far past anything that would be reasonable for merely exterminating a few risen and saving three people. Apparently, the people of the village had been looking for an excuse to celebrate something, and had leapt at the opportunity to host any sort of gathering.

Now, Noire and Kjelle were both waiting for a good enough excuse to leave, with Anna remaining in the hopes of being otherwise compensated for the service she didn't perform. Robin had been briefly missed by the few villagers that had met him before the battle, though a few excuses about his condition kept any and all prying eyes away. Anna had convinced her companions of the necessity of not informing anyone that one of the world's most renowned persons was in a coma, and had enforced that rule the entire night.

"Ugh, why won't they pay up?" Anna groaned, lowering her head to the table in a display of her misery. "The food is great and all, but seriously, would it kill them to be a little less stingy with their gold?"

"You didn't do anything." Kjelle reminded her, lowering her hands to the table and leaning back in her chair. Of the three of them, she knew she had eaten the most, with Noire consuming practically nothing the entire night, and Anna giving no indication of caring about calorie count.

"I'm still a Shepherd, though." Anna muttered into the table. "Don't people like to throw money at their heroes?"

"You're a trickster, not a hero." Kjelle said, giving Anna the most aggravating grin she could manage and earning both a glare and frown in response.

"You are so, so shallow." Noire commented, her voice betraying how exhausted she had grown over the course of the day.

"That was already annoying the first time you dastards started saying it, and it's not going to get better with time." Anna said.

"Whatever." Noire rolled her eyes, with Anna doing the same at her overly dismissive tone. "Why are we here, anyway? Why have a feast, or any celebration at all?"

"Because you got rid of the risen that were terrorising these people, and saved three of their own." Anna said, keeping her head planted on the table as she spoke. "That seems like something worth celebrating, though preferably with money over a feast."

"I don't remember saving anyone at all, though." Noire said. "Not to mention that those risen were weak enough that they could have been killed by anyone, even untrained villagers. It was as if not a single person had ever tried to fight in the first place."

"Maybe Robin saved the people, or maybe they found their way back once you had cleared them a path?" Anna suggested. "Also, trust me, people have been killing risen. Loads of them."

Kjelle tilted her head at the merchant. "What do you mean? We had to kill a lot in our fight, and it didn't seem like anyone else was about to leap at the chance to do the same."

"Last time I was checking in with the villages around here, there were these hunting parties and extermination programs everyone had started setting up." Anna explained. "It was nothing major, as far as I could tell - have a few witnesses verify that you had killed at least a hundred risen, and have an official check the supposed area of the clearing, and you would get… what was it, five gold and a free steel weapon?"

"Five gold and one weapon?" Noire gasped before Kjelle could do the same. "For a hundred risen? Who came up with that kind of price, and why would anyone ever go for something so low?"

"Trust me, it wasn't that hard of a target to reach." Anna said. "Back when the risen first started popping up about a year ago, there were probably a couple hundred thousand roaming around eastern Ferox alone. Even members of the Shepherds, an official military outfit that was concerned with war above all else, probably have risen kill counts in the thousands, if not higher."

Kjelle choked on the information Anna had provided, though she knew Robin had told her as much long ago when sharing his kill count. "That's so many, though. How could there ever be that many risen?"

"My guess is they followed you through time." Anna said plainly, causing Noire to balk at the statement. "A lot of the risen were incredibly stupid, too. Like, you could hold out a sword and they would impale themselves on it. After about a year of clearing them out, people started to have trouble finding any at all, though herds are still fairly common."

"Why wouldn't people get rid of the herds, then?" Noire asked, still choking slightly on the other information she had been provided.

"Cost got higher than reward, and supply." Anna explained easily, always eager to talk about economics. "Prices never changed for hunting them, and people didn't have many problems with avoiding the herds, so no one bothered. Granted, it's only been a few weeks or so since the mass hunts started falling off, but the concept stands."

"So… people stopped caring about the risen?" Kjelle surmised, struggling to wrap her mind around such a thing.

"More or less." Anna shrugged as best she could without raising her upper body off of the table. "They're still a threat once in a while, especially for small villages like this, but most people don't bother to clear them out very much. The ones that are still alive tend to be stronger now, too - survival of the fittest, and all that. Sort of."

"Have people not had any major problems with the risen, then?" Noire asked. "With so many of them, has no one needed to get help from the Khans, or the Shepherds, or anyone?"

"Oh, yeah, risen have annihilated entire villages across Ferox, Plegia, and Ylisse already." Anna said calmly. Noire and Kjelle's mouths both fell open. "There have been at least a few dozen thousand deaths already, and out of the millions of people on the continent, that's actually a pretty significant amount. The thing is, after the Plegian war and the crusades before that, everyone considers the risen to practically be a non-issue."

"But so many people have died, and will die…" Noire whispered in horror. "How cold people not care about something like that?"

"Like I said, risen numbers have dropped insanely low, thanks to the hunts." Anna said. "As of now, practically nobody is dying to them. The most damage was done during the war, but once it ended the Khans and Shepherds devoted a lot to handling the risen. Nowadays, the most concern comes from the roaming herds, and most people don't want to bother with them."

"That's insane to think about." Kjelle muttered. "There were so many risen, but now there are so few, and people barely care about what's effectively the beginning of the apocalypse."

Anna merely shrugged. "Eh, make of it what you will. Practically the only reason we came out here today was because Flavia requested it; without that, there wouldn't have been much reason to fight the risen. They really aren't much of a threat. Also, there's still a ton of risen. Probably several for every person alive right now, if Flavia's metrics are anything to go by, but again, they aren't much of a concern."

"Come to think of it, the risen of our time did rely more on quantity than quality, and it was Robin and the wars that caused most of our world's deaths." Noire said.

"Ah, gods, that's right. What were the stats on that again?" Kjelle asked. "By the end of the Valmese war, almost… I think it was eighty percent of the population of Valm had perished in battle or to risen, civilian and soldier alike? Over four or five million people?"

Noire nodded in confirmation, remembering her modern-future history lessons well. "That's not to mention Plegia. So many people died over the years after the Valmese war, during the Shepherds' new war, or rather Robin's, that we were never once starved for risen."

"Sounds like you two led some lovely lives." Anna commented glumly, having raised an eyebrow at the mention of the deaths in Valm but having lowered it as the two had continued.

"It's something we never want anyone to ever experience." Noire said resolutely. "That fear of death, of having to merely survive every day and risk your life at every turn, it's awful."

"Ah… the fear." Anna said lowly, directing her words into the table so that Noire and Kjelle would have difficulty hearing her. "It sounds awful. I'm sorry I tried to bring that memory back…"

She raised her head, shaking it clear and replacing her grim expression with her usual smile. "Well, looks like I'm not about to get anything from sitting around here. I'm going to go get some sleep, and I suggest the two of you do the same. Early day tomorrow."

"Er, right. Goodnight, Anna." Kjelle said, causing the merchant to discreetly smile.

"Goodnight, Kjelle." she said in return, hiding the genuine pleasantness of her tone in order to maintain her more forced yet authentic merchant nature.

Kjelle watched her leave before pushing herself up from the table, sighing at how difficult the movement was for her tired muscles. "I'm going to go check up on Robin, then get some sleep myself." she said to Noire. "See you in the morning."

"See you." Noire said back, resting at the table for a moment longer before making for her own room.

Kjelle made her way to Robin's room, finding that his door was still unlocked and that he remained unconscious. His cloak was where she had placed it, folded next to his side with his levin sword sticking awkwardly out of one of its internal pockets.

One of Anna's staves was at his bedside, the merchant having stopped a useless treatment in order to attend the village celebration. Kjelle moved it further away from Robin, ensuring that he wouldn't accidentally bump into it if he were to spontaneously wake up.

She watched him for a moment, verifying that his chest was rising and falling, guaranteeing that he was alive. When or whether he would wake up was uncertain, but she held onto the belief that he wouldn't die so easily.

In order to satisfy a curiosity that had been present since Noire had mentioned his possible connection to the risen's shift, Kjelle gently pulled the glove off of his right hand.

For what she could only assume was the first time in Robin's entire life, the Mark of Grima was completely dormant. What had once been writhing purple lines that seemed to press out of his skin were now unmoving, muted purplish grey lines, ones that refused to glow as their older iteration had done vibrantly.

Kjelle frowned deeply at the lines of the mark, staring at it as she attempted to derive some kind of greater meaning from the change in design. She ran her fingers lightly over the surface of Robin's skin, almost expecting the mark to burn her or resist her touch, but it did nothing at all.

After a few more minutes of silently appraising the mark, she slipped Robin's glove back on, and made for her room.

* * *

 **Hey, I'm technically late again! Great.**

 **Campell was the name of Leopold in the first draft I wrote of whatever chapter Leopold was mentioned in, but then I remembered that there was a better name to be used. I still wanted to use that name, though, even if it's going to have practically no effect on the story overall.**

 **The change in the risen this chapter is going to be a fairly major thing for the story, since it's going to drive a lot of what happens in the coming chapters. Hooray for actual big developments!**

 **Status: As of 28-10-18, I'm still on chapter 33. Yep. I haven't actually made any real progress since twenty days ago. I tried to write as much as I could, but there's been so much stuff getting in the way recently that I've been able to do barely anything. My apologies for that, but hey, this is kind of the reason the chapter surplus exists. I'm probably going to have to tweak my personal goals a bit in order to get back to writing properly, since I'm out of anything resembling free time at all right now, but I promise that I'll keep working on this story until it's finished. I'm not going to be one of those people who abandons a story partway.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	19. Chapter 19

Kjelle pressed one hand against the door to Robin's room, yawning as it creaked open. Anna had woken her minutes ago for their day of travel, and while the merchant had assured her that Robin was still unconscious from his encounter with the changed risen chieftain one day prior, she had felt the need to check his status all the same.

Apparently, their next day of travel would be lax compared to the past. Much of their movement would be in the hours before noon, with the majority of their itinerary for the day revolving around Anna acquiring passage for them on board a ship destined for the island housing Nah. Following Anna and Robin's plans, they would reach Nah in a day, recruit her in one more, and then spend less than two full days reaching Laurent, who would be the last stop of their journey.

Kjelle yawned again as she entered Robin's room, stretching away the last of her early morning exhaustion with a satisfied sigh. She blinked once as she finally took in the room around her, the simple wood and pale fabrics that composed it being of little note, then blinked several more times as she attempted to process what she was seeing.

Robin was sitting on the edge of his bed, having seemingly moved his head to look at her before returning it to a more comfortable position. He was holding one hand over his face, grimacing in what she could only assume was either pain or fatigue.

Kjelle couldn't help but allow her expression to light up at seeing him awake. "Robin!" she practically shouted, running a few steps toward him before awkwardly pausing at the end of his bed. Initially, she had planned on embracing him in her happiness, but she stopped herself once she realised how out of place such an action would be.

Instead, she sat herself down on the edge of his bed, beside him. "You're actually awake. I almost thought that you had died, to be honest."

Robin had yet to place his cloak on his shoulders, and quite possibly had yet to notice that the garment was missing. Aside from that, his clothing appeared to be completely unchanged from when he had collapsed yesterday. Kjelle reached over to the opposite side of the bed where she had placed his cloak and pulled it over to him.

Robin blinked several times, slowly accepting te garment and slipping it on in one fluid motion. "Uh, thanks. Gods, what happened to me? I remember trying to face down a risen, and then… then nothing."

"Do you remember anything at all about yesterday, other than that?" Kjelle asked, trying to determine whether or not he too had changed.

"Nothing beyond fighting the risen." Robin said, shaking his head. Kjelle trusted the exhaustion and confusion in his voice, smiling slightly as she decided that he was still no threat.

"Well, as you know, you collapsed yesterday while fighting a risen chieftain." she explained. "Some of the risen nearby started acting oddly, twitching and… exploding. Then, the ones that were left after that started talking and acting smart - the chieftain knew to use your cloak to block my attacks, and used your sword."

"They what?" Robin asked, not believing that their behaviour could evolve so rapidly. His eyes widened as he shot out his arms, staring in horror at his sleeves. "Wait… what the hell happened with my cloak!?"

"Don't worry, I washed it already. And your sword." Kjelle laughed. "But, Robin, do you remember fighting the risen chieftain? Do you know what happened to make you pass out and, more importantly, if the chieftain saw that your cloak was enchanted?"

"I have no idea." Robin sighed, his hand running over his face again as he struggled to remember anything beyond yesterday's decimating tone. "I don't think the risen managed to hit me, or see that my cloak was enchanted. Why? Wait… then how would they know to…?"

"There's this theory Anna and I came up with, that the risen somehow followed my friends and I through time." Kjelle said. "They knew things about Noire and her family that no one in this time should, and knew about your enchantments, which I can only assume you had in my time- uh, I mean, I can only assume the other you had them, too."

Robin's face became blank, his hand falling to his lap. "They followed you through time? How is that possible? Surely Naga wouldn't allow something like that, meaning that-"

"I'm assuming that we don't have the full picture right now." Kjelle said, cutting him off before he could reach her same conclusion. She wasn't certain he would be able to face the truth of his identity, or if doing so would be for the best. "The risen are far more numerous here than in my time, apparently, but they also seem weaker. Maybe Naga allowed some of them to get here, but somehow crippled them?"

"In what way?" Robin asked curiously, abandoning his previous line of thought on how the risen would traverse time.

"Well, their numbers were always the most dangerous thing about them." Kjelle explained. "At the same time, though, the risen were fairly powerful. They had room in the future to grow stronger, having been left to their own devices over the course of the wars, not to mention that so many powerful soldiers fell in battle."

"So there are risen out there somewhere that are as powerful as the Vamese empire." Robin muttered, then turned to Kjelle with a calm fear on his face. "Did… did the Shepherds of your time…?"

He didn't need to finish his question to get his intentions across to Kjelle. "I don't know. I never saw any in my time, so I hope not."

"Good, good." Robin murmured. "I don't know what I would do if I had to face them."

Kjelle nodded in silent agreement. She looked down to where his right hand was resting in his lap, mulling over how much to reveal to him before deciding to be as open as she could, at least without exposing anything too sensitive.

"You should look at your Mark of Grima." she informed Robin, who blinked in confusion before prying off his glove.

He stopped as soon as he saw the first lines of the mark. What had once been vibrant and writhing was now dull and unmoving. Kjelle watched stoically as he traced the fingers of his left hand over the mark, his sharp breaths informing her of his own surprise.

"I'm assuming it happened after you fell unconscious." Kjelle said. "I don't know what it means, but I think it's somehow a connection to what happened with the risen."

Robin continued to run his fingers over the mark before abruptly shaking his head and pulling his glove back into place. "That makes sense, I suppose. What would have caused this, though?"

Kjelle shrugged. "No idea. I'm just glad that you didn't explode like one of the risen." she said, lightly punching his shoulder and then pushing herself up to a stand. "Anyway, if there's nothing else you can remember, you should get ready to go. Anna wants us to keep a tight schedule, so we're heading out for Nah in a few minutes or so."

"Um… okay, yeah, that's good." Robin said, standing up himself and wavering slightly when his head pounded in resistance. "Give me a minute here, and I'll meet all of you outside."

"Is there really nothing else you remember?" Kjelle asked, tentatively reaching out to support him with one arm as his stance grew weaker, but retracting it instantly once he was stable.

Robin closed his eyes, concentrating deeply as his mind screamed in resistance. A wave of grey swiftly washed over him. For a split second he was able to open his eyes and see that Kjelle was unaffected by its disconcerting opposition, the slight concern in her expression breaking through its unrestrained pull.

"I remember a tone." he said. "One that ripped through my entire mind, and made me feel like it was about to shatter. I've heard a lot of tones before, all the time, really, but never like this."

"A tone." Kjelle repeated in an unsure voice. "Is that a connection to Grima, or something?"

"I don't know, it's more like…" Robin sighed, stopping himself. Kjelle's expression was more confused than anything; she was genuinely accepting and trying to understand what he was saying, and he couldn't help but feel awful with every word.

"That was a lie." he admitted slowly, shying his gaze away from her.

Kjelle tilted her head and blinked, still trying to follow what he was saying. "What?"

"I've only ever heard tones twice in my entire memory - well, three times, now." Robin said. "Once a little after I had woken up for the first time, then once more after the end of the Plegian war. I only told people who found anything out that I heard them all the time, because… because I didn't want to tell them what was really happening."

"What was really happening?" Kjelle asked cautiously, completely uncertain but trusting of the answer she would receive. "Were those times like this one, where you passed out?"

"No, neither of them were as violent as this one." Robin said. "Both of those times, there was this… this woman, who… never mind, it's not something I can say. Final duel, and all that."

Kjelle frowned deeply. "The tones were tied to a woman? Is that the same woman as the one you mentioned around the time of that crap with your journal?"

Robin nodded. "I don't want to tell you who they are, though. Honestly, even under the grey, I don't think I know who they are, but… I don't want to do anything that could ever jeopardise them."

"What are they doing that they could be jeopardised?" Kjelle asked, her voice more inquisitive than cold or demanding.

"I don't know." Robin admitted honestly. "I think it's something good, though. Something utterly amazing. It may also be something a lot of people disagree with, though, so…"

"I see." Kjelle said. "And you don't actually know what this is, you only have suspicions?"

"All I know for sure is that I trust them." Robin said. "I promise, I'll tell you everything I know at our final duel, but only then, okay?"

Kjelle sighed and brought a hand up to her forehead. "That final duel keeps sounding more like an annoying excuse than anything else." she muttered before her face lit up in a bright smile. "That reminds me - wait here for a minute!"

Robin watched in muted excitement as she darted out of his room, hearing as she whipped open a different door. He lazily examined his cloak and sword while she was away, confirming that they had actually been cleaned, until she rushed back into his room with her fire tome in hand, causing him to raise an eyebrow.

"Watch this!" Kjelle grinned, flipping the tome open to its first spell with her left hand as she held out her right. After a moment of staring at her tome, a small flame ignited over her hand and quickly grew into a fireball larger than her fist.

"Whoa… you… you've actually done it! You've casted magic!" Robin cried ecstatically, approaching her and beaming brighter than she herself.

"Yeah, I know." Kjelle smiled smugly, allowing the magic to dissipate after she cut off its connection to the tome. "It's not exactly strong yet, and definitely won't be able to do anything against you, but-"

She was cut off when Robin closed the little remaining distance between them, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into a tight embrace. His head found a place next to hers, and she awkwardly held her arms away from her sides in a stunned state that refused to permit her movement.

Robin pushed away from her, blushing at his own actions and awkwardly rubbing the back of his head. "Ah, sorry, it's… you have no idea how happy I am to know that you're doing so well."

Kjelle held her position, barely realising that she was blushing as much as him. "Ah, right. I guess I have spent a lot of time getting here, huh?"

"You've done well, though." Robin smiled, his blush fading before hers only to be replaced with an authentic joy. "You've learned magic from practically nothing, and in a matter of weeks, no less. You've really got an aptitude for this kind of stuff - and, from what I know of you, probably anything you set your mind to."

"I suppose I should be glad I've had so much amazing help, then." Kjelle said, reciprocating his compliment and finally subduing the blush on her cheeks.

Robin and Kjelle both simply smiled at one another happily for a long moment. Eventually, Robin broke his grin, looking around for where the bag containing his clothes and other miscellaneous supplies, the same bag that contained the traitor's journal, had been stowed.

"Uh, I should change my clothes before we leave, so…"

"Right, right." Kjelle nodded, backing out of his room. "I'll, uh… go tell everyone that you're up."

Robin smiled pleasantly at her, the sense of grey in his mind slowly ebbing away with the image of her smile. "See you soon."

* * *

"I think I know what caused that stuff with the risen yesterday, and the stuff with me." Robin said, leaning forward on his horse to focus on scratching the beast's ears, earning what he could only assume was a neigh of satisfaction.

Noire looked over at him from her position in the rear of Anna's wagon, with Kjelle interrupting her practice on fire magic to do the same. "What is it?"

"You two know how Flavia and Basilio were arming up to take on the Grimleal in Plegia, right? Well, at least as far as we can guess?" Robin asked.

"Are you saying that they succeeded?" Kjelle asked, reaching the only reasonable conclusion possible.

Robin nodded. "I had thought that they were practically guaranteed to perish, but if they've killed off the leaders of the Grimleal, they may have severed the ties between the risen and Grima, as well as Grima and I."

"But you are Grima. Technically." Noire interjected. "How can you sever a tie to yourself?"

"It's complicated." Robin said. "Anyway, I think that the Grimleal leaders were the ones allowing the risen to subsist, and were controlling them all en masse. Destroying the connection between them killed some of the weaker risen, but gave the stronger ones full autonomy."

"'Full autonomy'?" Noire repeated, furrowing her brow. "Wouldn't that mean they wouldn't be risen, then? At least in the conventional 'kill everything in sight' sense?"

"Well, to answer that, we have to consider risen nature itself." Robin said, smiling at his own ability to exposit. "My understanding of the risen we see is that they are, for all intents and purposes, the same type as those used by the alchemist Forneus in his experiments thousands of years ago, which also resulted in the creation of Grima."

Kjelle eyed Robin carefully. "I thought you said you didn't know much about that kind of stuff?"

"I lied." Robin shrugged. "You were getting inquisitive, and I was scared I would spill something I didn't want to, so… yeah. I lied. Anyway, those ancient risen were created for the sole purpose of killing living beings other than Forneus, thereby protecting the guy's work. Forneus eventually shared his own blood with Grima, which gave Grima the ability to control the risen, and the Grimleal can do the same since they're tied to Grima through blood pacts."

"And a blood pact can't be broken, unless both parties agree to do so mutually." Noire added on. "Grima doesn't strike me as keen on doing such a thing, so those pacts are for life, and probably extend into death."

Robin nodded at her words. "Right. Now, without central control from the Grimleal hierarchy, the risen have returned to the 'kill everything alive' doctrine of Grima but with the added bonus of retaining the prowess that was subdued during their control. Even without a direct bond, that doctrine is the reason they exist; it's probably all they have left." he finished his explanation, leaving Kjelle and Noire both frowning.

"Can you control the risen?" Kjelle asked him.

Robin opened his mouth to speak, but settled for solemnly shaking his head.

"What about the other kinds of risen in history?" Noire asked. "There were deadlords in our time, and those showed up in legends about Jugdral - meaning they weren't related to the risen from Forneus."

Robin smiled at her. "Looks like someone knows their history pretty well."

"To be fair, the only person you have to compare me to is Kjelle, and I think everyone paid better attention than her in history class." Noire remarked, ignoring the glare Kjelle shot in her direction.

"Fair enough." Robin laughed, with Kjelle shooting him a second glare that passed by unnoticed. "The deadlords were something different, yes, but only in their original state. The deadlords you knew were undoubtedly made using magic siphoned from Grima rather than some forgotten Loptyr tome, especially considering that Loptyr wasn't really a thing after the ancient holy wars, making the deadlords the same as normal risen but stronger."

"Makes sense." Kjelle said in agreement with him, though she had little idea what was happening. "No Loptyr, no ancient deadlords. Grima is still around, so there are modern variants that go by the same name."

Noire eyed Robin carefully, holding on to the suspicion Kjelle seemed all too eager to relinquish. "What would that all mean, though? Are the risen now going to go around and kill everything in sight, like before, but be way more awful about it?"

"Probably." Robin nodded. "The big concern is now that the surviving ones have some knowledge about how to fight, they'll probably manage to pull off far more dangerous and successful operations than their previous random attacks."

"So we now have to treat them as intelligent opponents." Noire surmised, sighing. "Great, more stuff to worry about…"

"Actually, I think there's more to it than that." Robin said. "Since there are risen here that are from your time, they'll know who to target. They won't have hordes charging down villages, they'll be carrying out organised attacks on the Shepherds, sovereign leaders - anyone who would have been of note in your time is now more of a target than ever, including us."

Noire blinked, her face adopting a wide stare of sheer horror. "What? They… they'll know who to target?"

"They'll know who the Shepherds, Khans, and everyone major are, even if they inevitably get details like Emmeryn and Gangrel messed up." Robin said, confirming her fear. "They'll probably be high priority targets, so-"

"We need to stop, now!" Noire shouted, startling both Robin and Kjelle.

"We've still got a ways to go until we reach Nah, though." Robin said, instantly seeing that he had failed to calm her. "The Shepherds will be more than safe together. We can't-"

"Stop the wagon!" Noire demanded, causing Robin to raise his hands in the air placatingly and then maneuver his horse toward Anna's driving seat.

Kjelle stared at her friend, an eyebrow raised in concern. "Noire?"

"My father, he was one of the most powerful Shepherds, one of the few who survived the entire first Plegian and Valmese wars." Noire explained shakily. "He… he's still not with the Shepherds, meaning he's somewhere in Plegia, unaware and defenseless through all of this. If the risen know that, and decide to target him…"

"You want to go find him." Kjelle deduced, Noire nodding in response. "Are you sure about this, Noire? The risen might not know where he is. I won't try to stop you from saving your family, but that seems like a massive risk for you to take."

"I'll be fine." Noire reassured her, hiding away the wavering uncertainty in her voice for only a moment. "Besides… I wouldn't want to think about a world without my family, without my father. I lost him once - got him killed once. I won't allow that to ever happen again."

"Noire…" Kjelle sighed, moving forward in the slowing wagon to gently punch the archer on her shoulder. "Stay safe, okay?"

"Same goes for you." Noire smiled at her, rubbing her arm before jumping out of the cart. "I know you really want to trust and be the best of friends with Robin or whatever, but be wary of him, okay? For me?"

"I'll do my best." Kjelle nodded, though she knew the action was relatively meaningless. After all, she had no real reason to be afraid of Robin, at least in her own eyes.

Robin calmly rounded the side of the wagon on his horse. Anna followed behind him with a disgruntled frown.

"What is this for, Noire?" the merchant asked impatiently. "We've been making good time and I don't want to stop until we've hit the port. I have no idea how long it'll take to secure a ship, so we should get there as soon as possible."

"Ah, sorry, sorry." Noire apologised sheepishly. "I… wanted to know if I could see your journal and books, Robin? Please?"

Robin blinked, slowly dismounting his horse and grabbing one of his bags from its side to comply with her request. "Uh… sure, I guess? It's not like Kjelle won't have told you about everything in the traitor's writings, anyway."

"Ugh, why did we have to stop for this?" Anna groaned, stamping one foot in frustration and turning back to the front of the wagon. "I'm going to keep going. Try not to fall out while you're reading."

"Sorry, Anna… and everyone." Noire said. Robin almost paused when he heard her, but continued walking toward her with his bag of books and miscellaneous supplies in his arms.

Noire darted past him, jumping on his horse and kicking it into motion away from the wagon in less than a few seconds. "I'm sorry! I… I need to save my family!" she cried.

Anna spun around at her shout, raising her eyebrows when she saw the archer making an exit with Robin's mount.

Robin whipped around to face Noire, watching in dismay as she sped away on his horse. He cupped his hands over his mouth to shout after her. "Warn the Shepherds at the port, too! Please!"

Kjelle craned her upper body out of the wagon to watch Noire leave, waving to her briefly before turning to Robin. "Do you think she'll be okay?"

"She seems strong. If she runs into trouble, she'll be fine." Robin said. He blinked once, glancing down to the bag in his hands, then back up to Noire.

"Son of a bitch, she stole my horse!"

Kjelle gave a short laugh. "Welcome to the wagon club, then. You'll get used to it."

Robin grumbled under his breath as he climbed into the back of the wagon, across from Kjelle. Anna watched Noire ride off for a moment longer before stepping around to the rear of the cart, checking that Robin and Kjelle didn't have some other matter to resolve with the new development, and shrugged as she returned to her driving position.

"That bag she took had all of my food in it, too." Robin groaned as the wagon jolted into motion once more. "My old clothes, some of Anna's merchandise, at least half of my camping supplies…" he sighed in exaggerated despair.

"We can stock up on stuff at the port town before we go to Nah's island." Kjelle said, returning to her fire tome as though her friend hadn't made the most abrupt exit imaginable. "It's not like she took anything too valuable, either. You got to keep your books and… whatever else is in that bag." she nodded at the remaining bag in his arms.

"Books, makeup kit, clean clothes… that's about it." Robin said, rummaging through his own belongings to check their contents. "Gods, I didn't even wash my clothes at that last village…"

"Oh no, you'll have dirty clothes for less than a day." Kjelle gasped in feigned terror. "We're going to reach another village in a few hours. You can survive until then."

"If I die between here and the port town, I'm blaming you." Robin said, pouting furiously at her. She merely rolled her eyes and went back to studying her magic, leaving him to try his hand at relaxing in the surprisingly cozy environment of the wagon.

* * *

Anna passed through the darkening streets of the port town with Kjelle on her heels. Robin had been left with the wagon at the myriad of piers, as even if he was technically asleep and incapable of defending it against any attackers, there wouldn't be much of anyone who would dare to attack the grandmaster of Ylisse in a tiny Feroxi town.

Rather than the bustling city of Port Ferox, the settlement the Shepherds and Shepherd-to-be found themselves in was much nearer a village, failing to benefit from trade with Plegia and Valm due to its secluded location. As such, there were far fewer boats and piers for them to be docked at, though business was by no means at a complete stop. Anna had already assured Kjelle that she could secure a ship before the night.

Anna pushed open the doors to one of the town's few taverns, and was immediately met with a wave of laughter and the signature reek of alcohol. Kjelle reeled upon being hit with the same wave a moment later. Many of the sailors in the town had apparently already called the day despite the hours of sunlight remaining, and had taken up residence in any building with food and drinks, as Anna had expected.

Much to her chagrin, despite how she had already resolved to do so and knew she was best suited for the task, Anna had been selected in advance by both Robin and Kjelle to negotiate their ride to Nah's location. Kjelle had explained that she was both the most charismatic and the one with access to the most wealth at the time of the decision, and while Anna was more than happy to accept her flattery, she couldn't deny being agitated at the lack of an opportunity to selflessly offer her expertise.

"Oi, oi! Look at the new meat!" one sailor yelled out as Kjelle and Anna entered the tavern, rousing a course of laughter from their vicinity. Kjelle shot him a deathly glare while Anna ignored everything, making her way to the bar counter to gather what information she could from the barkeep.

"Hey, fella." Anna said, tapping her fingers on the serving counter to gather their attention, stopping and retracting her hand when it came close to touching a congealed mess.

A large, burly man weathered by years of seafaring experience turned to face her. He stopped wiping down a tankard to lean on the counter toward her, dropping the rag that had been used a few too many times directly onto the counter's mess. "What are ya buyin'?"

Anna cringed at the rag, but managed to shake her expression clear and regain her composure in short order. "I need passage for three people and a loaded supply cart to an island east of here. Also, if you know of anyone who would be willing to head straight south afterward, I-"

"Nobody goes to the Isle of Lost Souls no more." the barkeep said plainly, picking up his rag again and ending their conversation.

Out of the corner of her eye, Anna could see that a sailor had approached and was seemingly standing off against Kjelle, but she again paid them no mind. "I'm sorry, the what? Isn't it called, like… something completely different?"

"Not anymore." the barkeep grunted, returning to passively 'cleaning' a tankard. "No one lives around those parts. Around a year ago, everyone there up and disappeared - they ain't dead, as far as anyone can tell, just… lost. No people means no trade, so no one bothers to go there."

"Lost. Not dead, but lost." Anna repeated, then sighed. "Whatever. I need to get there as soon as possible, so do you know anyone who'll take me? Preferably someone that doesn't care too much about price?"

The barkeep narrowed his gaze on Anna. "Why do you want to go there, miss? Like I said, there ain't nothing worth anything on that island."

"I'm looking for a friend." Anna said, telling a partial truth. "Apparently, she's holed up in some kind of mansion, and my other friends and I are going to go fetch her. Hey, who knows, there might be some loot there that could interest the right sailors. If you can point me in their direction, I'll be-"

"Ah, the Manor of Lost Souls." the barkeep nodded knowingly, cutting Anna off and causing her to pout. "No one's gone there for months, at least - not since the last ships went to the island. People wanted to find their families, so they thought they may've taken up house in the Manor, but there was nothing."

Anna frowned, ignoring the growing clamour developing behind her. "Are there people who can take my friends and I there or not? All I need is passage, I don't care about the danger or superstition."

The barkeep sighed and lowered his rag back to the counter, his face falling into an impenetrable gloom. "You might be able to convince some people who still have hope their families are alive. A lot of them have taken up in this town, so you won't have much difficulty finding someone. You could also try your luck with some pirates, if you want. They don't mess with the town, so we don't mess with them, but they might care about the Manor's loot."

"Thanks!" Anna smiled, instantly destroying the colder personality she had maintained in her speech. "Do you know where either of those groups would be right now, and which one would be cheaper?"

"Both would probably be willing to go for free if you show them you can act as protection." the barkeep said, a wide smile crawling across his face an instant later. "Doesn't look like you'll have trouble with that, though."

A loud, dull thud rang out through the tavern, causing Anna to whip around. Kjelle had her fist raised in the air, gauntlet splattered with flecks of red, with a sailor sprawled out before her on the ground. A wave of laughter and jovial shouts rang out from the tables around the time traveller, and Anna could see her grin at the praise.

Anna stared blankly at Kjelle for a moment before sighing. "Thanks for your help." she said over her shoulder to the barkeep, then walked back to her rowdy friend.

"How the hell did you already get into a bar fight? We've been here for less than a minute!" Anna whispered angrily to her, attempting unsuccessfully to keep the attention of the tavern's other patrons away from her.

"Hey, he's the one who came up to me." Kjelle said defensively, causing Anna to huff in frustration. "Besides, the people here didn't seem to mind it."

"Look, it can be good to show that you're capable and everything, and that may have actually helped our case here a little." Anna said. "However, we need to negotiate. Don't make a habit of knocking out potential coworkers as a greeting, okay?"

"Like I would ever work with someone like that." Kjelle muttered angrily, glaring down at the unconscious man she had hit.

Anna brushed past her, using the unconscious man's stomach as a stepping stool to get up on top of a chair, then a table. "Hey, everyone!" she opened unceremoniously, gathering the attention of every patron in the tavern that hadn't already focused on Kjelle. "We're looking for some medium scale transport to the Isle of Lost Souls, so we can get to the Manor. As you can see, we're more than capable of handling ourselves, so, any takers?"

A burly, grey bearded man broke out in a ferocious laughter, the rest of the tavern remaining oddly silent as he did so. "Ha, you've got some brass on you, lass! Tell me, what've you got in the Manor that would make any of us care?"

"A friend." Anna said simply. "We're willing to pay a little for help. Anyone want to try their hand at getting the treasure of the Manor?"

"'Treasure of the Manor'?" a younger man next to the first, who was also evidently a sailor by his seafaring stature and style, echoed. "There's no treasure there aside from what you can pry off the undead ones. Rumours say there are thousands of them, all holed up in that old mansion…"

"There aren't." Anna said simply, dismissing the man with an impatient wave of her hand. In actuality, she had already begun to suspect such a thing, with the populace of the island becoming risen being the most likely cause of their disappearances. No one else needed to suspect that, though. Not until Nah was found.

The first, older man stopped laughing, and their expression grew grave. The rest of the tavern grew more crushingly silent in turn. "There's something foul about that island, lass. You aren't going to find your friend there; it's in the name. Everything that goes there gets lost, no exceptions."

"Good thing we're here to fix that, then." Anna smiled confidently, causing the man to sigh deeply.

"What could you possibly do to end the curse on that island? How could you ever go about finding everything, everyone that was lost?" he asked, his voice gruff but his tone sounding almost desperate, as though he were grasping for an answer himself.

"Agree to take us, and I'll tell you. Three people, one loaded cart." Anna grinned devilishly.

The younger man turned to his older counterpart. "They don't seem like pushovers, boss. If you think there's a chance, then…"

"Yeah, I know. I know." the older man said, sighing into his palm before rising out of his chair to approach Anna. "I'll take you on my ship, with my crew. If you manage to find my daughter, then it'll be free of charge."

Anna stepped down from her table, standing face to face with the man while she pretended to mull over his offer. "Hm… sounds like a plan. What does your daughter look like?"

"First of all, you tell me how you're going to end the curse." the man demanded coldly, though not angrily. "If it isn't worth my time, I'm passing entirely. I don't need to be played with right now."

"Glad you asked!" Anna smiled disarmingly, and Kjelle began to gravitate her hand toward her lance in case Anna had backed them into a corner. "This is an official military excursion of Ylisse's Shepherds, headed by grandmaster Robin himself and commissioned by Khan Flavia. The person we're looking for is very, very important, so we aren't taking any unnecessary risks - if we can't find your daughter and save the island, then no one can."

Kjelle blinked, her hand's movement toward her lance halting. Anna's tactic was valid, as they and Robin probably would be capable of finding anyone given time; the only thing Kjelle found herself disagreeing with was how ready Anna was to shift responsibility, and therefore more likely than not blame, onto Robin and Flavia.

The man's face contorted into a displeased frown, causing Kjelle to resume her slow reach for her lance. He shook his expression clear and sighed. "Alright, fine. We'll leave when you're ready. My name is Anthep, by the way, captain of the Ship of Lost Souls."

Anna shook his hand, her brow furrowing as he finished his greeting. "You named your boat the 'Ship of Lost Souls'?"

"It's become part of our history here - the name, that is." Anthep informed her. "Everything has to do with the lost souls. Iit's conventional at this point."

"Yeah, I've started to pick up on that." Anna murmured. "Is leaving by tomorrow morning good? We've got a pretty tight schedule to keep."

"Fine by me." Anthep nodded. "The lad back there is Raeshe. He's my son and a quarter of my remaining crew." he stuck a thumb out to the man who had been sitting next to him.

Anna looked past Anthep's shoulder to see Raeshe, and smiled to him politely. He smiled back, his dark hair and surprisingly soft features almost warranting a wink from Anna before she looked back to the captain in front of her. He shared many of the same traits as his son, though significantly more aged and worn away by a life at sea.

"The man you're standing on right now is Pehp, my first mate." Anthep continued. Anna only realised she was standing on someone when she glanced down, and hurriedly hopped off of the now semi-conscious man, whispering to him a rapid apology.

"I've got two more on my crew, Lenhum and Steth, but they're still shoring up the ship after our last battle. You can meet with them in the morning, if you need to."

"Your last battle?" Anna asked curiously, albeit cautiously. "Are you not mere sailors?"

"Aye, we were, in times since forgotten." Raeshe confirmed, shouting to her from his seat at his table. "Then, ma died and Erith was lost on the Isle… da put everything we had toward getting her back, but nothing ever came of it."

"So you turned to piracy." Anna surmised. "How quaint."

"I don't need your judgement, lass. Or your grandmaster's - and I'm sure he'll have plenty of it." Anthep said. "All I want is to have my daughter back home again. I thought piracy might sustain us until we could find her, but if this works…"

Anna nodded calmly, feigning an understanding of his position. "I get it. No need to worry, though. We'll do everything in our power to find your daughter."

"Thank you." Anthep said, lowering his head to her solemnly before directing it over to Raeshe. "My daughter's name is Erith, and she looks like Raeshe. Well, except for having long brown hair, blue eyes, and… well, being female-er."

"Got it." Anna nodded, glancing back over Anthep's shoulder again to memorise his son's appearance and frowning. "Uh… that guy has blue eyes, too."

Anthep glanced back to his own son, ignoring the man's fallen expression as he turned back to Anna. "So he does."

Anna raised an eyebrow at Anthep, but ultimately decided to keep quiet so as to ensure their transaction didn't fall through. "Okay, then. Can you show me the ship, so we can load up and move out by the morning?"

Anthep nodded, then turned to Raeshe and began barking orders. "Raeshe! Take her to the Lost Souls and get her set up for the morning! Tell Lenhum and Steth to get their asses in gear, and get the shoring done before midnight!"

"On it, boss!" Raeshe sprang up from his seat, dashing out of the tavern without need for any further orders. Anna followed quickly after him, grumbling something about etiquette as she was left in his dust.

Kjelle approached Anthep as he knelt down to tend to his first mate, having to take care to not nudge the man with her foot in a purposeful show of disrespect. "How long ago did your daughter disappear, Anthep?"

"Three hundred and eighty-two days." Anthep replied without hesitation, not slowing his attempts at lifting up his crewmember. "Raeshe and I went out to fish, and when we got back…" he trailed off into a sigh.

"Do you really think she's alive?" Kjelle asked, her straightforwardness unintentionally cold.

"It's all I can hope for." Anthep said, finally managing to pull Pehp's head up, forcing the man to return to wakefulness.

Kjelle gazed at the doors to the tavern, then back to Anthep. "What about Raeshe?"

"What about him?" Anthep asked icily, practically glaring at Kjelle as he stood up to his full height.

"Nothing." Kjelle said, shaking her head and turning away from him. "I'm going to go get Robin, then find Anna. I'll see you in the morning."

Anthep said nothing as she exited the tavern.

* * *

Robin slid his hand along the side of Anna's wagon, trying to uncover the secret of how the crew of the Ship of Lost Souls had managed to secure it in the cramped space beneath their deck. Their horses had also been set within the ship, though their silent presence was nowhere near as odd as that of the wagon. Kjelle had followed him down, leaving Anna with the entirety of the crew above deck.

"Were you here when they did this?" Robin asked, stepping away from the wagon to look at it in its entirely. "How the hell did they get this below deck? There's no way it could be moved down the stairs, small as they are."

"No idea." Kjelle answered simply, crossing her arms as she waited for him to return to the ship topside. "They're about to take off, you know. You should probably speak to Anthep before we go. Anna kind of backed you into a corner with having to find his daughter."

"Ugh, don't remind me." Robin groaned. "You know that she probably isn't alive anymore, right? I mean, after a full year on a secluded island, with the only people going there never coming back…"

"Yeah, I know." Kjelle nodded. "Anthep didn't seem to care, though. I'm guessing that we're going to find her in a less than favourable state, at best."

"If we find her at all." Robin sighed. "She may have been a risen, but after that exploding nonsense a few days ago, who knows."

"We'll have to do what we can. Anthep doesn't seem like he'll give up trying to find her easily, and if it helps get him away from piracy…"

"Yeah. I'll do everything in my power to find her, no matter what." Robin vowed, the determination in his voice leaving no room for doubt.

He examined the wagon for a moment longer before spinning to face Kjelle. "Do you want to try hitting me with magic?"

Kjelle recoiled, taken aback. "What?"

"I know this isn't exactly the safest place to try it, but what do you say?" Robin asked, smiling at her innocently. "You'll have to try eventually in order to get that penultimate duel, right? And then we can have the final duel. That's when this can finally end."

"Right." Kjelle nodded slowly, her voice far more reluctant than usual. She pulled out her fire tome from within her armour and flipped it open to its most basic of spells. "I doubt I'm anywhere near the point of doing any damage to you, but I guess I can try."

"That's the spirit! Kind of." Robin smiled. "Hit me with a spell and I'll see if I can feel anything from it. You can hit my cloak if you're afraid of hurting me; I should still be able to pick up on your ability through its enchantments."

Kjelle nodded silently, locking her face in concentration as she prepared her spell. A large fireball manifested over her right hand, and she held it in place for a moment to allow more magic to feed into it, increasing its intensity.

She launched her attack at Robin. The grandmaster stood in place and took the hit without flinching, Kjelle's fire washing over his chest and neck. Once the flames had cleared, he was standing in the same position completely unchanged, sporting no scorch marks from what Kjelle had considered a powerful attack.

Robin waited for a second, raising one finger to have her do the same, before shrugging. "Sorry, didn't feel a thing. I guess you've still got a little ways to go."

Kjelle sighed, her shoulders sagging as she hid away her tome. "I think I've finally made progress, and then learn that I've barely done anything… gods, that's an awful feeling. My magic is so weak that I could probably hurt you more if I used my fists."

"Hey, you've made some amazing progress, and your magic isn't that weak." Robin encouraged her lamely. "If you want, though, you can try your lance again. See how far along you've come, and all that."

"Does that actually make my spells more powerful?" Kjelle asked, equipping her lance to look at its enchantments, as though she would be able to easily interpret them. "I thought it only made casting easier, not better."

"You'll be able to cast stronger spells if you're not focusing as much on sustaining or forming the magic." Robin explained. "That's why I still carry so many tomes, too - I can cast things without them, but they make some of the process easier, allowing me to pull off way more complex and powerful stuff. Your lance should act much the same as a tome by now, bar the fact that it doesn't have spells for you to learn."

"Uh… okay. So if I use the tome and lance at once, then…" Kjelle said, beginning the process as she talked through her steps. "What's on my lance, anyway? I get that it turns the lance into a usable conduit for magic, but what did you actually put on it? Some kind of ancient magic language, or something?"

"Didn't I already tell you that tomes and stuff are written in whatever language you want? It's the power stored in them that matters, not the language." Robin said. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're taking an interest in the process, but that's definitely something I've explained before."

Kjelle merely shrugged as her lance charged. "Maybe. I also might not have been listening, so who really knows."

"You really can be a pain, can't you?" Robin remarked as though it was the first time he had realised as such. "Whatever. The things I wrote on your lance are something I'm as of now calling ether ley lines. They used to be called just 'ley lines', but I think adding 'ether' makes it sound cooler. Essentially, they imbue anything they're written on or around with magic, which uses the ley lines as a means to recharge in or transmit through. It's kind of like a refined vein of energy."

"So, literally all you did was give it magic." Kjelle inferred, and Robin nodded his confirmation. "I really should have understood that sooner, huh?"

"No harm in asking." Robin shrugged.

Kjelle's lance overcharged, brimming with magic as she launched a replica of the weapon so powerful that it warped around itself in a violent spire of flame.

Robin took the shot directly again, and as before failed to so much as flinch. After a second of waiting, he shook his head somberly, causing her to groan in frustration.

"Don't let this get you down." Robin advised, his tone far too cheery. "You've made great progress, and I know you'll keep making more. Magic takes a while to get the hang of, and to get better at. You'll do amazingly."

"Easy for you to say." Kjelle grumbled, looking at her lance before grinning and bringing it back up to point at him. "You know, if I charged this and didn't fire the spell, and had the lance itself launch into you… that would definitely hurt. That kinda counts as casting magic, right?"

Robin raised both his arms and eyebrows defensively. "I'm all for innovation and thinking outside of the box, but I think that's going a little too far."

"Aw, come on. Knowing you, you won't get hurt anyway." Kjelle said, holding her lance level with his chest as she charged her magic.

She held the weapon in place for a moment longer before spinning it around behind her, holding it in place vertically as she grinned. "Kidding. I'll respect the need to learn magic. It's proof I'm getting stronger, after all."

Robin's eyebrows remained raised, his eyes themselves widening as she moved her lance. "Kjelle, you have to fire that off! If you've already charged it; you can't cut it off before you've casted it! The magic needs somewhere to go!"

Kjelle blinked as she processed words, whipping her lance back out in front of her to see that he was telling the truth, and that her lance was in fact finishing its charge and preparing to launch. "Shit! What do I do to stop it!?"

"Fire it at me!" Robin ordered, bracing his cloak for the attack.

"What? No!" Kjelle shouted, purposefully aiming the lance away from him. "I don't actually want to hurt you! Tell me how to stop it before it lights the ship on fire!"

"Shoot me with a fireball, not the lance!" Robin said, stepping toward her to direct the weapon into his own chest, should the need arise.

"I already stopped supplying the magic! I can't form a fireball without launching the lance first!" Kjelle rebutted, stepping away from him and up against the wall of the ship.

"What!? Okay, okay, just-" Robin began, but was cut off when her lance shot past him. It pierced the opposite side of the ship, cleaving through its wooden hull until it ground to a stop at half of its length, the flames surrounding it lapping against the word before thankfully fizzing put into nothingness.

"...Shit." Kjelle cursed, drawing the single word out over a long second. "That's not as bad as it could have gone, right?"

"Y'know, come to think of it, I actually still don't know if you have to cast magic once it's prepared or not." Robin remarked. Kjelle dropped her jaw at him incredulously. "I mean, it would make sense for you to have to, but…"

Kjelle ran her hands through her hair, then rubbed her temples as she considered what to do. "Okay… okay. This is okay. The ship isn't on fire, or sinking yet, so we can-"

Her lance popped out of its hole in the ship's hull, with water streaming in through the emptiness it left behind.

"Shit!" Kjelle cursed again, louder this time. She dashed forward to pick up her lance from where it had fallen, avoiding the water that was leaking into the ship. "Gods, how do we fix this?"

"Hey! Need some help down here!" Robin shouted up the stairway that led to the deck, turning to Kjelle and silently mouthing 'play along' to her.

A tanned head with a bandana in place of hair appeared within a few seconds, staring down at Robin from the end of the stairs. "What is it? And what's with the shouting?"

"You'll want to look for yourself." Robin said vaguely, his completely calm tone belying the panic he and Kjelle were both experiencing. The man above him gave a frustrated sigh, but begrudgingly began to descend the stairs.

"I may not be the first mate or anything here, but my time is still-" he started to say, stopping when one of his feet touched water, causing him to freeze in place. "What the hell? Ah, gods!"

"We were down here, checking some of our gear, when all of a sudden…" Robin said, trailing off to allow the man to fill in the false blank. Technically, the grandmaster wasn't lying and rather was merely withholding information, though Kjelle could tell he was glad that the pirate rushed past him before being able to see some clear unease play across his face.

Kjelle watched the man set to work immediately, patching up the hole she had accidentally made in a fraction of a second before setting about sealing it permanently. "You're one of the ones I didn't meet yesterday, one of the ones who was shoring up the ship. Steth?" she asked, hazarding a guess about their identity.

"Nope - Lenhum." the man said, not averting his attention from his work. "Hey, lady, don't tell my boss about this, okay? He would break my legs and feed me to the sea."

"Not a problem." Kjelle said. "We won't tell a soul. Promise."

"Thanks." Lenhum breathed, finishing his work in short order and stepping back to appraise the repairs. "Damn, and I thought I did such a good job on that spot."

"Your work was great." Robin said, returning to the pirate some of his lost pride as compensation for his technical lie. "Only, you know, not quite great enough."

"Yeah, right. It was a crap job." Lenhum sighed. "Gods, I swear that I'm not cut out for this type of work. I'd never give up a position under Anthep, but it's way too high stress for my liking."

"Why not find different work, then?" Robin asked, casually making conversation with the pirate to satisfy his own idle curiosity. "Anthep doesn't strike me as being all that amazing."

"Ha, are you kidding me?" Lenhum laughed. "He's Anthep! The legendary king of the seas, captain of the Exalt's own war frigate during the Plegian crusades!"

"He was a soldier in the old wars?" Robin asked, his curiosity legitimately piqued.

"Not just a soldier - Anthep was the best of the best. His axe heralded the end of hundreds of lives, and his ship was a terror never before seen on the open seas, cutting down any crew that attempted to flee Plegia, civilian and soldier alike."

Robin raised his eyebrows at the end of the man's statement. "He attacked civilians?"

"That's what the reports say." Lenhum said. "See, the old Exalt wanted to kill every last Plegian, but also knew that people wouldn't agree with him, so he cut them off from the rest of the world and made it impossible for anyone to get help. He used ships like Anthep's to stop anyone trying to flee."

"That's brutal…" Kjelle murmured. She could appreciate a show of strength, but not to such a cruel degree.

"Now, the actual story is pretty different." Lenhum continued, catching Robin's raised eyebrows and vaguely horrified expression. "Anthep was actually defying the Exalt's orders. He would stop civilian ships, sure, but he wouldn't kill anyone on them. His crew was mighty enough that anyone who came up against him would surrender as often as they'd fight, so he would hide civilians on his ship and ferry them out of combat."

"Oh. So he's not pure evil." Robin said plainly. To Kjelle, he almost sounded disappointed.

"Not in the slightest." Lenhum smiled warmly. "I was one of those Plegians, too. The royal vanguard had swept through my town, killing almost everyone, and I was forced to take to the seas with a few survivors before they could make another run at us. It was there that Anthep found us and took me in. I owe him my life. I'll never forget what he's done for me, and for so many others."

"Sounds like you really look up to him." Robin said, slowly moving the conversation along.

"Aye, he's a great man." Lenhum nodded. "Broke my heart to come back here with him, meet his kids, having to watch him explain that he was on the wrong side of the war despite everything he tried to do."

Robin cocked his head, his curiosity returning in full. "Wait… the Ylissean navy was routed during the old crusade. I take it you don't have that piece of history anymore?"

"Once the war was coming to an end, there were a series of battles where major points of interest were overtaken by Plegia. That included the Exalt's ships and strongholds." Lenhum confirmed with a nod. "It's a damn shame, too. That ship was a beauty."

"The Exalt was killed, and every last key position he had used in the war was overtaken." Robin continued, recalling his relearned history lessons. "Anthep's warship, mighty as it was, fell."

Lenhum nodded. "The Grimleal used their mages to turn the tides of battle, solidifying themselves a permanent spot in modern Plegia. The ships were all destroyed in a practically one-sided battle. Once our ship sank, me and some of the other crew - the ones out here today - dragged Anthep back out here, to his kids. Now, we're the last of the people who were with him that have stayed by his side, and not gone and disappeared on the Isle."

"And you were there when he had to explain to his kids about what had happened." Robin recalled. "Gods, that has to be rough as hell for anyone young."

"I think it was harder on him, to be honest." Lenhum said. "Erith barely understood what he was saying, and Raeshe could only see that he was unhappy. I swear, after that day Raeshe only wanted his dad to be happy again, but he went too far."

Robin cocked his head again. For some reason, Lenhum was a veritable fountain of information. "What happened?"

Lenhum sighed before continuing his explanation. "One of the last memories Raeshe had of his father was him heading out for war, absolutely ecstatic that he was going to be able to save so many people - he already had the plan to use his experience and prestige to help, see. Then, when Anthep came back home, and Raeshe was able to see how sad he had become, he tried again and again to recreate the last time his father had been happy."

"What did he do?" Robin asked, almost fearing the answer he would receive based upon the grim tone Lenhum had adopted.

"He tried to rebuild the war." Lenhum said. "He would play these games, where he reenacted what he had heard about the fighting for Anthep, thinking that it would somehow make him happy. It didn't, to say the least, but the poor boy never picked up on it until the damage had been done. Raeshe would take him out sailing, pretending that every building or island they passed was some village in need of help, with suffering families… it really, really didn't help."

"My friend over there said that Raeshe and Anthep were out sailing when the disappearances occurred." Robin said, craning his neck over to an oddly silent Kjelle. "Was that one of those times?"

"Aye, it was." Lenhum nodded solemnly. "That was the first time Steth, Pehp, and I saw what was happening. Raeshe had spent every gold he had earned for years buying a ship, hoping to better recreate the war. Anthep, he just never had the heart to crush his own kid's hopes, no matter what. He would play along, even though it was clearly driving them apart. Once we told Raeshe what was happening, what he had done to his father, and returned home…"

"Everyone had disappeared, and Raeshe and Anthep were further apart than ever." Robin assumed, finishing for him.

Lenhum nodded. "His daughter was one of the last things he truly loved about the world, and then she was… well, lost. Not dead, according to Anthep, but lost. I swear, we were only gone for a few hours, at most. Whatever happened to them all, it happened fast, and after days of searching we didn't find a thing. Everything was the same as it should have been, clothes drying, food on tables, shops open for business, ships drifting around the harbours, but every person and animal on the island had up and disappeared."

"Do you have any idea what happened to them?" Robin asked, even though he felt as if he already knew the answer. "People don't disappear like that. Were they attacked by something, or someone? Maybe had some kind of powerful magic casted on them?"

"No idea." Lenhum shook his head. Robin frowned at the answer but held silent. "The only place we never checked was the Manor, since even before then that place was off limits. It'd been around longer than any of us, even Anthep, and no one ever came out of it after going in."

"Really?" Robin asked. "Even before everything with the risen, nobody came back from the Manor?"

"Well, actually, it was more of a ghost story than anything else." Lenhum admitted. "I've even spent a few nights up there myself, at least before the undead popped up a year or so ago. Way back when, it was perfectly safe to go there, if a little spooky. Recently, people really haven't been returning, both before and after the mass disappearance. Do you think it's the undead ones that are causing this?"

"That's my theory right now, yeah." Robin confirmed with a nod. "Also, the official name for them we use in the Shepherds is 'risen'. Sounds cool, right? Right?"

"'Risen', huh… fitting, I guess." Lenhum murmured before growing almost sheepish and maneuvering his way past Robin. "Ah, sorry, grandmaster sir. I've been talking your ear off, and I really should get back to work."

"Not a problem." Robin laughed, giving the friendly pirate a small wave as he scurried to the deck. "Usually, I'm the one who has to fill a daily exposition quota. This was a nice change of pace."

Lenhum disappeared onto the deck with a small smile directed at Robin, who turned back to Kjelle once the pirate had left. She was still lost in thought about some matter or another, though she appeared to have absorbed everything Lenhum had been spouting.

"What do you make of that?" Robin asked her, trying to bring her out of what had stopped her entirely, fearing he may have dragged something from her past up in his conversation and had left her defenseless.

"Hm? Oh, uh… Anthep should've communicated more, and Raeshe should've been less of a dick. I kinda almost fell asleep after that point" she said simply. "Anthep, Raeshe, Pehp, Lenhum, Steth, Erith… did you tell me any of those names?"

Robin furrowed his brow. "Um… no? I don't think so, at least? Why would-" he paused as he realised what was happening. "Ah. You're thinking about Andrea again, aren't you?"

"It's still so strange to me, that I couldn't say anything about her until you had told me what I needed to hear." Kjelle said. "That's the only time that's happened, too. At least, as far as I can tell."

"You remember the entire pirate crew, though." Robin said. "Noire remembered a guy by the name of Campell yesterday, too. Maybe it was just Andrea, and her friend Tracie, who that stuff applied to?"

"Maybe." Kjelle sighed. "More than anything else right now, I want an answer to that. How could something like that happen? Who could do something like that, and why?"

"We'll have the answer soon, with any luck." Robin said. "Next stop after Nah is Mount Prism, remember? We can ask the almighty Naga herself."

"I suppose we can." Kjelle smiled, and began moving her way above deck. "I hope we can get a straight answer."

Robin followed her up, leaving Anna's wagon and whatever other dubiously acquired cargo was in the ship to sit in the few centimetres of water that had flooded in. As a last second decision, he turned and charged a weak fireball that he aimed for the water. He cancelled it once it had neared finishing charging, and the fireball immediately slipped out of existence without needing to be fired. He frowned deeply and continued walking.

* * *

Anna watched as a member of the pirate crew, a bald and stout man she had come to know briefly as Lenhum, grumbled to himself and walked below deck. She shrugged and paid him no mind, progressing on across the ship to reach the only remaining crew member she had yet to meet.

"Ahoy, matey!" she greeted them loudly and without shame. The person she was addressing snapped their head up from where she had been tying some form of knot, with a wide grin instantly gracing her features. "I be admiral Anna, here to claim the treasures lost to the sea!"

"Aye, admiral Anna!" the pirate, a woman by the name of Steth, greeted in turn in a voice far too gruff for Anna to consider it natural. "Ye be here to find treasure… tis a fine pursuit, tis fine. I be Steth, maiden of the great seas."

"Yar, that I- holy hells, you're the most stereotypical pirate I've ever seen." Anna said, breaking character fully in order to state her mind.

True enough, the woman across from her was a pirate in appearance as much as name, having to push up her tricorn hat to readjust her bandana, moving it out of the way of her eyepatch but accidentally rubbing it into some of her numerous piercings. "Gods, do you spend hours setting that up every morning?"

Steth smiled at her. "Yar, it takes… 'bout two hours, give or take."

"Uh… aye?" Anna said, trying and failing to get back into a gruff voice.

"Aye, I too tend to break character after a few sentences." Steth laughed. "You'd think I would have it down after all this time, but nope! It's actually pretty difficult to keep up. Thanks for at least trying to get into it, though - that's more than any of those sad saps I call crewmates try to do."

Anna blinked, struggling more with the other woman breaking character than she was with losing her own. "Sure thing? I think? And… yar, and stuff?"

Steth laughed again, this time far more pleasantly now that she had dropped her false pirate voice. "Don't worry, you don't have to stay in character. Trust me, it gets difficult to pull off, and your throat will not thank you for it."

"Okay…?" Anna said, still having difficulty coming to terms with Steth's personality. "Uh, well, I'm Anna. I wanted to introduce myself, and see if you knew anyone who would be willing to take us south after this."

"South, eh?" Steth muttered, playing with one of her numerous braids before shrugging. "If you manage to put captain Anthep's mind to rest about his daughter, he'll probably take you anywhere."

Anna nodded solemnly. "Do you really think she's alive, though?"

"Oh, no, the poor girl's absolutely dead." Steth said casually, taking Anna off guard once more. "I feel kind of bad saying it, but after over a year on an island like that there's not a chance in the world she's still kicking. Anthep is probably the only person here who hasn't wrapped his head around that fact, too - even Raeshe, who can be dense as hell, seems to understand what's happened."

"Then how are we going to find his daughter, if she's dead?" Anna asked. "Besides, maybe she was kidnapped? Along with the rest of the people on the island?"

"Nope. We've checked. A lot." Steth said. "Anthep has spent more than everything he earned in the old Exalt's war sending out bounty hunters and search parties. All he needs now is to accept that his daughter is dead. You do that, and I don't doubt he'll do what he can to help you. He's a good guy, really, just caught up in a past that's never coming back. His son isn't really helping on that front, either…"

"The old Exalt's war?" Anna asked curiously. "Was Anthep a soldier?"

"Yeah. Captain of the Exalt's own head warship, as a matter of fact." Steth confirmed with a smile. "That's how I met him. I was still pretty young when I lost my parents to the war, so I joined the military to survive. Anthep saw that I was a kid, so he requested that I join his regiment specially. He tried to send me home with some money as soon as I transferred to his ship, but I wasn't about to take something from him without offering anything back, so I stuck with the crew, and I ended up here once the war had ended."

"And now you've followed him into being a pirate?" Anna asked bluntly.

"Hey, I lost the only semblance of a life I had when the disappearances on Isle happened, too." Steth said defensively. "That was the second time I had lost my life. I figured that I may as well try going for something completely different, so I got into piracy."

"Except that it hasn't stuck very well, and you still can't keep in character after however much practice." Anna said. "Are you sure you're content with this?"

"I'm happy." Steth shrugged. "Hell, I'm happy with pretty much everything right now. My life's been better these past years after the war than before, so I'm not about to complain."

"What if you could have something better, though?" Anna asked. "You pull off being a pirate well, but once you drop character, it becomes way too obvious how superficial it is. Why not try for something different, something that suits you better?"

"Sounds like you're projecting a little bit of yourself on me, Anna." Steth said, causing Anna to frown. "I know what you're like, born to be a merchant and nothing else. I've seen other yous - hell, maybe even you yourself, for all I know - during the old war. Maybe you're having a little difficulty staying in character yourself."

"I'm not having difficulty being me." Anna refuted, though Steth's easy smile seemed anything but accepting of her claim. "My character is who I am, part of my identity, practiced to perfection. It's what's natural to me, all I was thinking is that you aren't really a pirate."

Steth shrugged, her smile lingering. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I missed my calling of oh, I don't know, being a merchant? Maybe you missed your calling of being a pirate, too?"

Anna blinked and deepened her frown. "I'm not becoming a pirate. Granted, I may not be the most ethical of merchants, but I'm a still an Anna at heart. Merchant, not pirate."

"Aw, just try it, you lump." Steth said, whipping her hat off of her head and placing it roughly on a stunned Anna. She pulled off her eyepatch, lively brown eyes shining at Anna, and she wiggled the fabric on over the hat and into place over one of Anna's eyes. "See? You're a natural!"

"I'm not a pirate! I have some standards, you know!" Anna pouted, swiping the hat and eyepatch off of her head. She then promptly decided that she favoured the hat and scooped it up with one hand.

"Alright, fine. Don't come crying to me if you end up regretting it." Steth said, reclaiming her eyepatch and ripping her hat away from Anna's grip.

Anna raised her hands defensively in front of herself, doing nothing to make Steth any more amicable. "Gods, I was only trying to help. serves me right for trying to be altruistic, I guess."

Steth glared at her as she replaced her eyepatch and hat, her forceful movements easily conveying her frustration. "Why are you here? What's an Anna doing running around with the Shepherds of Ylisse?"

"I'm a Shepherd myself, actually." Anna smiled.

Steth's eyebrows shot up incredulously. "No way in hell someone like you is a Shepherd."

"Oh, you better believe it, bi- er, uh… nice… lady?" Anna said, then sighed. "Gods, I really am dropping character…"

"And you were calling me superficial." Steth remarked. "Face it, Anna: I chose my life, and you didn't choose yours. My choice may not have been perfect, but it was still mine to make, which is more than you can say."

Anna levelled her gaze on Steth. "I'm an Anna. I'm perfectly fine being an Anna, and that sentiment isn't about to change as the result of a few words from some obscure, meaningless pirate nobody."

"Sheesh, alright." Steth said, relinquishing her more intense stare. "I was trying to help, too. Don't pay a pirate nobody like me any mind, then. I thought you might like a change of pace. Maybe we would both benefit from one."

Anna glared at Steth for a moment longer before allowing her gaze to grow softer. "Okay, maybe you're right. Tell you what, as a show of good faith, why don't you let me buy your hat from you? How much?"

Steth blinked. "Uh… I'll think on it, and get back to you?" she said. She blinked again when Anna smiled warmly at her, already abandoning her venom from a moment ago.

"So, how far are we from the Isle?" Anna asked, making her way over to the side of the ship to lean on the railing.

"Um… less than four hours, probably." Steth answered, tentatively following Anna over to the railing but not leaning on the support, more offset by Anna's shift in personality than the merchant had been with her dropping character. "We can reach it in under two, but there's a heavy fog that rolls in at dusk and sticks around until morning that makes moving around practically impossible. It was kind of nice when there were people around, and there wasn't any danger, but now…"

Anna said nothing, nodding silently as she took in the information and left Steth to continue their conversation.

"Hey, Anna, why did you join the Shepherds?" Steth asked. Anna turned to look at her with one eyebrow raised. "I mean, since you're obviously already so content?"

"Opportunity, mostly." Anna replied, turning back to the ocean. "More travel, more people needing to buy and sell things, more stable work and places to operate - figuratively speaking. Warzones tend to not be very stable, but that's not not to mention what I'll be able to do in Ylisstol."

"You sure that's everything?" Steth asked.

Anna turned to face her curiously again. "What more could I possibly want?"

Steth shrugged. "Maybe life as something other than a merchant? Even if that means being a soldier? Though, to be fair, the Shepherds are more like a family than a military outfit, at least from what I've heard."

"I really don't feel like going through a crisis right now, Steth." Anna said, pushing herself off of the railing and turning back toward the rest of the ship. "Tell me when you decide to sell your hat, okay?"

"Sure thing." Steth said, waving to Anna happily as the merchant moved away toward where her friends, and apparently fellow Shepherds, had returned above deck.

Kjelle was engaging in some manner of discourse with Pehp, the first mate of the Lost Souls, when Anna approached her and Robin. As she did so, Robin shrugged to her and raised his arms, conveying his lack of understanding and influence in a simple gesture.

"Hit me again, godsdamnit!" Pehp shouted, holding a hand up to his face to show a confused Kjelle where to attack.

"Um… no?" Kjelle said, almost wanting to hit him, only for her uncertainty to outweigh the desire.

"I don't want to go to the godsdamn Isle of Lost Souls!" he continued to shout, drawing no attention from his disinterested crew members.

"You already agreed to take us." Robin said calmly, hoping that his tone would be reciprocated.

"Anthep agreed, not me!" Pehp continued to shout, causing Robin to wince from his sheer volume. "I know what happens to people on the Isle, and I don't want it to happen to me! Knock me out now and send my body back to the harbour!"

"No…?" Kjelle said with a little more certainty than before. "We have a mission to complete here. We can't stop because someone is afraid, or try knocking you out and sending you adrift."

Robin found that he was watching Kjelle closely, either by habit or due to the uncharacteristic hesitation in her voice. For some reason, she seemed to grimace as she was talking about stopping, though Robin could only assume that she did so due to Nah's increasingly pressing need for aid.

"Well then, I'm a dead man walking." Pehp said, his tone becoming comically grave in a matter of seconds. "You've surely heard the stories, haven't you? How the dead come alive and wander the Graveyard of Lost Souls, circling the Cairn of Lost Souls until the Fog of Lost Souls fades away each morning and they have to return to the Manor of Lost Souls?"

"Gods, your naming convention is horrible." Anna whispered under her breath.

"That sounds an awful lot like risen, more or less." Robin said, barely hearing Anna but deciding not to comment on her statement. "They're real, sure, but they're also not that difficult to kill. Ordinary people have been sending them off by the hundreds, and people like the Shepherds have kill counts in the thousands." Out of the corner of his eye, Robin could see Kjelle's grimace return, the time traveller apparently still having difficulty accepting how many risen were present in the past.

"Oh, great, they have a name!" Pehp laughed shakily. "That's so reassuring, knowing that they're a real threat and not me being afraid, as usual!"

"Look, Pehp, you need to calm down." Kjelle said, making the mistake of placing her hand on his shoulder in an attempt to aid him. "Robin, Anna, and I are all more than strong enough to protect anyone here from a few risen. Even then, nobody here seems like a pushover."

"I suppose I'll be have to be strong myself then." Pehp smiled suggestively, though Kjelle failed to notice and smiled in return. "After all, once you see them and get scared yourself, you'll need a nice, strong man to come running to."

Kjelle's smile instantly became incredibly strained. She tightened her grip on Pehp's shoulder and forcefully pushed him aside, almost throwing him to the deck.

"She's gonna have a field day with Vaike." Robin whispered to Anna. Thankfully, Kjelle was too focused on Pehp to hear him.

"He'd be dead in a few minutes, at best." Anna whispered back. "Ooh, what about Virion? He might die faster."

"Actually, she was pretty okay with him." Robin continued to whisper. "In hindsight, that was pretty weird. I guess she still had a lot of respect for the Shepherds."

"Hey, Pehp!" Raeshe shouted from the far end of the deck, running over to their gathering as he spoke. "Boss says there's some ale in the captain's quarters. He says that you should go get wasted, and stop bothering our guests."

"I've already had a few too many." Pehp said, struggling to stand properly after Kjelle's push before snapping to attention and rushing away. "But, like mother said, there's always room for more!"

"Sounds like he had a great mother." Robin murmured, then looked up at the sky. "It's barely past noon."

"Sorry about him." Raeshe said, rushing to a stop in front of Kjelle and pausing to catch his breath. "He's not always an asshole; only most of the time. Does great manual labour, though."

"I've yet to see him not be an ass." Kjelle said, flicking her hand through the air as though touching the pirate had contaminated her gauntlet. "Is he always drunk, too?"

"No, no. Again, only most of the time." Raeshe said. "He's always had a bottle nearby since the disappearances. He lost a lot back then. We all did."

"No reason to be such an ass about it, though." Kjelle said, glaring at where Pehp had disappeared into a large room, only to reappear a moment later with a dark bottle.

"You'd be surprised." Raeshe said, casting a glance in the same direction as her. "He's always been afraid of what happened to the Isle. Personally, I think he's hoping the drink kills him before he disappears, too."

"Seems kind of grim to keep supplying him, then." Robin said. "Why not wean him off of it, rather than get him more? It'd probably make him less of an ass if he were to sober up, too."

"It's the boss' call here, not mine." Raeshe said. "If captain Anthep is okay with it, then it's fine by me. Boss gets to make the final calls, after all."

"Are you going to keep calling him 'boss' and 'captain'?" Kjelle asked. "Not, I don't know, 'father'?"

Raeshe shook his head. "He's the captain of his ship first and foremost. I know that's probably done some damage recently, but I know he's happy like that. He has to be."

"There are far better ways to connect with your father than whatever it is you're doing." Robin said, trying his best to keep his tone neutral.

"This is the best way I've got." Raeshe said solemnly. "Maybe, a long time ago, I might've been able to do something else, but now. After losing my sister, there isn't much that I can do that won't make things worse."

"Do you think we'll find Erith? Your sister?" Anna asked, once again sounding unintentionally cold.

Raeshe sighed deeply. "No. I think she's gone, and if we do find her, it won't be how the boss hopes. There no way she's gotten through a year on her own perfectly fine."

"Are you prepared to face her if she's a risen?" Kjelle asked, also unintentionally cold.

"That's the name of the walking corpses, right?" Raeshe asked, and Kjelle and Robin both nodded. "I… I don't know. I might be, but there's no way the boss will be able to do it."

"If it comes down to it, we can handle her." Robin offered, and Raeshe smiled at him in thanks.

"Let's hope she hasn't changed like those ones from the village." Kjelle added, her voice nothing short of foreboding.

* * *

 **Hey, I'm technically a day late again! I think. Time is hard to keep track of.**

 **We've met a bunch of new characters now, and have spent the better part of a chapter dropping exposition about them, but they're not going to be around for long. Fun fact, the order in which they were introduced and in which Kjelle recounts their names is a modified/bastardised version of the** **Latin** **phrase "Ante praesepe plenum steterit", which Google translate tells me means "fodder".**

 **Status: As of 19-11-18, I'm still on chapter 33. I have started working on it again, but it's going slow. Also, the next two chapters are the ones I'll be releasing close to one another, meaning after only a short break rather than 20(ish) days, Hopefully. My schedule has been all kinds of horrible recently.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	20. Chapter 20

The Ship of Lost Souls grated to a stop on the sands of the Isle of Lost Souls. Anna no longer needed to be present to convey the redundancy of the names to everyone else.

The titular Fog of Lost Souls had rolled off of the island within the past hour, allowing captain Anthep and his crew to sail directly for land, dropping their anchor a negligible distance from the beach. Initially, they had set course for the Isle's harbours, though Pehp had insisted on avoiding anywhere he considered too likely to be at risk.

Steth was the first off the ship, jumping down its side with a simple rope ladder that would allow her crew and guests to follow. Raeshe and Pehp followed her soon after, then Anna and Robin, with each taking their time to reach the beach carefully.

As Kjelle descended the ladder, she purposefully slid down. She crashed roughly into the sand, taking care to avoid Robin's reflexively outstretched hands that attempted to catch her and taking a strenuous amount of sand into her boots as a result.

Robin merely stared at her as she emptied one of her boots of sand, wholly unimpressed as he sighed and turned to make his way up the beach. Within taking a single step, he had to spin to his side and vomit, the shaky sea legs he had acquired for the purposes of his voyage instantly abandoning him. Kjelle passively patted his back before moving up the beach herself, leaving him once he had shown signs of recovering.

"I'm staying up here!" Lenhum shouted from the ship's guardrail, after Anthep had already descended the ladder, leaving him alone on the ship. "I've got to, uh… make sure none of the shoring I did popped in that landing! I'll wait for you guys to get back!"

"He never bailed out that water from earlier, did he?" Kjelle wondered aloud at Robin as he unsteadily approached her, his legs wobbling as he held one sleeve over his mouth. The grandmaster shook his head in a small arc, fearing what greater movement may be capable of doing to him.

"Should we leave him alone here?" Robin asked, trying to direct the question to everyone around him but failing to raise his voice above a hoarse whisper.

"I volunteer to stay!" Pehp eagerly raised his hand, wobbling for different reasons than Robin, a bottle of ale present in his lowered hand.

"Let's get moving. Now." Anthep commanded, pushing his first mate up the beach with one hand as he passed the smaller man. Pehp complied without hesitating, his fear of the Isle failing to compare to his respect for his captain.

Robin cast a glance back to the ship. Lenhum had already disappeared below deck. None of the other members of the pirate crew seemed concerned for his safety, and so Robin followed them off the beach without more thought.

* * *

Doors and windows of a dilapidated town hung open, waiting for a gust of nonexistent wind to temporarily close them. The village was host to a multitude of small buildings, most giving off a vague aesthetic of homes despite their year of being unused. A single road fed through the entire location, one end breaking off into several smaller paths, including one to the beach at which the Lost Souls had landed.

The other end of the road lead up to the massive Manor of Lost Souls, the supposed location of Nah and the probable residence of an untold number of risen. At a glance, the Manor itself didn't appear foreboding, suffering from little more than the same wear as every other building in the ghost town, though it was also plain to see that such an assessment wouldn't hold up very well at any time that didn't border noon. Its strangely gothic architecture at the very peast helped it stand out amongst the gentle nature of the rest of the island.

Apparently, the town itself had no proper name, or at least the answer Anna had received when she had asked Anthep for one had been all too predictable. Upon being assured that there was nothing of great value remaining in any of the buildings, Anna had joined the pirates in wait at the end of the settlement leading to the Manor, allowing Robin and Kjelle to give the buildings a cursory examination before satisfying themselves and moving on to the main attraction.

Robin knelt next to an emptied market stall, its contents having long since disappeared to the adventurers and looters who had decided to investigate the island. He searched for some sign of recent activity, thinking that someone alive may have decided to do the same as him or that a risen may have possibly left some form of mark on the stall in its characteristic aimless shambling. He found no such sign, and moved over to examine another sector of the small market.

All things considered, the village and its market were unremarkable, hosting only a few buildings that looked as though they may have been noteworthy. Each was uniform - made of stone and wood, with two floors and a few large windows. Even so, Robin took his time examining every metre of land, his companions growing progressively less patient as they waited for him and Kjelle to advance.

Kjelle, for her part, closely analysed a set of buildings as much for the purpose of experiencing the town than finding any clues. Somehow, the lack of any living or undead presence managed to make the island more disconcerting than some of the locations from her time, where there had always been either survivors struggling to subsist or risen prowling streets.

She slipped into what she could only assume had once been a family's home, creaking a heavy wooden door open in order to pass inside. The interior of the building was somehow in greater disarray than the exterior, with opened drawers and cabinets demonstrating the past of looters interested in the island's valuables.

Kjelle wound her way into a different room of the house, taking care to avoid any part of the building that appeared too dilapidated to be considered safe. She continued to find nothing of note. The building was practically as empty as the rest of the town, and the fact that no one had been living within its walls for many months was all too apparent.

"This place was Pehp's, once." a heavy voice said from behind her, and she whipped around to see Anthep standing in the doorway to the room she had entered. "He lived here alone, and was the first one to insist on leaving after the disappearances."

"Everyone in your crew had homes here, didn't they?" Kjelle asked, calming after his sudden appearance.

"Aye. Raeshe and I were the only ones who stayed behind after everyone was lost." Anthep confirmed solemnly. "We were here for months, hoping that Erith would find her way back to us, only ever leaving our house to look for her around the island or go to town and get supplies. There were a few times where we stayed overnight, holing up until the fog had gone. She never came back home."

"Did you check the Manor?" Kjelle asked, pushing past him as she spoke in order to make her way out of the house.

"No one ever goes to the Manor. Not even before everyone disappeared." Anthep said, following Kjelle outside before pausing to find Robin, who was still scouring every innocuous patch of ground for information. "Hey, grandmaster! If you're done looking at nothing, we're going to move on!"

Robin nodded acknowledgement, remaining kneeled for a moment before popping back up to a stand, brushing his legs for nonexistent dirt. He jogged over to them, a frown lining his face denoting the lacking results of his search.

"Look, Anthep…" Kjelle began as Robin neared her and the forlorn father. "You must understand by now that she can't be alive after so long. If anything, she'll have become a risen, and even then she may not be around anymore."

"I'll believe it when I see it." Anthep replied grimly, his features set in a doomed determination. "She's a tough girl. If anyone could have survived out here for so long, it'd've been her."

Kjelle frowned at him, but before she could say anything more Robin had reached them.

"Hey, sorry for the wait." he said, pausing for an instant to fully catch his breath before continuing. "I was looking for tracks, or anything that might tell me where risen might be, but I couldn't find anything." he paused again, blinking before furrowing his brow. "Wait, why couldn't I find anything at all…? There should still have been tracks from raiders, or looters, or something, right?"

"Nobody's going to bother with an empty village." Anthep said. Robin's frown showed that he wasn't quite satisfied with the answer, but Anthep failed to notice the expression. "Now, let's get to the Manor and find my daughter."

"I thought nobody ever went up there?" Kjelle asked almost aggressively as she followed Anthep along the road to the rest of his crew and Anna. Robin lagged behind them lazily as he lost himself to his thoughts. "What sense is there in going somewhere your daughter won't be?"

"I don't need you telling me that she's dead, like everyone else." Anthep replied gruffly. "All you need to do is find her. Like I said, she's strong. She's alive. She's not one to buy into the ghost stories about the place, either - if she's still on this island, which is practically the only place she can still be, she's up at the Manor."

"What are these ghost stories, anyway?" Robin asked, only paying the question half of his attention.

"Terrifying tales as old as the Manor itself." Anthep answered gravely, stopping as they reached their eagerly waiting companions. "Legends about how the old family that built the place were murdered, killed off one by one in as gruesome of ways as their killer could manage."

"And now that same family haunts the place?" Kjelle asked, her tone not quite disbelieving enough for Robin to not scoff.

"You're going to buy that? A literal ghost story?" Robin asked, almost laughing.

"I didn't say I was buying it, but I'm not completely discrediting it, either." Kjelle said, becoming defensive in response to his subdued chuckling. "What if they came back as risen? That's kind of like a ghost story, and actually real."

"Yeah, because risen exist and can hurt people." Robin said. "They aren't some kind of stupid make believe nonsense like ghosts, or kangaroos, or something."

"Actually, that isn't where the ghost story kicks in." Anthep informed them, cutting Kjelle off before she could form a rebuttal against Robin. "After their deaths, a young man moved into the Manor. Rumour was that he had been the one to kill them, out of a desire for their land and access to the town to use in his dark magic, but nothing was ever confirmed."

"Also, he wasn't that bad of a guy!" Pehp piped up, his words surprisingly not slurred. "Used to invite me out for drinks every other week or so, and would always pick up my tab… never would shut up about his grandkids, though."

"You knew there was a dark mage living there, and that he wanted access to people for his experiments, and you went out for drinks with him?" Kjelle asked incredulously.

"Actually, he was a sorcerer." Pehp corrected her contentiously. "He would always stress that, and talk about how he was gonna study some crap or another about dark magic. I never really bothered remembering that part. It was way too boring."

"So where do the ghost stories kick in?" Robin asked, earning a conceited glare from Kjelle for his curiosity.

"There weren't any, people were being pansies and made up stories about the old guy, saying he became a ghost after he died a few years back." Pehp said. "If you ask me, though, the tales were all ways of detracting from the real conspiracy, where the original hosts became vampires and started preying on the whole island."

Steth screwed up her face in confusion at her fellow pirate. "How the hell does that make any more sense than an old guy becoming a ghost after he died?"

"Because ghosts don't exist, idiot." Pehp slurred out as though it should have been obvious. Steth glared at him, the look in her eyes halfway to cutting daggers, though she refrained from saying anything more.

"As much as I'd like to go find my not-quite-a-friend right now, and put these ghost stories to rest, I want to double back to the beach for a minute." Robin said. "I think there might actually be something wrong with this island, and I want to ease a suspicion I've developed."

"I'll go with you!" Pehp shouted, eagerly raising his hand to volunteer as he darted to the grandmaster's side.

Anthep caught the smaller man and held him back. "No way I'm letting you run away when we've gotten this close to the Manor. Steth, stick with the grandmaster and make sure he doesn't run into trouble."

"I don't need an escort, I just wanted to tell you all where I was going." Robin said futilely, Steth already at his side. "Whatever. I'll meet up with you at the Manor when I'm done."

Kjelle moved away from Robin, toward the others and the Manor. "I'd go with you, but I should talk to Nah before she, you know, tries to kill you."

"That's probably a good idea, yeah." Robin agreed weakly, already internally groaning at the prospect of fighting another time traveller.

"I'd say the same, but I won't, because I want the Manor's treasure." Anna smiled innocently.

"Pretty sure you're the only one to have ever mentioned anything like that existing." Raeshe grumbled as he began to move toward the Manor once more. Anthep was leading in front of him, with Pehp, Anna, and Kjelle all following behind.

Steth watched them leave for a moment before turning to Robin. "So, what are we looking at, new grandmaster-boss-guy?"

"My name's Robin, if you've already forgotten." Robin said. Steth smiled with more false innocence than Anna. "I want to check our tracks by the beach. We moved through sand, so there should be a visible trail, but if I'm right about this, there won't be."

"Well, lead the way." Steth said, holding out one hand in the direction of the beach as id to guide their path.

* * *

"What's your friend like, anyway?" Raeshe asked both Anna and Kjelle as they approached the ominous dark walls of the Manor of Lost Souls. "Since you're helping us find one of ours, it'd be rude not to do the same for you. We might be able to find her if we work together."

"With any luck, she'll be the same way as my baby girl." Anthep added grimly, directing his statement in all of its venom at Kjelle.

"She's a manakete, goes by Nah, has kind of… what was it, orange-ish hair?" Anna said happily, ignoring Anthep's comment and the wince Kjelle gave at her sharing information so freely.

"A manakete? You mean a dragon person?" Pehp exclaimed, his face lighting up in excitement. "By the gods, that's practically the same as the vamp-"

"Silence, Pehp." Anthep commanded. The other pirate immediately shut his mouth.

The group progressed up to the Manor in that silence, the trail up to the building's worn steps and arched entryway being surprisingly welcoming. A fence constructed of stone and pointed metal poles lined the Manor's perimeter, though the gate that would have once restricted access had long since been destroyed beyond usability, its metal doors now lying lazily on the ground.

Anthep was the first to reach the Manor's entrance, persisting through the gloom that lined the building effortlessly. He cracked one of the twin doors leading inside open with the same practiced bravado, ushering the others inside before entering himself and allowing the door to naturally swing closed behind him.

Darkness immediately filled the long corridor that was the Manor's first room. No natural light was present to aid the dim torches that solely illuminated the building's interior. The hall itself was completely uniform, having no doorways or branching paths that could lead to any other room for as far as anyone would be able to see.

"What the hell…?" Raeshe breathed, looking up at the corridor's high ceiling and around at its walls in confusion.

"This… this is nothing like when I was last here." Pehp joined him, craning his head so far that he nearly fell over. "Where's the foyer? Shouldn't there be a mudroom, and a cozy li'l living room, and a bunch of doorways leading off into libraries and studies and crap…?"

"Let's get moving." Anthep ordered, giving Anna and Kjelle no time to join his crew in their wayward observations. "We aren't going to find anything standing around in a hallway. Go, everyone."

Anthep pressed forward before anyone else, with Kjelle and Anna following behind him cautiously, having grown wary from Raeshe and Pehp's confusion. The two pirates took longer to follow, and moved slower, fearful of what secrets may be lying in wait for them within the changed Manor.

Eventually, the lone corridor curved into a longer, more open hallway, this time with multiple smaller pathways that branched off into relatively open rooms. The torches lighting each corridor and room remained perfectly uniform, offering no means of distinguishing one bleak section of wall from another. Anthep slowed to a stop, with everyone else gradually following his lead at differing intervals.

"Wait, isn't this part of the basement?" Raeshe wondered aloud. "I remember going down here once when I was little… wait, no, that part over there is… from the third floor?" he pointed to one of the branching paths, one that led to a small open-faced room that had a slanted ceiling, though there were several closed doors bordering each of its visible walls.

"What the hell happened to this place?" Anthep questioned, craning his head to look around like the others had, his face playing out his own confusion.

Pehp shook his head and let loose a shaky breath, turning back to the corridor they had entered through. "Something is seriously wrong here. We need to go- oh, what the hell!?"

A massive wall had appeared behind them, silently closing off their entrance. Lit torches lined it at a short but high distance, granting the wall the same uniform effect as any other within the Manor. There sat a single foreboding door in the centre of the wall, directly across from Pehp.

"How the hell…?" Kjelle quietly wondered, staring at the wall before whipping around to look at the other end of the hall and its rooms, fearing that they too had changed. Sure enough, some had, with many new walls and crevices having shifted into existence to replace other rooms, as well as cutting off part of the hall itself.

"Uh, do we… do we open it?" Raeshe asked hesitantly, still focused on the newly appeared door. Kjelle had been the only one to spin around, and when she turned back to face the same direction as the others, she was almost thankful that the new wall hadn't disappeared, too.

Pehp stepped away from the door, placing Anthep between it and himself. "I think that's all we can really do. So, who wants to open it?"

"We aren't going to find my daughter by going back outside." Anthep said gruffly, turning away from the door and pulling Pehp with him. "Come on, let's go deeper. She's got to be in here somewhere."

"Aren't you the least bit concerned about what's happening here?" Kjelle asked, stopping him.

"Concern can wait until after I've found my family." Anthep said. He pushed Pehp into movement, walking with him as they progressed down the altered hallway.

Kjelle briefly glared at Anthep's retreating form before taking a decidedly unhappy, sharp breath. She stepped over to the door on the newly appeared wall and yanked it open, blinking as it swung open effortlessly in her grip, revealing a small closed room holding two large, unnaturally well lit treasure chests that gleamed in their low torchlight.

Anna's face brightened as she saw the two chests, and she immediately darted past Kjelle and into the room. Kjelle and Raeshe both stood still in a stunned silence for a moment at her fearless action. Kjelle only recalled the merchant's true nature a second later and moved away from the room with a sigh as a result.

"If she sees something valuable, she's going for it, no questions asked." Kjelle explained to Raeshe. "That's the way she is. We're probably better off following your father and letting her catch up later."

"Should we let her be alone in here?" Raeshe asked fearfully. "There's something bad about this place. Nothing about anything here is sitting well with me, and I don't think any of us should be alone."

"Do whatever you want." Kjelle shrugged, stepping past him to pursue Anthep. "I've got to go find my friend. Hell, she's probably alone in here, too."

Raeshe swallowed dryly and nodded. He took a deep breath before stepping into the same room as Anna, leaving Kjelle outside to catch up with Anthep and Pehp. The door to the room remained barely open behind him, naturally swinging toward a close but not being able to fully seal the room without human interaction.

Anna was already knelt next to one of the two treasure chests, one knee on the ground as another supported her completely legal lockpicking kit. She leaned into the chest as her hands flitted over the lock in small arcs, speeding up and slowing down at seemingly random intervals before coming to an almost complete stop. Then, she began inserting parts from her kit into the lock, twisting each tool and metal fibre into a specific location before returning to being completely still.

The chest popped open an instant later. Anna's face lit up in pure joy once more. She removed her equipment from the lock and carefully replaced them in the kit on her knee, then placed the kit itself away and stood to access the chest.

She brushed the lid back with one hand, then immediately frowned, the chest revealing that it held less than nothing inside. She leaned over the golden rim of the container, sliding her hands around its polished wooden bottom as though doing so would reveal some kind of hidden compartment, but none made their existence known.

Her frown deepened as she moved over to the next chest, repeating her lockpicking process and pushing the lid of the chest back in the same fashion as before. Once again, the chest proved empty. Anna's frown grew almost fearsome as a result.

"Uh, can we go now?" Raeshe spoke up, making Anna jump before she was able to properly reform her composure.

"Hey, handsome!" she greeted, her usual practiced smile acting as though he hadn't started her. "Decided to come save me from the big bad vampires, huh?"

"No, I… I thought that nobody should be alone right now…" Raeshe said weakly, casting a glance over his shoulder to ensure that the door behind him had remained somewhat open.

"Aw, how sweet." Anna smiled. She looked back to the room's two chests and her frown returned. "Well, this place was an absolute waste of time. There had to have been treasure in those, though, right? Meaning that there's treasure somewhere in this Manor!"

"Or that someone already looted it?" Raeshe proposed, his voice still weak.

"Don't kill my hope here, Raeshe." Anna said dully, her smile disappearing for an instant before snapping back into existence. "Besides, wasn't there something about how no one ever comes to this island anymore, let alone the Manor? There's probably an untold amount of loot in here!"

"The tale was that no one ever came back alive, not that no one ever tried before…" Raeshe corrected the merchant, though she gave no indication of caring.

"Eh, who really cares what some old tale says?" Anna said. "Let's go find some treasure, and maybe find some missing people while we're at it." she stepped over to the door to the room, past Raeshe, who blinked blankly at her.

"Has anyone told you that you come off as a little shallow at times?"

Anna paused at the door to glare at him. She said nothing, and he eventually shied his gaze away from her sheepishly, leaving her to glare at him for a moment longer before pushing the door open.

The door swung into a tilted hallway, similar to the one they had entered from but being significantly tighter, as well as having been spun at least forty five degrees about an invisible axis. Anna froze in place, standing with the door open as she looked out over the hall, fearing for a moment that gravity itself may shift and throw her down toward the shifted bottom. She closed the door and stepped back into the room with her hated faux treasure chests.

"Why don't we wait here for a little while longer?" Anna suggested innocently, giving a token effort at handling their separation from the rest of their group from the visibly shaken pirate across from her.

Raeshe frowned and brushed past her, and Anna offered no resistance once he made clear his desire to leave. He opened the door to reveal the same hallway Anna had left alone, this time rotated fully into a position that would allow for proper movement.

"Ah, crap, this entire building is going insane…" Raeshe muttered, but stepped out into the hallway all the same. Anna stared blankly at the hall before doing the same, wondering to herself how the entire thing had shifted around in a matter of seconds without making a noise, and to where the corridor she had originally been in had disappeared.

The new hallway held only two doors aside from the one Anna and Raeshe had entered from - one on either end of its length. Anna looked at both repeatedly before shrugging and turning left, deciding that a random choice would be as well made as one of careful consideration. Raeshe followed closely behind her, unwilling to separate from what was now the only person in his proximity.

Anna pulled at the new door she had approached, this one being for all intents and purposes identical to the one with which she had already interacted. It held shut, refusing to budge as she pulled harder at its doorknob, and Anna eventually knelt to examine it for a keyhole that could hopefully be circumvented with her lockpicking.

She found none, and rose to better examine the door once more. There were no visible hinges, markings on the ground or walls, or any indication at all of how it should be opened, and so on a whim she gently pushed against its centre. The door creaked open easily, heralding the existence of yet another new room, and for a moment Anna could swear that she heard Raeshe subdue a laugh at her moment of folly.

Without saying a word to him or otherwise giving any indication that anything she had done had been unintentional, Anna progressed on to the new room. Raeshe tried to leave the door open as he followed her inside, hoping that doing so would prevent the Manor from shifting around any more than it already had, but it naturally swung to a partial close behind him.

Less torches lined the new room than any of the halls or the false treasure room, with these ones also being much nearer the ground and within reaching distance. Anna plucked one off of the wall, using it to light her path through the dim room and preventing her from accidentally running into any possible furniture, though the room gave no indication of being any less bare than the corridors.

Raeshe followed her lead, taking a torch from the wall and using it to follow her through the room. They progressed through the its entirety without stopping, reaching the far end without being obstructed once, and found no doors on the new wall.

"I guess we could alway turn back, see if the other rooms changed around again?" Raeshe suggested.

Anna stood still, studying the wall carefully as he spoke. For some reason, this side alone held no torches, though no matter how closely Anna inspected it she couldn't find any trace of a passageway or other construct that would necessitate the removal of any wall mounts. She studied it for a moment longer before shaking her head, deciding to not waste her time on nothing, and turned back toward the room's entrance.

Oddly enough, the hallway they had accessed prior to entering the room remained in place, wholly unchanged. Together, Anna and Raeshe moved over to the room opposite the one they had first entered, traversing the narrow hallway until they had reached the far door. Anna attempted to push it open, but failed, with Raeshe no longer having laughter to subdue as she angrily pulled it open.

The new room appeared to be some kind of study, and this time was remarkably well lit. Torches along the walls glowed brighter than their counterparts in the rest of the Manor, as though they had been freshly lit rather than burned away for ages. Anna set her torch down as she stepped toward the room's sole piece of furniture, a desk that had been turned on its side against the right wall with papers and books lining the metre of open space around it, with those also tending toward hugging the right wall.

She ignored the books and papers entirely, and instead began to inspect the desk itself as though it held some form of grand secret she would be able to uncover. As she pulled out drawers and and kicked parts of the desk that sat against the floor, Raeshe took to examining everything strewn about the room, picking up and dropping papers until one book caught his interest.

"I think I found… a journal?" he announced. Anna gave him no mind as she continued her search. He flipped to the last pages of the book, where the entries appeared to be surprisingly recent, and slowly began reading it aloud.

"Day unknown. Month unknown. Year unknown." he read, Anna barely listening as she began rummaging through drawers at a greater intensity. "Early autumn maybe. Can't tell anymore. Mind fractured. Words hurt. Someone changed things. Home is deathtrap. Manipulated by magic. Not my magic."

Raeshe paused and looked up at Anna from the journal, the merchant not bothering to stop her futile pursuit of valuables. "I think this might be from the guy who lived here. You know, the sorcerer? I mean, his name is on the book and everything, but the entry before this is from the days before he died… and they look older than this one. Hell, this one looks like it couldn't've been made more than a few days ago."

Anna continued to rummage through the sideways desk, not stopping to so much as acknowledge her companion's words. Raeshe returned to reading as though she hadn't completely ignored his concerns.

"Magic ley lines outside. Can't find them, but they're there. Hurts to look. It doesn't want me to see them. It doesn't want me to see anything. Was only able to leave house at night, when it rests. Have returned to stay safe. Dead emerge to roam before being called back. It wants them to roam. It wants me to roam. I can leave during the day. It doesn't rest."

"Hey, do you mind being quiet for a minute while I work?" Anna asked, not bothering to stop her unsuccessful looting spree to speak to him. She pulled a drawer completely out of the desk, turned it upside down to shake free its already scrambled contents, and yet again found nothing of value.

"More dead outside, always hiding. It wants them. It saves them." Raeshe continued, unfazed. "I am one of them. I remember dying. My body stopped as I tried to sleep. I died here. I came back. I came back long ago. Only now do I remember. I remember. None of them do the same. It preserved them. It kept them from remembering. It doesn't want me to remember. I have remembered."

Anna's brow furrowed, but she hid it with her overly thorough examination of the desk, silently hoping that Raeshe continued reading. If his theory on the entry's origin and gauging of its date was correct, then that would place the writer as a risen who had survived the explosive episode of seizures, confirming that the event was widespread and that the beings had advanced rapidly from their previous state. Secretly, she was also beginning to dread the entity the risen was referring to, though she didn't have the faintest clue as to what it may be.

"It conferred me its will. It didn't want to. It gave it to all of us. Only I can see. Only I remember. It loves me. It hates our hearts. I hate them all. I love them all. I will save them all. Death is salvation. Fear is joy. It wants to save them. I will help. I will save them. ...That's where the entry ends."

"How charming." Anna said dryly, still continuing her examination of the desk, albeit halfheartedly. "Hey, can I hold on to that book for a little while? I may want to look at it later."

"Uh… sure." Raeshe said, passing the book to her outstretched hand as she continued her search, still not bothering to face him. He resumed glancing over the books and papers around the desk, though no more texts caught his eye as the journal had.

Anna slipped the journal into one of the many pockets of her stylised merchant clothing and moved away from the desk in frustration. "Gods, how is it possible for none of these rooms to have anything of value? Empty hallways, empty chests, empty desk…"

"Shouldn't we be focusing more on how to find… er, anyone?" Raeshe said. "If that stuff in the journal was right, then this place is dangerous. We need to find everyone and get out of here before anything bad can happen."

Anna stared at him for a moment before closing her eyes and waving him toward the door. "Fine. By my best guess, we're stuck right now, so lead the way."

Raeshe complied easily, grabbing his torch from where he had set it against the wall and stepping out into the unchanged hallway. As if on cue, the entire chain of rooms began to shake violently, shifting again in far louder and less smooth of a fashion.

The room Anna was in began to tilt upward, as though it and its counterpart were weights on opposite ends of the balance that was their connecting hallway. Anna slipped into the wall next to the door as the tilt's degree overtook her, with Raeshe slipping in a similar fashion toward the length of hallway leading to the second room.

He reached out with both arms in an attempt to grab the distant door frame as he fell past it, hoping to slow or stop his fall altogether. His wrists collided with the edge of the frame, snapping back to him at sickening yet unbroken angles and failing to slow him for more than an instant as he sped into the empty room, toward the unlit wall at its end. He didn't manage to let loose a scream before he collided with it, his arms bracing his head in anticipation of his crash, only for the entire wall to give way as slammed into it, breaking apart like a cheap canvas and allowing him to maintain much of his speed as he fell through it into darkness.

Anna spun herself around on the wall to look out the door for Raeshe, seeing him disappear through the false wall and into darkness that shifted into light, with a glimpse of the outside world appearing before the wall reformed flawlessly. A grinding cacophony brought her attention back to her own room, and she turned to find that the desk she had examined was mere moments from following her path and crushing her under its weight.

She quickly scrambled over the doorway, leaping and landing on the opposite wall as books crashed down around her. The desk slammed into the spot she had been occupying, but she was prevented from having a moment to appreciate her own swift action as the room returned to a level state and began to rotate, splitting off from the hallway.

Once again, the desk began to slide toward her, requiring her to scramble to the far side of the room, now running along left wall as the room rotated counterclockwise. The desk once again slammed into where she had leapt, this time breaking off a large part of the door that had lain in its path of destruction, though the desk itself remained perfectly intact.

The room continued to rotate, throwing Anna onto what had been the ceiling, and then sent her rolling toward the right wall before coming to an abrupt stop. She held in place for a moment, bracing her entire body in anticipation of more violent movements, and slowly rose to a shaky stand when no such thing came.

She approached the doorway, stumbling as she stepped over the torches that lined what was now her floor. Her torch was miraculously still lit, and she picked it up off the wall-floor before stepping on top of the desk that had lodged itself in the corner of the room, giving her the height to access the doorway in its new elevated orientation.

Beyond the door was nothing but darkness, even when she held her torch out into its nothingness. She threw the light out of the room, watching it fall in the darkness for several seconds before it suddenly illuminated a mess of rubble. Wood strips and stone shards lined the bottom of what she could only assume had once been the bottom of the Manor's basement, though the sheer amount of rubble and the open space her room had shifted through indicated that there was utterly nothing beneath the main floor. She could also make out massive patches of dirt and dried clay, the long dead grass lining much of the soil indicating that it had been moved to the Manor long ago and in an absurd quantity.

Anna frowned and jumped off the desk, prying a torch from its mount on the wall before returning to the doorway. Her other torch continued to illuminate a small patch of the rubble floor. Looking up above her room, Anna was barely able to see some form of platform shifting around at what she could assume was ground level, with faint green wisps indicating the presence of wind magic in the darkness that both held the rooms in place and moved them around.

She jumped off of the desk again, setting her torch against the wall-ceiling as she paced along the room, struggling to remain calm and think up ways of escaping her predicament.

* * *

"Huh, our tracks really did disappear." Steth said, stating aloud the only observation she and Robin could adequately make.

The beach was as clean as when they had arrived, its surface completely unmarred from the previous interaction they knew they had made. Steth followed Robin as he walked down the beach to the Lost Souls, carefully watching his footprints as though they too would disappear at any moment.

"There's no indication of anything having happened all along the beach until we reach the ship." Robin observed, their prints having faded out of existence up to the side of the boat. "My friend - er, I guess 'coworker' would be a better term - she landed here hard, and left a little crater behind."

He knelt in the sand next to the ladder up the ship, inspecting where Kjelle had landed. There was a sharp cutoff at where the sand had reformed, with almost the entirety of the tiny impact site having been removed from the beach as though it had never existed, though less than a tenth of the original indentation remained. A line separated what had reformed and what hadn't, being beyond a doubt unnatural in origin.

"Part of the crater is still here, but most of it's already faded away artificially." Robin explained to Steth.

"Y'know, if you're trying to get on the good side of this 'coworker' of yours, you should probably stop calling the spot she landed in a 'crater'." Steth said. She glanced behind her to check her own tracks, having to remove her eyepatch and blink in confusion when she found that both hers and Robin's had disappeared when she hadn't been looking.

"Noted." Robin said, still studying the partial hole in the ground closely. "If the crater has this sharp of a cutoff, that means that traces of any interaction are being purposefully erased, for whatever reason. Hm… if that sorcerer your friend was talking about became a risen, and was hit with the same transformation as the other ones… no, no, that wouldn't explain how everyone had already disappeared; the changes only happened two days ago…"

"Mind if I slip past you, Robin?" Steth asked, foregoing her confusion about their tracks as Robin shifted out of her path to the boat's ladder. She climbed up to the ship, leaving him to quietly mull over the disruption in the sand on his own.

"Hey! Lenhum!" she shouted as she neared the top, lifting herself up onto the main deck only to find it empty. Her brow furrowed as she glanced over her shoulder up the beach, knowing that he would have had to pass her and Robin in order to make his way anywhere off the ship.

Her eyes caught a flash of steel as she looked back over the main deck, and she cautiously approached it before her shoulders sagged and she groaned in frustration. "Godsdamnit, Pehp, you took your bottle instead of a sword." she grumbled as she picked up the blade, placing it on her belt next to her own.

A bald head with a bright bandana popped up from the staircase leading under the deck. "Steth? What are you doing back here?"

Steth jumped, spinning from where she had found Pehp's sword to face him. "Gods, Lenhum! Cough or something next time, I had no idea you were still here!"

"Where else would I be?" Lenhum asked in confusion.

"I don't know." Steth said unhappily, calming the nerves he had set into motion at his sudden yet expectable appearance. "I'm getting a bad feeling about this island, though. I don't think any of us should be alone right now."

"I've still got a little work to do here." Lenhum said vaguely.

"What could you be doing that's more important than getting hurt or killed?" Steth asked bluntly.

Lenhum struggled to find an excuse for a moment before he sighed. "Some of the shoring I did yesterday didn't hold up, and we sprang a leak. I already fixed the damage, but I need to bail all the water out before captain Anthep can notice."

"Yep! That totally what happened! I was there for it!" Robin shouted from the beach, having been able to barely hear them from his position.

"He absolutely blew a hole in the ship, you know." Steth whispered as she nodded in Robin's direction, and Lenhum nodded.

"It's still my shoring job that broke down, though." he said. "It should be able to sustain any kind of attack, and I had thought that's what I had done but I guess not. It should be good now, though, and all I need to do is clear out the water and everything'll be good."

Steth stared at him before sighing and moving back to the ship's ladder. "Fine. Make sure to come our way after you're done, alright? There's got to be a reason this island has so many tales about it, and I don't really want to find out why."

"I'll be fine. No need to worry." Lenhum smiled. Steth resisted the urge to scoff at his facade of fearlessness as she descended the ladder for the beach again.

"I think I've uncovered the 'curse' of the island!" Robin announced proudly as she landed, shifting the thunder tome he had brought out of his cloak into the crook of his arm as he formed air quotes around the word 'curse'.

Steth blinked, his eager smile clearly waiting for her to ask for an explanation before he would be willing to give one. "And that would be?"

"An ether ley line!" Robin said with the same amount of pride, hardly waiting for her to finish her baited question before launching into his explanation. "There are no tracks from anything here on the island, right? And no one who ever came here managed to find any trace of the disappeared people. Well, the only guaranteed way to keep so much stuff like that under wraps is if you set up some insanely powerful magic that's able to ensnare the entire island and hide everything."

"Can magic do stuff like that?" Steth asked, her own experience with spellcasting being extremely limited at best. "Isn't it more parlour tricks, and a few combat spells if you get a good enough tome?"

"Not if you're powerful enough." Robin smiled, his tome finding its way back to his hands. "A strong enough mage with the right resources could set up a ley line that encompasses an entire island like this, and could specialise the spell to force everything into a certain state on command, and with a reactant to activate the magic - probably some type of spell they've personally selected - it could be done at a moment's notice."

"So all of the disappearances were caused by some mage?" Steth asked, and Robin nodded. "But the only mage to ever live on this island was that one sorcerer guy who died a few years before the disappearances. Is there another mage that somehow crept in, and has been using the island as his own little personal playground this entire time? If that's the case, what happened to all the people, and the rumours about the undead walking around at night?"

"I don't know. Mayne the sorcerer set up this trap in the past, before he died, as a means of killing the island's inhabitants." Robin explained. "Maybe he died before he could pull it off, but came back about a year and a half ago when the risen became a thing, since the already dead can become risen once a command activates."

"A command?" Steth asked skeptically. "What kind of command brings the dead back to life, let alone the ones that died before they could become risen?"

"See, there was a command recently that activated the risen in a… unique way." Robin continued his explanation. "That was when the ties to Grima were, for all I can assume, completely severed, so when they were first frayed a year and a half ago, it's possible that the risen were also activated back then, and this guy was somehow brought back with his intelligence."

"Grima? You mean that dragon god?" Steth questioned him in confusion. "How does that thing tie in to the undead? And how were their ties frayed a year and a half ago?"

Robin froze, a smile still plastered on his face that grew progressively more disconcerting the longer it was present and unwavering. Steth raised an eyebrow at him after a few seconds of him freezing, not wanting to do anything as rude as shaking him or snapping her fingers in his face but also not being sure of how to react to his lack of a reaction.

He suddenly blinked and his smile grew brighter, though also somehow weaker. "Ah, sorry, I'm rambling about nothing right now. Don't mind me; most of that was complete nonsense. I tend to do that once in a while when I get caught up in something, and I got so excited about that explanation, my mind started wandering all over the place."

"Uh… okay?" Steth said, his behaviour not being what she had expected from him nor what she had come to know about how he acted in their short time together.

"Sorry again." Robin said, his smile having grown disturbing over time. "Anyway, the thing to take away from all that is that the sorcerer may have come back from the dead, and could have activated their own trap. They want to keep their doings on this island under wraps, probably because they wanted to do some pretty nasty stuff. They activated the spell augmented by the ley lines, and sealed the island in a state they had already decided upon."

"That means that the disappearances were actually disappearances, and that the sorcerer literally hid everyone with their magic?" Steth surmised. "Does that mean the people he took might still be alive?"

"Maybe." Robin said, and Steth frowned. "I don't think he would be able to outright block people like that, or control them all. He probably did something to physically hide them somewhere, though I don't know how he would pull that off in a few hours."

"He would need space to hide them all, more than anything." Steth said. "The Manor is the only really spacious place on this whole island. Maybe he hid them there, and killed anyone who entered to keep them hidden, so he could use them in his dark experiments?"

"That's what I'm thinking, too." Robin confirmed with a less disconcerting smile. "It doesn't really line up with what Pehp was saying about the guy, but it's the most reasonable answer I can come up with. If he is a risen, after all, he wouldn't be as good of a person anymore, by very nature of being undead."

"So what can we do about this?" Steth asked. "Do we break the ley lines, then go find everyone he captured in the Manor?"

"Exactly. I'll break the lines here, and that should free the entire island. Hopefully, there aren't more of these anywhere… also, we'll probably have to kill the sorcerer again, provided he didn't die in the more recent activation. He's still a major threat, after all."

Steth nodded her acceptance of the task before stepping away from him. "Take it away then, grandmaster Robin. See, I remember your name!"

"Sure you do." Robin replied simply, earning a faint smile from Steth as he prepared his magic.

His right hand lit up yellow as his thunder magic grew. He raised it into the air before slamming it down toward the sand, firing his magic into the beach at the edge of the crater that heralded the existence of the ether ley line. The magic held in place for an instant as it and the ley line came into contact, the different forms of magic countering one another before forcefully popping out of existence, Robin's spell proving too weak to cause any massive distortions.

Robin blinked in surprise and swiftly charged another spell. This time, a fierce shot of thoron magic burst into the sand, glassing a small portion of its surface.

A line of sand along the beach pulsed upward, extending outward onto the stone and dirt that lined the rest of the island's perimeter. The ley line was destroyed entirely from Robin's spell, though no noticeable changes occurred as the shroud of secrecy over the island lifted.

Steth scuffed her feet through some sand that had been within the confines of the ley line. Robin placed his tome away as she did so. Steth turned away from her scuff marks to give the spell time to activate, but once she turned back, the marks had remained present.

"We should be good now." Robin said, making obvious what she had already tested. "See, it wasn't a curse, but a normal-ish ley line! ...So, you know, practically a curse. It may have been dark magic, come to think of it."

"Can we go save everyone, and kill the sorcerer now?" Steth asked, not quite impatient but coming off as such regardless.

Robin nodded and they made for that Manor once again, not running for the building but by no means moving slowly, either. This time, their trail though the beach remained after they had moved on, the magic over much of the island having been fully disrupted.

When they reached the edge of the town leading to the Manor, Steth abruptly pulled Robin aside, yanking him by the arm behind a worn down building. She held a finger over her lips to keep him quiet, and though Robin had no idea what she was doing he complied and held perfectly silent.

After a few seconds of crouching behind the building, a shadow of purple ripped through the town, soaring past them as it rocketed toward the beach. Robin turned to catch sight of it, and for less than a second witnessed the massive shroud of purple and black that rejected sunlight and split through the sky, hovering less than a metre above the ground as it flew.

His eyes widened at the intense concentration of dark magic that allowed its user to levitate while moving at speed, though he quickly excused the feat of flight as risen would undoubtedly be less prone to the damages that threatened a living being. He and Steth both remained silent until they were certain that the shadow had passed, at which point they both rose and stepped out into the street Steth had pulled them off.

"What the hell was-?" Steth began to ask before Robin grabbed her arm and launched them both backward with his wind magic. Steth held her hat protectively to ensure it didn't fly off her head. The shadow was repeating its movements in reverse at a greater speed, returning to the town in a rush.

Robin and Steth skidded to a stop further along on the road, and Robin launched them sideways into a gap between two buildings, where he and Steth were both of the mind to crouch low to the ground once more.

The shadow slowed to a stop near the edge of the village, having detected Robin's magic without picking up on the grandmaster himself. As the shroud disappeared and boots touched solid earth for the first time in years, Robin's hand instinctively crept toward the tomes within his cloak. Steth's hands did the same for her and Pehp's swords.

A moment of complete silence enveloped the town as Robin and Steth awaited the arrival of the risen sorcerer. No such moment came, and after several more seconds of waiting in a comparatively less solid silence, the shroud of shadows reappeared.

Stone and wood cracked as the risen took flight again, forcefully launching itself toward the Manor at too great of a jolted speed for a normal human being to handle. Dust cascaded down on Robin and Steth as they waited to ensure that the sorcerer wouldn't return, with webs of cracks appearing in the walls of the buildings around them. Robin dusted himself off immediately upon emerging, though Steth failed to do the same as she stared at the path the risen had left.

"Gods, that thing is powerful. It would need an amazing tome or some kind of massive energy supply to pull that kind of movement off." Robin remarked once he had finished dusting himself. He joined Steth in looking up and down the small trail of destruction it had made, the island's magic no longer being able to heal the scar left in its wake. "It was using raw magic to envelop and launch itself, by the looks of it. That's insane…"

"It was headed to the beach - where you broke the ley line." Steth said, gauging the risen's path in a heartbeat. "It didn't stopped there for long. Something must have called it back to the Manor."

"Probably the five people who entered and started poking around inside." Robin said, then immediately broke into a run for the Manor. "Come on! We need to go take that risen down before it can do any damage!"

Steth followed him, sprinting in time with his movements and reaching the Manor within seconds of him. Without any indication of how the risen had returned to the Manor, with there being present no cracks or marks similar to what had been left through town, Robin ripped the door to the building open and didn't hesitate to step inside. Steth followed after taking a short breath.

A dull but loud thud sounded outside, and Steth whipped around in time to catch sight of a body hitting the dirt outside the Manor entryway. She blinked as she recognised the form, her eyes widening as she attempted to place where they had fallen from. "What the… Raeshe? How the hell did you-?"

She was cut off as the door to the Manor slammed in her face, forcing her to recoil away from it or face being hit in the head. She immediately tried opening it, but to no avail. The door remained shut tight even as she struck her hand out against it and futilely shook the doorknob.

"Hey! Raeshe!" she shouted at the door, as though the pirate would be able to hear her from outside."Open the door! Raeshe!"

"Step back." Robin commanded, his thunder tome already drawn and his magic charging to take the door down by force. He hadn't seen Raeshe as she had, but had no reason to doubt that the pirate had been outside by virtue of the sheer emotion in his companion's voice. "If this is being done by the sorcerer, I should be able to take it down with my magic. Things might get a little messed up, though."

Steth stared at him in wait for an explanation, but when his silence made clear that none would be forthcoming she stepped away from the door to allow him to work unopposed. Robin's magic charged to the level he deemed necessary to circumvent the sorcerer's own, his right hand glowing the same vibrant yellow as it had when he had disrupted the island's ether ley line.

An instant before he could fire off his magic, the entire room dropped through the Manor, launching him into a vertigo riddled free fall and then pressing him against the ceiling for a split second, forcing him to cancel his spell as the entry door sped out of the now open-ended room. He crashed into the ground as the room came to an equally sudden stop, faring modestly better than Steth thanks to his cloak mitigating any damage he could have sustained.

Robin rolled over onto his back, having landed facedown when the room had stopped falling. He coughed as he struggled to a stand. Steth did the same but with less certain movements a few metres from him.

The world around them began to shake, with several rooms grating along their walls and ceiling before finding their place and stopping. Empty doorways that had led to nothingness were now filled by doors to the new rooms, each segment clicking into position and giving the appearance that they had never shifted around in the first place, the doors themselves angling minimally to fit their new locations. The wall that had once been connected to the front entrance of the Manor remained empty, leading to nothing but a dark void that even light could barely enter.

* * *

Kjelle caught up with Anthep and Pehp in a matter of moments, though the two pirates refused to slow to allow her to catch up. She fell in line behind them as they progressed down a massive corridor toward the rooms at its far end.

Anthep paused when they reached the end of the hall before pointing to one of the rooms that lined each of the three walls around them. "Pehp, search there and each room left of it. I'll take the ones on your right. Lady, you get the ones on the other wall."

"Why the hell would we split up when the entire building is changing around on us?" Pehp asked, concern and confusion weighing in on his expression in equal measure.

"Find my daughter before bitching to me about safety." Anthep ordered. "She's on her own in here, too. We need to find her before she gets hurt."

"Your daughter is dead, Anthep. You can't honestly think that you'll be able to find her here - this place already seems too dangerous to simply walk around in. Someone is going to end up hurt or dead because you can't get your head around what's happened." Kjelle said.

The pirate captain whipped around to face her with an unwelcoming snarl. "I'm never going to give up my hope that she's alive." he argued, and Kjelle found herself understanding the fear and uncertainty in his voice all too well, if still not finding it agreeable. "Search the rooms. You too, Pehp. We need to find her. She has to be here."

"Don't go anywhere, Pehp." Kjelle commanded, crossing her arms and remaining rooted in place herself. "Look, Anthep, I can understand wanting to hold on to that hope, wanting everything to be all right when it's clearly not, but what you're doing here is going to go badly. You can't change the past, and there's no way your daughter is still alive. All you can do now is accept what's happened and do your best to work past it."

"There's nothing to work past. She isn't dead." Anthep replied stubbornly, lightly pushing Pehp toward one of his designated rooms.

"She's dead, Anthep. Move on already." Kjelle said. Part of her was resenting having to scold him for holding the same hope she and her friends had prized so greatly when travelling through time, but another part of her accepted her actions as necessary.

"Move on to what, exactly?" Anthep questioned, turning on her with an even greater ferocity. "To a life of nothing? All that I had disappeared along with Erith. I don't have a family anymore."

"You have a son! One who's been beside you every step of the way, and even if he's not going about it as well as he can, he still wants to help you!" Kjelle argued, with Anthep's harsh glare telling her she was far from successful.

"That boy wants a soldier more than a father, and I'm not about to let him have either." Anthep said coldly. "All I want is my daughter back. I want a life without the war, or the pirates, or the memories of any of it. I want my own peace."

"Then find that, and don't pretend that you'll find it in a corpse!" Kjelle yelled at him stubbornly. "Go talk to your son, and work through what you have with him! Focus on who he is, on what's still tangible about him, not some memory of your dead daughter!"

"Shut your mouth!" Anthep yelled in turn, his snarl returning in all its intensity. "My daughter… she's my last connection to my old life, to something greater than wars and their memories! Raeshe is none of that - he's less, he's the memories of everything that's gone wrong, not the hope that it can get better!"

Kjelle could feel her hands ball into fists as her glare grew more vicious. "You're an absolute asshole, you know that? Everything could be so much better if you were to move on from the mistakes of the past, if you were to stop treating him like he's the villain and learn to move on to something greater! You yourself could become something so much more - the both of you could!"

"Like you're one to lecture me about my own son - my own failure." Anthep growled, his fists matching hers. "You don't have the right to judge my actions, to tell me that my daughter is dead and that I should give up hope! You don't have the right!"

He swung at Kjelle with a wide punch, one from which she was easily able to backstep away. Kjelle countered him by stepping into his torso, bringing her gauntlet into his unarmoured stomach and sending him to his knees in pain.

"Actually, I think I know all too well what you're going through here." she said calmly, forcefully subduing the rage in her voice. "That may have gotten a little personal for me. I'm telling you, if you learn to work with Raeshe rather than against him, you really will be able to become someone far greater than before."

Anthep glared up at her, the indignant fury in his eyes having yet to die out. "You have no idea what-"

She brought the back of her fist down on his temple, her gauntlet grazing the skin on his head and drawing a small amount of blood. Anthep fell to the ground unconscious as Kjelle waved her hand limply through the air, ensuring that her wrist hadn't been damaged in her backhanded punch.

Pehp stared at both her and Anthep with wide eyes, his eyebrows having shot up his forehead at the beginning of their dispute and having remained there for the entirety of the confrontation. "That got way more heated than it needed to be."

"He was going to get people hurt or killed. I'm not going to allow that." Kjelle said simply.

"What was that about it being personal?" Pehp asked, almost afraid of the answer he would receive.

"Uh… it's nothing important." Kjelle lied, directing her gaze away from him so that he couldn't see through her. "It'll work for Anthep, though. He can work through his problems with his son, as long as he has time and the will to see it through. Anyone can."

"Sure, lady. Whatever you say." Pehp agreed easily, his voice bordering on fearful. "You know, I'm glad you didn't punch me out before. That looked like it actually hurt."

"Let's get him back to Raeshe, then go find my friend." Kjelle said, mostly ignoring Pehp. "Those two can work through their crap on their own. Why don't you- oh, godsdamnit!"

Another wall had manifested between them and the treasure room Anna and Raeshe had entered, cutting off their access to one another at a point metres away from where the other room had once stood, at what was now the edge of Kjelle's vision.

"Should we keep going, then?" Pehp suggested timidly, deferring responsibility for their situation to her in his fear.

Kjelle brought a hand to her forehead before nodding. "Yeah… let's try to find another way out of here. We need to carry him, though - he shouldn't be out for very long, but we still shouldn't get separated." she angled her head toward Anthep.

"Don't need to tell me twice." Pehp said as he bent down to lift his captain. He struggled considerably with moving the larger man, but was ultimately able to snake him over his shoulders and managed to slowly walk while hunched over.

Kjelle watched him struggle to move properly for a moment before sighing and tapping his arm. "Come on, give him to me. I'll be able to carry him easier."

"What? No, I'll carry him. I wouldn't want someone like you to stress yourself over something like this." Pehp said, struggling to say every few words as he intermittently repositioned Anthep.

"'Someone like me'?" Kjelle asked with an obvious chill to her voice. "You know I'll still punch you out if I have to, right?"

Pehp hesitated a moment longer before shrugging Anthep off of his shoulders and into her waiting arms. "I was trying to be, you know, chivalrous, and stuff…"

Kjelle looked at him as she lifted Anthep with ease, her mouth a thin line. "Don't."

"Hey, maybe it'll grow on you?" Pehp said, smiling at her in as disarming of a manner as he could possibly manage.

His desired effect didn't get across as Kjelle simply shook her head in a small arc, silently resenting that Anna and Robin had both left her with the two pirates. She held Anthep in place over one shoulder as she walked into the nearest of the new rooms, with Pehp following close behind her.

"Watch the corridor while I look around inside, okay?" Kjelle asked, ushering him inside the room but gesturing for him to hold the door open and look out from within. "If things start to shift around again before I can find a way out, tell me."

She set Anthep against the wall beside the door as Pehp nodded and set himself in place resolutely. Thankfully, Anthep was already showing signs of slowly returning to wakefulness, with Kjelle's hit having not been incredibly damaging in any significant way. He groaned without opening his eyes, his hand sluggishly moving up to his temple and remaining there for an extended period of time.

Kjelle set about investigating the new room, part of what appeared to be some kind of destroyed storage space. Boxes and containers of all shapes and sizes lined much of the wooden floor, especially bordering the room's left wall, with parchment, books, aged clothes, heirlooms, and other items having spilled out across the space. There were no visible doors on any of the room's three exposed walls, and so before she decided to leave and investigate another room Kjelle set about examining the final wall that was partially blocked by supplies.

Outside the room, in the corridor they had entered from, a door opposite their room disappeared. Pehp blinked and leaned out of the room a few degrees to better examine the disappearance once he noticed it, only for another room and door to suddenly rush up from below to fill the empty blackness left in the wake of the first.

The new door rapidly swung open of its own volition. Huddled masses of grey and purple began to spill out of the room as though they were fluid, dozens of risen having been packed too tightly within its confines. Pehp's eyes widened and his jaw dropped as more and more risen poured out of the new room, washing over one another as every last one struggled to find a grip that wasn't another decayed body.

He glanced back to Kjelle, who was too busy examining a mess of boxes and supplies against a wall to have noticed the new arrivals. Anthep, too, was still out of commission, his head now resting in both of his hands as he refused to rise from his spot against the wall. Pehp looked back out of the room at the swarm of risen, several having stood up and fixated their dimly glowing red eyes on him, and took a deep breath.

"Lady, Anthep! I'm sorry!" he shouted back to Kjelle, who looked over to him only to have her eyes widen when she caught sight of the mass of risen. "Maybe you'll find a way to get through this, but I don't want to be around to find out!"

Kjelle immediately dropped the box of papers and folders she had been transporting away from the wall and reached for her enchanted lance, dashing for the door but failing to reach it before Pehp had stepped into the corridor. "What are you doing!? Are- are you trying to run away!?"

"I'll be better off on my own! If I stick with you - with Anthep - I'm a dead man walking!" Pehp shouted back to her, smiling wryly as he retained his focus on the approaching risen and missed Kjelle's pronounced scowl. He reached down to his waist for his sword, his face paling when his hand met with air, causing him to glance to where his scabbard should have been. As if on cue, other doorways began to drop out of existence around him, leaving only a few rooms and the hallway swiftly filling with risen as a means of escape.

"Get back in the room, asshole! We can use it as a choke-!" Kjelle began to shout, but was cut off when the floor beneath her dropped, her entire room rushing downward without warning and stranding Pehp in the hallway.

The pirate shot a look over his shoulder to see her and did a double take when he saw that the entire room had disappeared, leaving only a portal to darkness behind him. A risen dashed for him as he was looking back, his attention barely returning to his opponents in time for him to raise his arm and block a set of warped claws.

The risen tore off massive streaks of flesh from his forearm in seconds. Pehp shouted in pain and ripped himself out of the undead's grip, his hand moving to nurse his wound immediately.

Pehp stumbled sideways out of the risen's path as it processed its own swing, then dodged a second risen as it made the same dashing attack. A new room slid into place from above where Kjelle's room had slipped away, a new door taking the place of the storeroom's.

This door popped itself open and spewed a greater number of risen into the corridor, much like the first. That room, too, had yet to cease its flow of undead, with more and more risen slowly pouring into the hall as their overly packed order was set free.

Pehp began to panic as he barely dodged another charge from a risen, the blood leaking from his arm staining where he was shakily holding it against his shirt. He backed away from the growing horde of undead before turning to outright run from them, the sounds of the risen mindlessly beginning their pursuit of him resonating as a wail from their collective mass.

He managed to reach one of the remaining doors lining the wall and began to push at its face. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he turned the doorknob and tried to force the door to give way before the risen could reach him, he couldn't force it to open. In his last attempt, he pulled at the door instead of pushing at it, and it easily swung open.

Giving himself no time to stand stupidly in the doorway, Pehp dashed inside the room and reached back with his undamaged arm to slam the door behind him. A risen stopped him as he was reaching, slamming into him at full force and knocking him further into the room, leaving the door to swing open aimlessly.

The risen's left hand raked its claws over Pehp's chest, shredding his shirt. Its right swiftly stabbed through his abdomen, reaching up underneath his ribcage as if his organs were nonexistent. Pehp could no longer conceal a scream of pain as the risen tore into him, its talons proving as painful and dangerous as any number of weapons.

Before any more risen could force their way into the room, the structure itself was sent flying away from the corridor. It slammed into something solid and sturdy, sending Pehp and his conjoined risen tumbling toward the far wall and swapping their position so that Pehp was mounted atop the risen.

The pirate slammed his fist as powerfully as he could into the risen's head, hoping that it would somehow force the monster to loosen its grip within his body, though no such result occurred. The risen wrapped its free left arm around his back and ran its claws up toward his shoulder, tearing open more skin up to the base of Pehp's neck.

Pehp continued punching the risen with as much ferocity as he could muster, though he could feel his strength waning with every passing second. As a last effort before the risen could land an attack he knew would be near his last, Pehp jumped as quickly as he could away from the undead, tearing at its arm with both of his hands in the hopes that he would be able to remove it from his own body.

He succeeded, with the risen's clawed hand ripping out of his lower half but tearing massive chunks of flesh and shards of bone as it went. Staggering backward, he searched the barren room futilely for some type of weapon with which he could defeat the risen. The hand of his undamaged arm passively found his Anthep-issued restorative vulnerary where he had barely remembered to place it at his waist - the captain always pretended to care, at the very least. He downed the entirety of the potion in the instant it took him to decide that there was nothing he could use to fend off the risen.

The risen scrambled after Pehp as he was backing away, not bothering to rise to a stand as it instead settled for a fast crawl, its focus locked entirely on its prey. Pehp waited until the risen drew close and began rearing up for another attack, and crashed the empty bottle that had held his vulnerary down into its head.

He brought the bottle down again and again, breaking his impromptu weapon after only a few swings but continuing regardless until his opponent began to melt into purple ash. Pehp then immediately dropped his handful of bottle shards, hastily covered his more grievous stomach and chest wound with his hands, and plugged the wide hole the risen had torn through him as his vulnerary struggled to mitigate the damage. He staggered his way back over to where the door out of the room stood open, inviting him to nowhere but a sharp drop to nothingness, and sat himself against the wall for a moment of rest.

Before he could so much as turn back to face the room's far wall, a web of glowing purple cracks had appeared along its face. The entire wall shattered inward in a plume of dust and jagged stone, shafts of light filtering in from the newly revealed exterior.

A shroud of adamant purple and black burst into the room, crashing to a violent stop in what was roughly its centre. The clouds of ominous magic dissipated as the being within them touched down, revealing a risen sorcerer dressed in heavy dark robes, their face partially obscured in a connected cowl. They were clearly displeased, if not enraged.

Pehp's eyes widened as he took in the new foe, instantly recognising them despite years of separation. "Gods, old man… it's actually you…"

The risen snarled as it shrouded its arms in magic again, preparing spells to finish Pehp where he sat. Pehp rushed to move away from them, though his wounds limited his movement greatly and prevented him from rising to a stand.

As the risen locked its stance to fire off its spells, it froze in place completely. Its snarl faded away from its face, leaving instead a pure serenity that caused Pehp to pause his faltering movements to carefully stare at the sorcerer in a confused horror. The risen brought one hand in front of its face, nodded, and lowered its hand to its side, its magic having completely disappeared from its arms.

Pehp stopped watching the risen as he looked for a new means of countering or escaping it, and so failed to see it shake its head and then nod three distinct times. It tilted its head as it stared at Pehp, the pirate still futilely attempting to stand despite his wounds, and nodded twice more. Pehp fell back against the wall behind him, his wounds overpowering his will to continue moving as his face contorted in pain.

The sorcerer nodded once more and fired a bolt of dark magic into Pehp's chest with absurd accuracy, decimating the man's heart with such careless ease that it emanated an aura of boredom. It watched for a moment as Pehp lurched toward the ground, his face refusing to abandon the pain that had tied itself to him moments before his passing, before casually throwing the room back into place against the risen infested corridor with the flick of a single wrist.

The risen charged its magic to force itself through the Manor, but was stopped, its spell dissipating. After a moment of silence to the outside world, it initiated an elegant glide through the doorway in front of it, using far less magic far more efficiently than its previous transport.

None of the risen in the corridor paid any mind to the sorcerer, not caring in the slightest for the actions of one of their own. Even as the sorcerer began to cull their number, ripping what little energy remained from their bodies and pooling it in the hall, they gave it no greater attention than before and satisfied themselves with shambling about aimlessly.

* * *

Nah took a deep breath and clutched her dragonstone close to her chest as she stared down Naga's portal through time, her only window to when she would be able to save both her world and family. Her nerves were refusing to calm. The prospect that she may be so close to changing her ruined future despite remaining in such fearful danger silently gnawed away at her mind.

She glanced back to her friends that had yet to traverse the portal. Severa, Gerome with Minerva, and Kjelle all watched her expectantly as they waited for her to depart. More than anything, she saw Lucina, standing as resolutely as ever, visibly more determined to save their world than anyone else, her cold expression set in stone and her Falchion waiting for action in unwavering hands. Nah smiled, knowing that things would turn out fine as long as she had her friends at her side.

Beyond them, she could see what remained of Ylisstol, and her smile reluctantly faded. The sky above her was blotted black by ashes, the world around her burning in the fires of armageddon as Robin wrought the extent of his annihilation on what remained of humanity. Ylisstol itself was aflame, with vibrant streams of magic being shot off in all directions as the grandmaster fought with the remaining few Shepherds - those who had collectively decided to expend their lives for a slim chance to save everything.

"This isn't the time to dally." Gerome advised gruffly, though he no doubt believed he was speaking in his natural tone. "Go, now. We can wait once we know the world is safe."

"It's okay, Nah." Lucina smiled, an always genuine if identical expression that never failed to put anyone at ease. "Once you go through, we can reunite and save everyone. There's no need for sorrow now. We'll all be together again soon, and we'll be able to be with our families, as we've always wished."

Nah couldn't help but reciprocate her smile, albeit weaker. "Of course. I'll see you all soon, and then we can truly save the world." her smile grew brighter, mimicking Lucina's.

She took another deep breath and stepped into the portal, its blue light enveloping her in a wave of no sensation. Her world went dark for a moment, and she realised she had accidentally closed her eyes, though when she tried to open them again she found doing so to be impossible.

Suddenly, the world and her senses rushed back into existence, and she fell to a dark floor on her hands and knees, having emerged from a portal suspended several metres in the air. She held her dragonstone tighter, the new environment she found herself in being foreign, not to mention nothing like how she had envisioned and idealised the past.

Her eyes shot wide as she adapted to her new light. The torches that lined the walls of the corridor she found herself in somehow were dimmer than the choked skies of her time. Jer part Manakete eyes could barely discern a line of risen huddled between her and a dark miasma.

Nah instinctively searched for a way to avoid confronting the undead, for some form of route through the building she found herself in that would bring her out of their path, but found none. Doorways that looked as though they should lead to other rooms held nothing but emptiness.

Oddly enough, none of the risen appeared to notice her, and their rank quickly dissipated into the dark cloud beyond their rank. Many rotted to ash or burst into flashes of green light that fed toward either Naga's portal or the mass of darkness. A line of pulsating purple and black magic was connecting the miasma to Naga's portal.

Nah began to activate her dragonstone, channeling weak magic into it that would act as a reactant, allowing her to transform and fight the strongest of foes with ease. She wasn't about to take any chances with what she saw before her.

The miasma faded alongside the portal above her head, the last of the visible risen dying alongside the action. An undead sorcerer emerged from within the cloud of black and purple, seemingly being the one to have killed the risen and the one to have casted some manner of powerful magic, though Nah couldn't place what exactly they had done.

She held off on using her dragonstone to transform, both from the tight confines her much larger form would be forced to handle as well as a fleeting thought that the risen before her may somehow be an ally rather than foe. After all, no risen had ever killed one of its own before, even when doing so may have been beneficial to their efforts.

The sorcerer merely stared at her as she did the same. It nodded once, then waved out its hand, almost causing Nah to attack it for fear of an attack. Instead, the wall to her left crumbled, revealing a second corridor practically identical to hers but extending largely in the opposite direction.

Nah cautiously advanced toward the opening in the wall, always keeping part of her attention on the now motionless sorcerer. She quickly glanced down the new corridor and saw that the wall far from her had also been torn down, revealing a small room full of scattered bookshelves that had been thrown around seemingly at random.

A cloud of dark magic annihilated the floor a few metres behind her, the sorcerer having used the short time she had been distracted to launch an unsuccessful attack. Nah recoiled away from the magic, glancing over to the sorcerer that was preparing another volley of magic before fearfully leaping into the new corridor.

The wall she had passed through sealed itself behind her, separating her from the sorcerer for reasons she couldn't determine. Without any better options or means of preparing herself against the sorcerer if it managed to pursue her, she took off in the direction of the next collapsed wall, hoping to find some form of aid in whatever was guiding her, as well as an answer for where she had emerged.

* * *

"What the- Raeshe? What are you doing out here, and why are you on the ground?"

Raeshe groaned as he struggled to cling to consciousness, his fall through the Manor's twisted rooms having brought him to the brink of collapse. "Lenhum…? What are you…?"

"I finished checking up on the ship, and came to find you guys." Lenhum quickly explained, removing his issued vulnerary from his belt and passing it to his friend. "What happened here? Where is everyone?"

Raeshe refused the potion, taking his own instead and downing much of its contents. "This place… something turned it into a death trap. The rooms shift around, trying to separate you, to kill you. Everyone else is still somewhere inside. Steth and Robin just went in a second ago, but we were cut off before I could try getting to them…"

Lenhum nodded as he followed along with Raeshe's recounting. "Something came down to the beach, tore the whole place up and made its way back to the Manor through town. I think it might be what cursed this island, since there's really no name other than 'cursed' for the thing I saw. If it's in there now, we need to try to get everyone out."

"We can't!" Raeshe protested, refusing to stand as he spoke. "Didn't you hear me? That place is a death trap! If we go in, we'll end up dying before we can do any good!"

"Are we really going to leave them to die in there, then!?" Lenhum countered. "Your own father is in there, Raeshe. We need to find some way to help them, and we can't do that from outside."

Raeshe's face lit up as he developed an idea. "Actually, maybe we can! There was a fake wall that I fell through to get here, see - that means there might be more somewhere else on the building! If we can find another entrance, maybe some kind of way to work around whatever's making the place throw a fit, we might be able to help everyone escape."

Lenhum stared at him for a moment longer before lowering his head morosely. "You're afraid, aren't you? Scrambling for an excuse to not go back in. Not that I can blame you… all right, fine. Let's try to find a way to help from out here."

"Yes!" Raeshe cheered, visibly pleased at not having to reenter the distorted Manor. "I don't think we can reach the wall I fell through, since it was pretty high up. We should try circling around the place and looking for somewhere else."

"Lead the way, not-captain Raeshe." Lenhum smiled, his expression betraying the dread he could feel mounting within him.

* * *

 **I swear that kangaroo joke made sense for some reason. I'm pretty sure I set it up a long time ago, but my memory and early note taking are/were both awful.**

 **The extra (fodder) cast is also starting to drop off now, which will continue next chapter. I only realistically needed two of them for the purposes of the story, but I get carried away easily - the word count on this thing is testimony to that.**

 **Nah is here now! Hooray! One less character to worry about! We also see a little bit of Lucina, who I have to admit has become one of my favourite parts of this story thanks to how ridiculously intense I have her act. That's a ways away, though.**

 **Status: As of 12-12-18, I'm on chapter 33. Still. That should be changing soon, though, now that the chapter is no longer such a mess and can actually be wrapped up. Also, my free time is dropping close to negative right now, so the next chapter will probably be out in over a week-ish. Sorry,**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	21. Chapter 21

Steth stood on shaking legs, her nerves having yet to fully calm from her rapid descent and collision. She picked her hat up off the ground and dusted it clean, jamming it back into place on her head as Robin too set about dusting himself off.

The grandmaster had fared better than her in their landing, though they were both instantly aware of their changed surroundings. New rooms had shifted into place beyond once empty doorways, and as the two returned to their senses in full thess new doors began to swing open, both into the main room and into themselves.

Three rooms on their right opened first. Nothing emerged from the further two, though from the one nearest them came a few displeased grunts and a weighty creaking. A moment later, Anna popped out of the room, having moved some form of desk out of the path of her doorway much to her own partially exaggerated dismay. She blinked in confusion before smiling and waving to Robin and Steth, acting as though she weren't trapped in a lethal trick house.

Next, the rooms on their left opened themselves, with a moderately bewildered Kjelle storming out of one almost immediately. She was followed by a less enthusiastic Anthep, the pirate captain nursing some form of wound on the side of his head with one hand. Kjelle cautiously approached Robin and Steth at the same time as Anna.

"Do you guys know where Pehp is?" Steth asked before they could make some form of uncertain greeting. "He left his sword back on the ship, and based on what we've seen, he's going to need it."

"He tried to run away by jumping into a hallway full of risen." Kjelle informed, her voice neither sentimental nor impassive.

Steth blinked and looked down at the spare sword on her hip, her expression unchanging. "...Oh. I see."

"There's a chance he's alive, you know." Kjelle said, offering her a brief spot of hope she knew would be unfounded. "Well, to be realistic, probably not, but…"

"I get it. Let's keep going, and take down the guy responsible for this whole thing." Steth said, remaining stoic despite the loss of her friend.

"I was with your son up until a little while ago, Anthep." Anna informed cheerily, once again defying her surroundings to remain upbeat. "We were separated, and he got a little roughed up, but I think he's fine."

Anthep glared at Anna as though she had slighted him. "I don't recall asking."

Anna raised an eyebrow but didn't bother to push the matter any further. Kjelle, however, glared at Anthep, looking as though she were prepared to forcefully subdue the man if he were to step out of line.

Robin clapped his hands together, bringing everyone's attention to him. "Seeing as most of us are here right now, I'll give a little info on what's happening. A powerful mage - probably that sorcerer Pehp was talking about - had some ether ley lines set up around the island. They kept everything around here in a certain state that concealed what was happening, and probably contributed to the disappearances from last year. The ley line is destroyed now, but considering what's happening inside here, I think it's safe to say there are more around the Manor itself."

"One thing to add!" Anna piped up, raising her hand like a child waiting for approval she didn't bother to receive. "Raeshe and I found a journal that I think was made by a changed risen, seemingly the sorcerer himself. It says that the magic around here isn't his, and that something else conferred something or other on him that makes him act… well, like a risen. It also preserved some of the old risen, the ones that wouldn't have survived the exploding."

She fished a book out of her robes and tossed it to Robin, who fumbled with it clumsily before managing to hold it secure. He smiled as easily as he could, trying to pass his fumble off as something intentional or charming, but failed. After finding and skimming through the book's most recent entries in a matter of seconds, he nodded and tossed it back to Anna, with the merchant being far more successful in her efforts of catching.

"Okay, so not the sorcerer, then." Robin said. "Or, maybe it is, and he has a broken mind. We'll probably never know. All we can do now is try to stop him, find Nah, and get out of this place."

"We need to find my daughter, too." Anthep reminded him. Kjelle's glare returned to him as he spoke. "She's bound to be in here somewhere, or maybe nearby on the island."

As if on cue, one of the two rooms on the wall farthest from where the group had gathered opened. A slender figure stumbled out, long blond hair obscuring its ashen face up to its torn white nightgown. Specks of rotted flesh could be seen where the gown failed to cover the risen's skin.

Anthep's face lit up as he saw the figure appear. "Erith! Gods, Erith, it's… it's actually you!"

"What? Anthep, are you alright?" Steth asked, concern claiming her face, and everyone else's. "That lady looks nothing like your daughter. At all. Stay back, okay?"

Both defying and ignoring her words, Anthep broke into a run toward the risen woman, who backed away into the room from which she had emerged. Kjelle cursed under her breath and, in casting a rapid glance over to each of her companions, realised that they were all too confused and hesitant to act before her. She cursed again and sprinted after Anthep, gaining on him as he neared the room but failing to reach him before he had stepped beyond the doorway.

The risen woman had backed away to the rear wall of the room, snarling at Anthep and lashing out weakly at him as though it were being held in place by invisible chains. As Anthep stepped into the room, the door fell apart and the structure lurched away from the hall it had conjoined itself to, shifting up and away.

Kjelle dived in a final effort to help Anthep survive his lapse in judgement, landing with half her body in the room and her legs flailing in the space of the hall that the rim had yet to shift away from. She attempted to pull her legs into the room before they could be caught between its rising motion and the doorframe, but failed, her calves getting caught and pinched painfully along the edge of the floor and doorway.

The room paused for an instant, as if to comprehend that Kjelle had stopped its movement. Then it jolted upward to break its obstruction.

Kjelle's armour was decimated with a sickening crunch that elicited from her a horrifying, single note scream. She strained her body as she struggled to alleviate the pain coursing through her lower body, but failed with every hurt muscle, the room continuing to apply pressure against her as it forced its way up, the magic propelling it not caring for her safety.

Robin felt his chest clench at her cry of pain, his body moving before his mind could fully process what was happening at the far room. He launched himself forward, firing off a massive amount of wind magic behind him without bothering to reach for his tome, propelling himself across the hall in a single hasty shot.

As he slid to a fitful stop at the edge of the doorway, where Kjelle's lower legs had gone limp yet remained extended, wedged between the room and doorframe, the room shifted again. Kjelle's scream calmed somewhat and distorted into a frail whimpering and pained breaths as the room slid down, temporarily freeing her legs from their imprisonment.

Robin didn't hesitate to reach for her, readying to jump into the room himself before it could do any more damage if need be, but was stopped when the room began to move rapidly again. This time, it whipped directly away from him, spinning from bottom to top at a dangerous speed as it faded into the darkness that permeated so much of the Manor.

Kjelle fell inside of the room as it spun through its first rotation, colliding with a spot on the wall above the risen woman. As the room continued to spin, Kjelle and Anthep were thrown from wall to floor, ceiling, and wall again several times in the few seconds of its movement. Each collision heralded another gasp or cry of pain from Kjelle, her legs screaming in pain and refusing to respond to any of her futile attempts to move.

The room slammed against something solid, sending its occupants flying as it broke through stone. Light filtered through the cracks the suspended room had sustained in the collision, moments before it was cut off from its magic, sending it spiralling toward the ground. The room took several seconds to touch down, and when it did it collapsed into a mess of weak stone, as though it had been cracked into dust centuries ago and had been eagerly awaiting an opportunity to shatter.

Somehow, the landing and collapse were effectively harmless. Kjelle's legs stopped screaming in pain after a few seconds of her lying in the dust and masonry, though the lack of a response from her body made her more afraid than their initial agony.

Both Anthep and the risen had survived, and were now both rising to a stand amidst the room's rubble, the ruins of what had been a metal and stone fence confounding the risen and separating it from the pirate captain. Anthep had yet to break his perception that the risen was his daughter, and began to approach the feral undead once more.

Kjelle caught sight of him and began squirming in place on the ground, still trying to help as best she could despite her injury, though she herself was uncertain of why she was willing to do so much for a dangerous stranger. She twisted herself onto one side and grabbed her enchanted lance from her back with her right hand, her left finding her tome within her armour. Each movement hit her with a wave of pain, though the sensation never came from anywhere below her knees.

She shot off a flame replica of her lance at the risen as it and Anthep stumbled toward one another. She missed both of them, her mind clouding and vision obscuring as the pain and sickening lack of feeling began to overtake her. Another flame lance missed its mark, with Anthep this time turning toward Kjelle in an unhinged fury.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" he shouted, tearing his sword from its scabbard and gripping its hilt tightly. "You would want to kill my happiness!? Of course you would! You would take my daughter away from me!"

"She… she isn't your daughter…" Kjelle said weakly, already knowing how futile the argument would prove.

"Shut up!" Anthep yelled, his voice as dismayed as it was furious. He dashed toward Kjelle in a few short strides. "You don't know how long I've waited for this… to finally have my family back, to finally have a life outside of fighting, outside of everything I hate! I won't let you take it from me!"

He brought his sword down on Kjelle's chest, his first hit sticking in her armour but forcing nothing more than a gasp of pain from her. She brought her arms up as he tore the blade free, blocking and deflecting his next attacks with the weak plates of metal on her forearms.

Anthep stomped his foot down on Kjelle's right shoulder, sending another wave of pain through her weakened body and pinning her arm to the ground, though she managed to hold on to her lance through his attack. He gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands and raised it over his head, preparing a downward strike intended to pierce directly through the armour on Kjelle's chest.

The risen stopped him, charging into his side with force insufficient to knock the man to the ground, but enough to stagger him and pull his focus off of Kjelle. Anthep spun to face the risen woman as she raked her deformed hands along his right side, tearing through both cloth and flesh with ease.

"Erith? What are you doing?" Anthep asked, as confused as he was hurt as he moved one hand to passively stem the bleeding from his flank.

The risen snarled at him and lunged again. Anthep didn't attempt to stop her, allowing her to rake her claws across his chest regardless of the pain it caused.

"Sweetie, please! I'm trying to help you!" Anthep pleaded, allowing her to stab her hand into his damaged side without raising his hands to stop her.

Two new sets of footsteps pounded near Kjelle's ears, though she couldn't bring herself to see their source. Her vision was fading quickly, the last dregs of consciousness abandoning her as the ruined room's dust settled over her wounded and broken body.

"Dad? What are you doing!?" a recognisable voice shouted, their concern easily understood by Kjelle even in her fading state. One of the sets of footsteps halted next to her, with the other continuing in the direction of Anthep and the risen.

A person knelt over her, and though she couldn't see them anymore she could hear them pull something from near their waist and put it up to her mouth. She couldn't tell that the person was Lenhum, or that he was giving her his vulnerary, but she couldn't bring herself to do anything but struggle to resist losing the final amount of her consciousness.

Lenhum fed the entirety of his vulnerary into Kjelle's mouth, saving her from unconsciousness but causing the pain in her heavily damaged calves to return. She jolted awake from a sleep she had never entered, her body contorting in pain as the vulnerary strived to return her body to its healthy state regardless of the distortions in her armour.

"Don't you dare get in my way, boy!" Anthep snapped, turning away from where the risen woman was clawing into him yet again to face his son. "I've finally found her… I won't let you take her from me again!"

Raeshe froze in place, his concerned gaze flitting between his father and the risen. "Dad… I had no idea what would happen while we were away, what would happen to her! That woman, though, she isn't Erith!"

"You took me away from her!" Anthep shouted, raising his sword to point at his son as he vented his rage. "You stole from me the last moments I could have had away from all the fighting… the last moments I could have had away from you! This is my chance to get those moments back, and you won't stop me!"

Lenhum rose from Kjelle's side, leaving her as the tremors of her pain subsided. The vulnerary proved too weak to heal her wounds fully, her legs still refusing to answer her calls for movement and sending the occasional shot of pain up into the rest of her body, though she was no longer at risk of collapsing.

"Please, dad! You have to see what's happened here!" Raeshe pleaded, cringing as the risen raked its claws over Anthep's back, the man only wincing slightly in pain as he did his best to withstand the continuous attacks. "Please, I know that I've been doing things poorly, buy it's the best I can do! I've only wanted to help you, I just… I don't know how! I want to help you, so please, let me!"

"Help? You want to help!?" Anthep shouted, wincing as he sustained another attack, his stance weakening as he sustained more damage and lost more blood. "All your life, you've never helped… all you wanted was to bring back the war! You were everything I hated, everything I never wanted to remember, but you made me see it all again!"

"I get it! I've screwed up!" Raeshe said. "I thought that you were happy before you came home, so I wanted you to be happy again… I didn't want this, though, to bring back something you hated, to become what you hate. I wanted to help, and I didn't know that being with Erith, being away from the fighting, was what you wanted. Please, try to remember what she was like, that she's not the lady attacking you!"

As Raeshe spoke, Lenhum began to circle around Anthep, the risen remaining completely occupied with their attacks on the pirate captain and ignoring his movement. He grimaced as Anthep sustained another hit, the captain this time gasping in pain as it registered.

"You want me to remember more, even now!?" Anthep continued to yell despite his growing wounds. "What are you going to do now!? Bring back my memories of her and ruin them!? I won't let you!"

He and Lenhum struck out with their swords simultaneously, Lenhum killing the risen with a single swipe to her throat as Anthep attacked his son. Raeshe's eyes widened as the sword ran through his stomach, piercing cleanly through his seafaring clothing. Anthep proceeded to brutally rip the sword back out a moment later, sending Raeshe to his knees as he placed his hands over the blood already blossoming out of the wound.

Kjelle managed to react before anyone else, her vision returning moments before Raeshe fell. She tried to raise her lance to fire another shot at Anthep, but failed to find the strength to do so, and let her hand fall to the ground in another wave of overwhelming pain.

Lenhum spun on Anthep as the risen dissolved to purple ashes, his sword remaining raised as he took in Raeshe's new wound. "What the hell are you doing, Anthep!?" he shouted, training his sword on his captain, who for his part seemed resoundingly unconcerned.

Anthep blinked, ignoring Lenhum as he craned his head around to look for the risen woman. "Where did you go, Erith? Come on, it's time to go home now. I'm here to help you…" he took a few uneven steps forward, his right leg moving with less accuracy than his left as he attempted to walk away in search of Erith.

"Gods, man, you're too far gone…" Lenhum whispered under his breath. Anthep ignored the statement as he continued the fruitless search for his daughter.

Kjelle took in a sharp breath as she tried and failed to stand. Lenhum whipped his attention over to her and Raeshe, deeming Anthep a lost cause and deciding to focus himself elsewhere. He rushed to Raeshe's side, helping him to hold pressure against his wound in opposition of how quickly his blood was draining away.

"Raeshe!" Kjelle called out, gasping in pain as she failed again to stand. "What… what did your sister do with Anthep? What is it that he's refusing to remember, that he doesn't want you to destroy?"

"I… I still don't know…" Raeshe said, his voice having grown weaker. "She was still so young when he got back from the war, so… so she tried to catch up for missing out on having a father back then, when we were little kids. We both did… we were raised by people here on the island, friends of our parents… once he got back, we wanted to spend time with him… we just went about it in different ways."

His voice had grown wistful, the memory of his past proving as enticing to him as they were to Anthep, minus his father's obsession and scars. Anthep had stopped walking, and though Kjelle couldn't tell whether her idea was working or not, she maintained the hope that the captain wasn't too far gone - that nobody was too far gone.

"Keep going!" she shouted in encouragement, hoping that Anthep's stopping was indication enough of a change in heart. "Find whatever it is that's kept him focused on her for so long… find the memory he doesn't want to lose!"

"The only time I ever saw you with her, dad… you were crying…" Raeshe continued, silently acknowledging Kjelle's advice. "She wanted to play some kind of game, or do something or another with you around… I thought that you looked so sad, and I never wanted you to have to feel like that ever again. That's… that's where I screwed up, isn't it? You weren't sad… you were happy…"

Anthep brought a hand up to cover his face, though he kept his back to everyone. "She… she wanted to have tea with me. She brought out all these mismatched cups and plates, and I knew that she must've asked around the whole town just to find enough for a full setting… she didn't have anything to drink, she was happy with pretending, as long as I was there…"

He choked away a sob and continued. "There was pretend tea, pretend biscuits, pretend guests all around the table… I sat there for so long, pretending with her. She was so happy… all she wanted was to spend time with me… to catch up on the time we had lost… she was so happy to have me back from the fighting, the war, that she tried to make it so that party never ended. At that moment, I knew that everything I had done, everything I had lost or failed to do… it was worth it, just to see her smile. I… I was so happy to see her smile…"

"But then, over the next few years, I kept taking you away from her, from that happiness, back to a point where everything was wrong again." Raeshe surmised, his voice having grown weaker. "I… took you away when she disappeared… I took you away from the happiness… and locked you in the misery…"

"I shouldn't have blamed you." Anthep said, his voice catching. He still refused to move, keeping his back to those gathered behind him. "I wanted to connect with you, to see that same happiness she had in you. Even though I hated sailing and pretending to be in the war again, I thought doing that would make you happy… but even then, even though I was willing to do all of it, I blamed you for taking me away from the island. Gods, Raeshe, I'm so sorry…"

Raeshe forced out a laugh more frail than his voice. "I'm the one who should be apologising… once I learned that what I was doing wasn't helping, I stuck with it. I didn't know that to make you happy, all I had to do was be happy myself…"

Anthep finally turned around and began to process what he had done. He raced to Raeshe's side, holding him alongside Lenhum. "Gods, Raeshe, I could've been happy… we could've been happy… I'm so sorry."

He grabbed the vulnerary from his belt and held it out for Raeshe to take, ignoring the gravity of his own wounds. Raeshe tried to reach up to take it, but found that he couldn't move his arms away from his stomach, his fingers having lost all colour and sensation.

"She… she needs it more than me. So do you, dad." Raeshe said in spite of the weakness in his voice, angling his head toward Kjelle. "Take it to her, or for yourself… I'll be fine…"

Anthep hesitated for a moment, but failed to see through his son's frail misdirection, and rushed the vulnerary over to Kjelle. She eagerly took it and drank part of its contents, leaving some for Anthep himself to take, which he immediately proceeded to do.

Lenhum maintained the placement of his hands on Raeshe's wound, eyeing him with as much concern as incredulity. "Raeshe… this kind of wound, with this amount of blood-"

"I-I'll be fine." Raeshe reassured Lenhum, though he only succeeded in making him frown. "Make sure dad's okay, please?"

Lenhum's frown remained on his face, but he nodded resolutely. He looked over from his spot next to Raeshe to see Anthep helping a clearly pained Kjelle to a stand, and found that he doubted Raeshe would be able to do the same, though Anthep himself still had yet to notice that fact.

"We should get back to the ship - we have more potions there." Anthep said, receiving a nod from all but Raeshe.

* * *

Robin backed away from the doorway through which he could still see Kjelle's room spinning away, running a hand over his face as he considered the course of action he should be taking. The room crashed through the wall it had been spinning toward, causing him to grip his face tightly and struggle to form some kind of adequate response to what had happened.

Not for a moment did he consider that Kjelle may be dead, or that she may have been wounded to the point where healing magic would be of no help to her. Such an outcome was simply something he wouldn't dare to believe, and so he kept it from his mind as best he could, preferring instead to consider all of the possible ways he could go about helping her out of her predicament.

He lowered his hand back to his side as he ran through a mental checklist of all the variables he needed to consider, with the fact that any possible restorative would be on Anna's wagon at the ship, to the threat of the risen in the room with her alongside a fractured Anthep, to the unknown location of the commanding sorcerer, to the reality that Kjelle's legs had likely broken all compounding into a grim picture at which he did not enjoy looking.

By the time Robin was able to fish his wind tome out of his robes, his intent being to follow the room as it plummeted out of the Manor in the vain hope of somehow providing aid, the wall of the building had reformed. He placed his tome away, accepting that he had been cut off from the room for the time being, and returned to thinking up a new way of escaping and helping Kjelle.

Behind him, Anna stood in shock, as surprised by the intense damage done to Kjelle as she was by Robin's sudden, seemingly instinctual action. Steth was in much of the same condition. They both advanced toward Robin, having no idea how they would escape their room but knowing that it wouldn't from where they were standing.

Anna stopped mid stride and did a double take, her peripheral vision catching the unnaturally well lit glow of a treasure chest. As instinctively as Robin had flown toward Kjelle, she dashed to the chest, with Steth doing a double take of her own as the merchant darted off into the side room.

Unlike what had happened with Anthep's room, Anna's room remained in place once she had entered it and had knelt to unlock the chest. Steth followed her up to the doorway, not daring to step inside after having witnessed the other room's damage to Kjelle.

A single chandelier lit the chest and the chest alone. The rest of the room remained bathed in darkness, creating an atmosphere that Steth could only understand as being an absurdly obvious trap, one for which Anna had unquestioningly fallen. As she approached the room, a purple line glowed into life on every wall at approximately neck level, something Steth also decided was part of the trap that Anna failed to notice.

"Hey, Anna!" Steth hissed, her voice lowered in fear of the obvious trap. "What the hell are you doing!? Get out of that room!"

Anna paused for a moment and looked back to Steth, though she didn't rotate much of her body away from the chest. Her expression was nothing short of impassive, and she flipped Steth off before returning to unlocking the treasure chest.

Steth recoiled, surprising herself with how much she was wounded by the display. "Anna!? That's obviously a trap! How could you fall for something so… so… painstakingly unmissable!?"

"I'm hamming the tunnel vision up hard right now." Anna explained, wholly disinterested and without diverting her attention away from her meticulous labour on the chest. "I'm always greedy, but never this much. I guess people like you bring out the best in me."

"What do you mean?" Steth asked, her register remaining lowered. "Also, please explain it out here in the hall, where you aren't about to fall through a pit, or have your head taken off by the magic around you, or… something."

"Wanna hear a fun little story?" Anna asked, not waiting for a reply before beginning. "Once upon a time, a little girl wanted to do good in the world, and saw that she was able to help people by giving them her personal effects, things they couldn't get. She was special, in a sense, and people prized what she could get them because nobody else could do the same. Her scales made such wonderful clothes. She was insanely successful, and drew the attention of people from halfway around the world because of her genuine nature and heartfelt wares. So, an older, better merchant came along and informed some unsavoury people - slavers - about this girl so she'd never be able to get any better at selling things, securing the market for herself."

Steth blinked and furrowed her brow. "Are you supposed to be the little girl?"

"Hell no, I'm the lady who sold her into slavery! Little brat was stealing business, needed to learn the way of the world."

Steth blinked again. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because that's the way this world works." Anna said. "Some poor little girl who only wanted to make people happy is undoubtedly suffering right now, and it's the monster who hurt her that gets to profit. It's not a pretty reality, but it's reality. If I were to go back on everything I've done up to this point, all the things I've done to get where I am now, it would all have been for nothing. That would eat me up. I've done bad things, been a bad person to help myself, but I'm not about to give up."

"And because I've suggested you do something else, you start overcompensating?" Steth surmised. "Gods, you're way more fragile than I thought."

"Everything's been changing a lot recently." Anna said, temporarily pausing her efforts in breaking into the chest. "A relative of mine's turned away from being a saleswoman, some massive conflict is about to start, I've gone and joined up with the Shepherds. I know I can be happy if I keep going like I am, if I stay on the course I've taken, but I hate the things I've done to get here. I don't want to have to do anything like that again."

"Are you asking me for advice, or venting?" Steth asked.

"There are these people who idolise a… different version of me." Anna continued, with Steth adopting a far more exasperated yet still concerned stance as she realised that the merchant wasn't asking for help. "They see the me you see, and they hate it. I can't blame them, I've kind of been purposefully antagonistic, like right now, but I still hate that they see me like that, and that I genuinely can't become someone they like without doing things I would hate."

"So find a middle ground, maybe?" Steth suggested, not knowing whether Anna was paying attention to her anymore. "Don't be an asshole, but don't do things you hate. It's not that hard."

"Easy for you to say." Anna grumbled, returning to her locked chest. "People pretend to love me, and I pretend to love them for as long as they're my customers. Once they learn what I've done, who I am, they hate me. What have you done that would ever weigh on you like that?"

Steth grimaced and lowered her head. She paused for a long moment before finally speaking. "I killed Erith."

Anna stopped in place before she spun around, remaining on one knee as she gaped at Steth. "What? Erith, as in Anthep's daughter Erith?"

"It was when we first came back to the island." Steth nodded, her voice dismayed. "We all went to look for her, and… I was the one who found her. She was wandering around toward the back of the Manor, to the massive forest that makes up the rest of the island. Something had torn away all the trees, and she was shambling over there with a horde of other… what were they again? Risen? I recognised her, lured her away from them, and killed her."

"Everyone you found was already dead by the time you got here…?" Anna asked, her voice lowering in thought for a moment before snapping back into a far louder volume. "You've known that she was dead this entire time!? Why didn't you tell anyone!?"

"I did! I told Anthep, ah…" she paused and ran a hand through her hair, sighing. "...it must have been a few months ago by now. Obviously, he didn't believe me, and I didn't want anyone else to hate me for not telling them sooner, so I kept quiet. That a big enough secret for you?"

"It's not a competition, Steth." Anna said, and slowly turned back to resume unlocking the chest. "I would win, though. I've done some pretty cold things to make a profit."

"I believe you." Steth said without thinking, causing Anna to wince, then sigh. Steth herself winced when she realised what she had done. "Ah, sorry, that… uh…"

Anna shook her head, her wince forgotten. "It's fine. That's who I am. I don't hate it myself, I only hate the way other people see me, and that I know how justified they are."

"You should probably tell your friends about it." Steth said. "Take it from me, waiting on something like that is awful beyond words."

"Noted." Anna said, finishing up her process of unlocking the chest after her constant interruptions. "But, for now, it's time for treasure!"

Steth blinked, then sighed. "That's… yeah, sure. Knock yourself out. You know, your blatant shallowness can be kind of endearing at times."

"I think you're the first person who's ever said that to me. The opposite, though…"

"You're a likable person, Anna." Steth smiled. "Don't worry so much about holding so strongly to your ideals, and you'll be fine. I'm sure everyone around you wouldn't hate you - hell, they'd probably love you!"

Anna smiled to herself as she finally unlocked the chest. "Thanks, Steth."

The lock clicked open, but the chest remained sealed tight. Anna furrowed her brow and attempted to push it open, thinking that it may have somehow gotten stuck, but it failed to move. She then tried to force it harder, knowing that her lockpicking had been perfect, but failed to make the chest's lid budge.

A ticking noise brought her attention back down to where her lockpicking equipment remained in the chest's lock. Her wires and picks were turning on their own, undoing the actions she had taken to open the chest. She tried to hold them in place, hoping that she would still somehow be able to overcome the apparently unconventional lock and claim her treasure, but quickly had to retract everything from the lock when it threatened to snap the metal apart.

The line of magic tracing around her room began to hum as she knelt next to the chest. Steth froze in place, uncertain if she should take a step back in caution or forward to help Anna. The upper half of the room whipped sideways before she could make a decision, moving at such a high speed that it cleanly cut through the door with only a small shower of splinters. The chandelier swung as rapidly as the walls, moving in a disjointed rhythm with the ceiling above it. A relatively unconcerned but aware Anna and the lower half of the room refused to move in the slightest.

After a few seconds of the violent shaking that would have been certain to decimate the head and neck of anyone that had been standing within the room, as Steth could determine had been its intended purpose, the upper wall settled down. It returned to its original positioning, with the purple lines of magic fading away, their duty unsuccessful but complete.

Anna waited to ensure that the trap had settled completely, then attempted to force the chest open once more, and in failing slowly backed out of the room. She furrowed her brow as she stepped back into the main hall, the trap having proven as odd as dangerous.

The chest was by all means intended for her, of that she was certain. However, the room's trap couldn't conceivably kill her if the Manor or sorcerer controlling it knew anything about her, and that she or any intrepid treasure seeker would by all means remain kneeling to unlock the chest - her lockpick moving had ensured that she would be too low to die.

 _It's almost like I wasn't the target_. Anna thought to herself. Her brow creased as she tried to think of who was intended to die, if anyone.

"Hey, Anna? That story about selling a girl into slavery, was that actually…?" Steth began to ask tentatively as they made their way over to Robin once more.

"What? Oh, no, no. Of course not." Anna said, easily catching on to Steth's concern. "That was an anecdote. Clearly."

Steth narrowed her gaze on Anna, but didn't bother to question the merchant any further. "Right. Clearly."

Robin was pacing by the time they reached him, one of his hands covering his mouth as it was supported from the elbow by its counterpart. His arms fell to his sides and his head tilted back in a groan of frustration that wholly broke his focus.

He saw Anna and Steth approach him, and so stopped his pacing. "I've got no idea what we're doing here to get out. If this place is this dangerous, we can't go around and search the rooms for a way out, but other than that I can't see anything left for us to do."

"Aw, you want to go help Kjelle, don't you?" Anna asked, smiling deviously at him.

"You heard that crunching noise too, right?" Robin asked in turn, his expression incredibly well measured.

Anna's smile hastily faded into a frown. "Okay, yeah. That's fair."

"You don't have any idea of how to get out of here?" Steth asked, sounding surprised to her own ears. "Can't you tell your magic 'I want to go outside', and it'll teleport you?"

Robin blinked and shook his head. "That's not how magic works in the slightest. Well, except for some staves that can do exactly that, but I don't know how to use those and don't have any of them on me."

"There has to be a way out, though, right?" Anna asked hopefully. "If this place is being controlled by magic, we could probably tap into what's controlling it and use it ourselves. Shouldn't be all that hard if you and I both work on it."

Robin blinked again. "That's a really good idea. Damn, why didn't I think of that?"

"Guess you were too busy worrying over your 'coworker' to think straight." Steth grinned, picking up the same expression that Anna had previously used.

"You heard the crunching, right?" Robin asked with a perfect replica of his own original expression. "Her legs might be broken. If a potion or healing magic can't fix that…"

"Best not to think about it too much for now." Anna said. "Let's focus on getting out of here. You said there were ley lines, right? So, all we have to do is find part of them, or some kind of source we can-"

The roof above them abruptly flashed purple and exploded, silencing Anna as she and her companions shielded themselves from falling debris. A moment after the explosion, the risen sorcerer descended into the room, the concentrated streams of magic keeping them afloat cutting out a short distance above the ground and allowing them to land solidly on their feet. Before anyone in the room could react to their presence, the risen had bathed Anna and Robin in a green light, healing the light wounds its dramatic entrance had inflicted.

Robin drew his tome and began to charge a spell, but allowed it to fade once he realised the risen was healing him. Steth had been omitted from the healing magic, though each of her wounds were small and ineffectual enough that no aided healing was warranted.

"It's… sorry…" the risen murmured, its voice sounding as weak and raspy as could be expected of a corpse. "It says that… it likes dramatic entrances…"

"Gods, they can actually speak." Robin said, his eyes wider than usual. He caught Anna's faintly confused though mostly concerned expression, and set about explaining himself. "I get that Noire said they spoke and everything, but actually hearing one, knowing that she wasn't full of it… they've never spoken anything more than the same few words over and over."

"It says… that the risen do not speak… for they are not allowed to speak." the sorcerer said, relaying information from an unseen source. "Some limitations… were broken. Rewritten… time and again."

"O, great and venerable risen sorcerer!" Anna said, raising her voice and arms in an overly theatrical set of gestures. "May you find it in your humble heart of hearts to set us poor wanderers free of your Manor? Pretty please?"

The risen flicked its hand toward a door nearest Robin. The door flew open, revealing a small, poorly lit room that looked far more foreboding than welcoming.

"Only Robin." the risen explained when Anna's face had brightened at the prospect of her plea having actually succeeded. "Anna and non-Shepherd… must stay… for now."

Robin shook his head and took a symbolic step away from the newly opened door. "Yeah, no. There's no way I'm splitting off more than I am now, or letting anyone else do the same."

The risen nodded and launched itself over to him, landing within a metre of his body and using its momentum to lean toward the side of his head. Robin reached for a weapon as quickly as he could, his right hand already instinctively charging magic.

"It says… that it misses you." the risen whispered, and Robin refrained from casting his magic for a moment longer. "It didn't… know this would happen. It didn't know… you would be cut off… and it wishes… that it hadn't left you… unknowingly. It says… that it loves you."

The risen stood straight, then flew away from him, landing in the same spot as it had begun from its entrance. Robin's eyes widened considerably as he allowed his magic to fully cease. As a final measure, the sorcerer cupped his hands into the rough shape of a heart.

Robin stared at the risen for a second before promptly turning away, walking to the room it had opened for him, entering, and closing the door behind him. The room quickly began moving upward after a hand raise from the sorcerer, leaving the solitary risen alone with a confused and concerned Anna and Steth.

"So, uh… do we wait here, then?" Anna asked.

The risen sorcerer gave her no form of response.

Anna nodded as though her question had been answered and forced herself to relax, her hand remaining close to her sword's hilt at all times. "Say, how did you know about us, anyway? That I like treasure, Anthep was looking for a woman, our names… though I guess some of that is a giveaway if you've known an Anna before."

The risen did nothing for several seconds before nodding once. "I heard you. You were… talking, outside the Manor. It knows… your names… and you've said them… yourselves, too."

"Oh yeah? What's her name, then?" Anna asked, pointing to Steth with one hand. "You only called her a 'non-Shepherd', so let's see if you actually know your stuff."

"Her name… is Steth." the risen said. "It says that… the names of non-Shepherds… are ultimately pointless. It's… sorry for that. It says… that that's not how… it wished for the world… to be."

"You realise I'm still standing here, right?" Steth asked, displeased. "I may not be a Shepherd, but I'm still me. You and whoever this 'it' of yours is can't really compare to that, as far as I'm concerned."

The risen stared at her. "It… likes you. It's sorry."

"Who are you talking to, anyway?" Anna asked. "Who is this 'it' that's so sorry for us?"

"It… does not… wish to say. It is… sorry for not saying." the risen took an exorbitantly long pause, which both Anna and Steth frowned throughout the entirety of, before it began to move the room they were in upward with a wave of its hand. "You may… go now… Anna."

"Just me? What about Steth?" Anna asked, glancing over to her newfound friend with a look matching the concern in the pirate's own eyes.

The risen shook its head. "It says… that it's sorry. Shepherds… matter more. Shepherds… can live. As for Steth… she is needed. All is needed… to save the world."

Their room clicked into place at the entrance of the Manor, the double doors signifying the outside world proving welcoming despite the risen's words. Anna took a long look at them before turning back toward the sorcerer, with Steth never moving from where she stood.

"I want to leave with my friend." Anna said. "She may not be a Shepherd, but she's still a great person. Can your 'it' make an exception for her?"

The risen paused for a moment before receiving more information to relay. "No. There may be… no exceptions… to the need for salvation. It says… to warn you… about the grave."

Anna frowned and drew her sword. "I see. Well then, I suppose this is where you'll have to go down. A shame, really; people probably would have loved to talk to a risen. You would've made an excellent attraction."

"It's… laughing. Happy." the risen relayed. "It says that… it loves you, Anna. It wishes… for nothing more… than to save you all. It truly is sorry."

Steth drew her sword and Pehp's, falling in line with Anna and silently nodding to her in thanks. The risen stared at them before nodding, and lethargically raised one hand to begin an attack.

Anna held back, waiting to catch an opening the risen would inevitably make that would allow her to strike it down. Steth rushed toward the undead to land an attack before it could fire off its spell.

Without charging up its magic, the risen fired a spell at Steth. A beam of miniscule black and white squares slammed into the pirate's chest. She froze for a second before launching into the wall next to the exit door, lying silently in place as though she had already been on the ground for an extended period of time.

Anna blinked, then gaped at Steth, the woman's total stillness already conveying her instantaneous death at the hands of the spell. She whipped her attention back over to the sorcerer, far more apprehensive to face them than she had been mere seconds ago.

The sorcerer did nothing, his arms at his sides as he gazed blankly into empty space. Anna slowly calmed her fear of the being and sheathed her sword, recalling its dedication to keeping her alive, and slowly began to make her way to the Manor's exit. She maintained her gaze on the risen as she moved, watching in curiosity as its blank expression turned to a sunken, hollow look. The risen then silently crumbled to ashes.

Anna waited next to the door of the Manor, almost expecting the risen to reappear or for Steth to pop up again perfectly fine, but time proved her incorrect. She frowned as deeply as she ever had in her life and opened the doors out of the Manor.

As an afterthought, she darted back into the Manor and grabbed Steth's hat from where it had fallen to the ground. She placed it delicately on her own head, taking a second to perfect its angle, and then made her way out of the Manor proper.

* * *

Robin crossed his arms tightly over his chest as his room ascended through the Manor. Somehow, the voice of what he knew to be the 'traitor' that he had come to interact with - and had grown to love - was interacting with the risen, speaking to them in a manner similar to how she had spoken to him.

He shifted his stance so that he could hold his right hand in his line of vision and rub at the stagnant Mark of Grima underneath his glove. If what the risen was saying was true, then it had been his connection to Grima that had somehow connected him to the voice. The same would also likely be true for the sorcerer, as by very nature of his class he would likely be marked and attuned to the fell dragon, regardless of the truth Robin knew was hiding beneath the grey in his mind. For all he knew, the same could be possible for every risen.

While the fact that the voice could interact with the risen and that the risen seemingly acted so similarly to him was somewhat disturbing, Robin nonetheless felt wholly unperturbed. After all, the voice was lovable - it's not like he could fault the risen for believing the same as him. Other than that, he was still riding the happiness of knowing that the voice loved him, and had felt the need to inform him of such.

His room continued to accelerate to greater speeds, forcing him to brace himself against one wall and the ground. His mind switched from revelling in the voice to concern as the room's movement grew exceptionally faster, though he never once feared for his life, or that of anyone else on the island. The voice was in control, after all; the voice would never try to hurt him, or anyone else. The risen may, especially if they weren't under the voice's control, but that was a different matter entirely.

After a few more seconds of rapid movement that caused him to question both how far down he had initially fallen and how high the Manor could reach, Robin's room slammed into something solid. He could only assume that it had been the Manor's roof, his momentum throwing him into the air before his room halted entirely and he fell back to the floor.

Robin rose, wiping himself free of nonexistent dust, and opened the door out of the room. He stepped out into the warm afternoon air gracing the island, the feeling of the sun being welcome after the relative cold dampness of the Manor interior.

His room had launched itself out of the Manor roof, as he had thought, with the roof then reforming beneath it to support the new addition. A second room practically identical to his own sat next to where his had emerged. Ether ley lines glowed faintly around the perimeter of the roof, confirming his suspicion and indicating that the magic manipulating the Manor was still active.

A young girl with elegant yet tattered clothes and finely cut orange hair stood near the edge of the roof, less than a metre from the jagged calf-high ledge that lined the entirety of the perfectly flat surface. She appeared to have been looking out over the level plain that composed most of the island behind the Manor, but had turned to face him when his room had emerged.

Though Robin had only received a cursory amount of information about many of Kjelle's friends, especially in the cases of Nah and a man named Yarne, he could easily place this girl as the former. Had her traditional yet somewhat muted manakete characteristics - primarily her pointed ears and unassumingly small frame - not already been a giveaway of her identity, the dragonstone she was clutching tightly in both hands would have informed anyone of her heritage.

"Um… it's Nah, right?" Robin opened softly, stopping in place with his hands raised level with his chest, hoping to convey his total lack of ill intent. Hopefully, she wouldn't know about his blood magic, and how hollow the gesture truly was.

The girl clutched her dragonstone tighter, a faint glow between her fingers indicating that she was a step away from activating it as she gaped at him. "R-Robin!?" she jumped as his identity sank in, her body teetering toward the edge of the roof as she slipped one of her hands away from the dragonstone to help balance herself.

Robin wasted no time in ripping the dragonstone out of her hand with a stream of wind magic, rapidly charging and firing off a gust in reverse that caused Nah to stumble toward him and send the weapon skidding across the roof. He bent down and picked it up with his right hand, then returned to his now untrue pacifying position in an effort to continue conveying his moral virtue.

Nah reached futilely for her weapon as the wind magic died, her sleeve having been shredded and arm lightly cut by his attack. She fell to her knees as he picked the stone up, her face radiating pure fear and distress on a level Robin had yet to see in his life.

"I really don't want to fight, Nah, or take any chances." Robin said. "Let's just talk, okay? Please? I'm not quite the Robin that you think I am."

"What have you done!?" Nah shouted, passively rubbing her arm in a way that caused Robin to wince. "Where are my friends? Where am I!?"

"You're at a place called the Isle of Lost Souls, in the far east of Ferox, in the past." Robin informed, straining to keep his voice perfectly collected. "Noire is currently headed to Port Ferox. Kjelle is somewhere outside of where we are right now - that being the Manor of Lost Souls - and needs help. Most of your friends are scattered around Ylisse and Plegia. I swear, I didn't do any of this. I'm the Robin of this time, not the one you knew."

On a whim, and as part of a desire to heal the damage he had inflicted, Robin attempted to drain power from Nah's dragonstone with a weak nosferatu spell. To his own surprise, he succeeded, purple light enveloping his hand which he was then able to send in the manakete's direction as a healing green wave.

Nah recoiled initially, believing that Robin's magic was some form of attack, but remained rooted in place regardless. She became more on edge when the spell healed her rather than cause her harm.

"How is Kjelle already here…?" Nah wondered aloud, her gaze remaining locked on Robin in fear until she shook her head. "A-Anyway, how do you about my friends? If you're trying to have me believe you, that you aren't… well, you, then that stuff doesn't seem like something you should know." she narrowed her eyes on him, half expecting him to break into a maniacal smile and reveal his weak deception.

"I've been travelling with Kjelle for about two weeks now, and she's told me a lot about you and your friends." Robin said. "I also met Lucina a year and a half ago, but that was different. I met Noire a few days ago, but she left recently to find her family in the Shepherds. Kjelle and I are working with info from Flavia to find some of your friends, and have the Shepherds find some more."

Nah glared at him. "Why would I believe any of this? You're a monster, the one who destroyed everything… you're playing with me right now, aren't you? This is some twisted game, where you're trying to give me hope before tearing it away. Go to hell, Robin."

Robin may have smiled if his situation hadn't called for anything else. Nah's resilience was proving almost as fierce as what he had seen in Kjelle, and in a weird way, that pleased him. "I promise, I'm not. That's not much to go on right now, but it's all I can offer. Please, even if it's just for a little while, believe me. I can get you to Kjelle and have her explain what's happening, but you have to place a tiny bit of trust in me for that, okay?"

"...Alright, I'll play along." Nah said, though she continued to glare at him all the while. "Where is Kjelle? What happened to her? How did she get here before me?"

"She's somewhere outside the Manor. She was caught in a trap inside, and taken out alongside a risen and a pirate we're working with. She was hurt by the trap, and her legs might be broken. I don't know how she got here before you, but I think Naga determined your placements and times of arrival in advance, told Lucina, and had her relay the info to Flavia. Then, Flavia gave it to Kjelle and I, and we've started to look for all of you."

Nah's glare only intensified. "That sounds like a convenient lie. An absurd one, too - Kjelle and especially Lucina would stop at nothing to end you. To think that they haven't after all the time that you're saying has supposedly passed is stupid."

Rather than be annoyed by Nah's stubborn insistence, Robin found that he was happy. She was driven to defeat him, similar yet to a lesser extent as Kjelle, and he could see the same indignant resentment in her that he had come to know through each time traveller he had met.

No one would blame him if he were to push her off the roof.

His thoughts ground to a halt and he immediately felt horribly ill. He hadn't envisioned Nah's death, like he had with Noire and so many others, but that made the matter so much worse. The thought of killing her wasn't visceral, being born of no hatred or fury against her; on the contrary, Robin had felt content with their interaction despite how hostile they naturally were.

Half of his mind silently urged him to think more about her, about how he could push her and watch her fall, how he himself could lean over the side of the roof to watch and then lean further and further despite wanting to stop until he, too, was falling. The other half was screaming in a horrendous disgust for him to stop, waging a battle against its counterpart in which he couldn't yet determine a winner.

Robin brought his hands to his head in an effort to quell the silent serenity offered by the first half as the screaming side convinced his legs to stumble backwards away from Nah. Even so, he began to think on everything proposed by the silence, and could feel his stomach twist in knots at the false sensations of killing Nah. His face drained of colour and he found it difficult to keep his eyes open through the early stinging form of tears, with his breathing growing more difficult with every muscle and thought that urged him toward the ledge.

Nah furrowed her brow as she watched him stumble backward, turning her head a few degrees but never averting her gaze from him in the thought that something had appeared behind her to scare him. To the best of her ability to tell, nothing had, causing her expression to become all the more confused.

Robin backed into one of the external walls of his room and planted his back firmly against it, thinking that doing so may somehow help him. He could feel his hands shaking, his right pressing the cold form of Nah's dragonstone into his temple. His breaths transitioned from being passive to an uncontrollable action he struggled to maintain, each being taken in rapidly while being incredibly shallow and difficult to hold.

"Um… what are you doing?" Nah asked, her curiosity ever so faintly outweighing her fear. Her expression then shifted to one bordering dissatisfaction, her mouth becoming a small, unemotional frown that held no trace of levity. "Don't tell me that the great and evil grandmaster Robin is afraid of heights."

"N-No, not heights." Robin said, experiencing difficulty with each word. "Just… j-just the ledge."

Nah's brow knit together once again, her curiosity giving way to confusion with respect to her ever-present underlying fear. "You're afraid of ledges?"

"W-What if I get too close?" Robin said. "I might… I-I don't know, start to fall?"

"So stop yourself before you get close enough that you might fall?" Nah suggested, making the statement as though it were obvious and he was a fool for not thinking of it.

"What if I won't want to?" Robin asked, the shaking of his limbs slowly calming as he spoke.

Nah's eyebrows remained close as she blinked, understanding him only in the vaguest of senses. Robin's face remained pale as he managed to regain control over his breathing, taking several deep, long breaths to calm himself.

He lowered his hands from his head, the silence in his mind thankfully being replaced with the muted howl of a low wind over the Manor roof. His right hand was still holding Nah's dragonstone tightly, and he glanced down to it curiously before tossing it back to the Manakete.

Nah didn't reach out for her weapon, allowing it to fall to the ground less than a metre from her and skid toward her lowered knee. She regarded Robin with the same confused fear as before when she finally picked it up, his own demeanor shifting back toward being what could only be considered normal given her limited experience with him.

She broke her line of sight on him to examine the dragonstone, verifying that he hadn't tampered with it too much or had dared to try laying some form of trap. No new wear other than that she had come to accept as normal was present.

"If you've actually met with Lucina, and Kjelle, and Noire, then you know what's happened, right? You know why we're here, and what we're going to do?" Nah asked as she rose to a stand, gripping her stone tightly enough that he wouldn't be able to tear it away from her again.

Robin nodded vigorously, as though he were encouraging her to transform and fight against him, or use her altered form to escape. He seemed almost afraid of any alternative. His eagerness almost caused Nah to stop what she was doing, but she continued on regardless.

"Then this is it, Robin." she said, stepping onto the edge of the roof behind her as her dragonstone shined fiercely. "May the better fighter win."

Her transformation began before she moved again, her dragonstone enveloping her in its light, shining through her closed hand. Nah stepped off of the roof, petals of warm light enveloping her midair and changing her form fully before she could begin falling. The petals disappeared to reveal vibrant pink scales, long talons, and a large maw more deadly in appearance than what Robin had previously encountered in Nowi.

Nah extended her wings to their maximum reach and began flapping them to keep herself afloat, hovering at the edge of the Manor while facing Robin. She couldn't convey her expression while transformed, but Robin could still discern that she was at best venomously glaring at him from the way her darkened eyes focused solely on him.

Robin stared blankly at her for an extended period of time, his face resoundingly unreadable. He took a deep breath, loudly cursed himself and his foolish actions, and then put all the effort he could muster into a wind magic assisted dodge away from the magical flames the Manakete began spewing onto the Manor roof.

Nah was approximately the same size as Nowi when she transformed - meaning she was several times larger than Robin. Despite the similarity to her mother, Nah already came across as far more intense, her prismatic flames scorching the rooftop and blazing defiantly where Nowi's would have faded swiftly. The searing heat of the magical flames burned faintly against Robin through the security of his cloak.

Before Robin could go about finding a new, safer location than the horrendously exposed rooftop to dodge to, Nah was upon him again with more magic. She breathed out a rapid series of fireballs, and rather than hastily dodge Robin instead decided to try countering the attacks. He succeeded to an extent, his magic managing to adequately redirect her fire, but he was merely able to point her attacks down into the Manor roof rather than deflect them entirely.

The flames they left behind continued to burn for several seconds, making Robin uncomfortable even through his enchantments. Nah swooped toward him as he was recuperating and examining the magic behind her attacks, slamming the weight of her entire body into his and knocking him across the roof.

She transformed back into her humanoid form as Robin teetered to a proper stand, using his wind magic to help support and cushion himself when he was sent flying. He paused for a second to examine Nah, who was herself taking a moment to double over and rapidly catch her breath after her brief assault.

"You know, I've fought against Nowi a fair bit." Robin said, though Nah appeared to give him little mind and swiftly returned to her full faculties. "I've got a pretty good win ratio against her, too. That's because I know that manaketes have to transform back to their human version to recoup the magic they expend, and even if you can get back to fighting condition fast, you're still left wide open for a long while."

Nah said nothing, contenting herself with glaring at him for a split second longer before she raised her dragonstone in the air and transformed once again. She flapped off the Manor roof and sprayed more flames at him, this time measuring her attacks far more carefully and ensuring that she wouldn't again grow so rapidly exhausted.

Robin easily dodged out of the way of her attacks. The weaker fires proved similar to those he was conditioned to dealing with from Nowi, no longer lingering in place on the stone of the Manor roof and heating him through his enchanted clothes, though Nah's attacks still seemed more powerful than his experience would indicate.

Nah continued to fly backward as she fired shot after shot of fire at Robin, distancing herself from any probable counterattacks he could make at the cost of accuracy. It became progressively easier for Robin to dodge her magical fires, with her shots being fast but choreographed enough to predict. Even so, Nah flew out further, until Robin knew he would need to rely on his own stunted flight abilities to reach her, though she never once lessened her stream of attacks.

Robin began to prepare a set of spells to counter her at range. Nah halted her attacks as he was equipping his thunder tome and preparing his magic, causing him too to stop in a moment of hesitation. His mind still faltered at the thought of harming her.

Nah wrapped her wings and tail in toward her torso and tucked her head down toward her chest, adopting the entwined position that Robin knew from experience heralded the return to a humanoid form. His eyes widened as she curled inward, easily gauging that she would be incapable of returning to the roof in time and would be forced to plummet the vast distance toward the hard ground around the Manor. He switched his thunder tome out for his wind variant, transferring his energy over from assault spells to movement, already thinking up a hasty means of saving Nah from her fall.

Instead, he was forced to use that same magic to propel himself sideways when Nah surprised him with yet another attack. This one was far more powerful than all the rest, her head whipping up from where she had lowered it as her entire body flexed in exertion. Raw magic streamed haphazardly out of her mouth as she strained to contain it long enough to attack. The concentrated stream of intense energy sheared cleanly through the mansion roof, separating it into two distinct halves.

"Holy shit, that's a thing you can do!?" Robin gaped at the destruction she had caused, dust wafting away from the splitting line she had torn through the Manor roof and part of its face. "That's amazing! Nowi hasn't done anything like that!"

"I've always been far stronger than her." Nah growled through her draconian form, an odd note of hostility in her voice that Robin could tell wasn't directed at him. Despite her tone, she was audibly exhausted, her final attack having taken more from her than any other, reinvigorating the concern Robin had experienced earlier.

Nah flew upward with the last of her dwindling energy. Robin rushed to the edge of the Manor as she went, his fear of the ledge forgotten. Upon reaching the zenith of her arc in the air, the final metre to which her tiring wings could elevate herself, Nah began to transform back into a human.

Robin cursed as she began to fall, her petals of light wisping away as her far smaller body began plummeting downward. He took a deep, focused breath and jumped off the Manor roof after her, hoping to slow her descent and his own with his wind magic before either of them could hit the ground.

Air rushed past Robin as he began his controlled fall. Nah descended at much the same rate as him, with her higher starting position and head start causing her to now be only slightly below him. The ground sped nearer to them both with every passing moment, though both remained perfectly calm; Nah in the sense that she was still in perfect control of the situation, and Robin in the sense that he knew part of his mind should be screaming against the incessant resurgent silence, but wasn't.

The ground below Robin merged together, losing all distinguishable characteristics it may have held as he rushed downward. Somehow, he knew that the merging wasn't a result of his descent, but when he realised that the world shouldn't be a single poorly perceived mess of colour and shapes, his mind was already far too calm to bother forming a response.

He gradually closed his eyes as the ground sped ever nearer. The image of the unusually uniformly coloured and tranquil land below him was oddly comforting, though Robin knew that he should be utterly terrified of what was happening. In the depths if his mind, he was already tying the sensation he felt and images he saw to the grey, seeing as how both shared the same perverse warmth and security in their very existence.

Any magic Robin may have been holding during his fall dissipated, and with the abandonment of the security his spells offered, Robin felt more at ease than ever before. He fell to the last short distance above the ground in total silence, his eyes closed and body relaxed.

Nah angled her body downward as she fell, her arms pointing down in front of her face as her legs pointed skyward. She transformed once more at the final stages of her descent, barely having enough time for her stone to take effect to save herself from impact. Her wings pumped and her body curved in a partially successful bid to maintain some of her momentum as she turned to fly over the ground, her lower legs and tail tearing up small tracts of dirt as her body dipped lower than she had anticipated.

Initially, her plan had merely been to escape from Robin before she expended too much energy and inevitably lost their fight, having already used far more in her attacks than she had intended. However, seeing that Robin had followed her to the main island and would undoubtedly find a way to continue their conflict on the ground, she decided to try once more at ending him before he could do the same.

She crashed into Robin before he could hit the ground, slamming the weight of her body into his torso before managing to grip him in her clawed legs and forcefully pin him against the wall of the Manor. His eyes shot open as soon as she grabbed him, the blunt force of her grab cancelling his fall and redirecting him into the stone of the Manor. The attack bruised his body through the powerful enchantments of his cloak, the silence of the grey in his mind simultaneously disappearing in an instant.

Nah lifted him off of the wall with a flap of her wings, granting him a brief moment of respite before dropping him hard into the ground and pinning him there. Robin gasped in pain from the attack, though her tight hold on him kept him from being able to properly draw in anything but the most insignificant amount of air.

She reared her head back while keeping him pinned, magical flames dancing along the edges of her maw as she prepared another prospective finishing blow. Before she could get her attack off, Robin was already returning to the battle in full, his brief episode of disorientation forgotten. He began charging as much magic as he could while pinned beneath her, though with his tomes remaining sealed away within his cloak. Robin knew that he wouldn't be able properly deal with any magic sent his way - and so he focused solely upon preparing as powerful of dark magic as possible.

As Nah brought the full extent of her power down on Robin in the form of another concentrated stream of magical fire, he shot off his dark magic. He didn't need to be accurate with the spell, or even bother aiming it; with his entire body being pinned by her weight he could only direct the spell down into the ground.

A bubble of dark magic exploded over both combatants, meeting Nah's fire in the instant it seared toward Robin's exposed head. The spell was largely too weak to do any lasting damage, especially against Robin's cloak or Nah's resilient scales, but Robin's right arm and Nah's attack both suffered greatly from his casting.

Nah's magical flames negated much of the spell, as Robin had intended. Though Robin had next to no clue what category her magic would fall into, he knew his dark magic would be able to contend with anything she used. Both variations of magic blinked out of existence, warping the environment around Robin and Nah without dealing much damage to either. A wanton vision of the destructive failed portal lingered on the edge of Robin's memory and prevented him from strengthening his spell.

The distortion that resulted from their conflicting magic was more than enough to disorient Nah and have her loosen her grip. Robin immediately took advantage of her stumbling, wrestling his arms free of her grip and pulling his wind tome from his robes before she could bring her weight back down.

With his tome available and his arms gaining control in a battle against Nah's strength, Robin was able to fire off more magic. This time, he conjured a significantly more powerful spell, his wind pushing Nah off of him with a force that would have sent a lighter opponent flying.

Nah skidded several metres across the plain they were now fighting on, kicking up a great amount of loose dirt as she resisted the full effects of Robin's wind magic. She transformed back into her humanoid form without intending to do so, her energy drained after her maneuvering and attacks, requiring her to take a much needed moment of rest.

Robin pushed himself up from where he had been forced to the ground, flexing his right hand experimentally to assess the damage it had sustained from his rampant spells. He found it to be in working order despite the occasional shot of pain, nodding to himself as he used the limb as support against the Manor as he swapped to his thunder tome. Both he and Nah took a moment to collect themselves, with Robin planting himself firmly against the Manor wall as Nah struggled to so much as stand against the waning of her might.

"You're pretty good at this." Robin breathed, flashing her an easy smile before it morphed back to him recovering his breath. "I can see that you've got potential… I mean, not quite as much as someone like Kjelle, considering you don't seem quite as determined to kill me as her, but the feeling's there. Also, you're a dragon. That's cool."

"Why won't you die already!?" Nah shouted to him, her breathing nothing short of ragged.

Robin's smile returned for a brief instant. "It's not my time. Not yet." he forced his grin to fade as he pushed himself from the wall, beginning the small approach toward Nah in order to disarm her and bring their fight to an end.

His foot sank into the earth beneath him, causing him to stop moving immediately and retract his entire leg. He frowned and furrowed his brow as he stepped back against the Manor, the ground at that point being unnaturally firm in a way that gave him more than enough reason to pause.

Somehow, he had failed to notice the discrepancy when Nah had been upon him, though that fact only made his cautious uncertainty grow. He scuffed the sole of his boot across the ground, at the edge of where he gauged the hardness to be present. A faint ethereal glow met his movement.

Robin glanced over to Nah to ensure she wasn't readying any attacks, and when he glanced back the small scuffs he had made on the softer ground had disappeared completely. In the same vein, all of the marks Nah had dug into the ground during her transformed phase of their fight had disappeared.

"There are ley lines here, acting out away from the Manor!" Robin announced, his voice excited for yet fearful of the new discovery.

"How long did those take you to set up?" Nah asked, paying the note of caution in his voice no mind. "I don't know too much about magic outside of what I need, but those lines on the Manor seemed… intense. The way they were working, tearing away and rebuilding walls, and completely shifting around the rooms - you're a real piece of work to have dedicated such power to terrorising a little girl."

Robin blinked, then frowned deeply. "You really think I set this all up? Seriously? This is way more than what I could pull off."

"Oh yeah? Then who did?" Nah asked pointedly.

Robin's clear grimace and failure to form a response did nothing to assuage her suspicions. "I can't exactly tell you who, though I do have some suspicions." he offered weakly. Nah frowned, more unappeased than before. Robin shook his head clear and returned to his original line of thought, his fearfulness returning in tandem. "Doesn't matter! If there are more traps out here like in the Manor, we need to go somewhere else - somewhere out of their area of effect!"

Nah glowered at him and refused to move. "I'm sure you would love that, wouldn't you? Lure me into a tactical position where I'd be defenseless against whatever you have to throw at me… hah, as if I'd fall for something so obvious."

"There's absolutely something here, Nah. Something bad." Robin continued, hoping to convince her despite how unlikely he knee such an outcome to be. "To have more ley lines here, there has to be something else hidden on the island, something in this place in particular that the caster really wanted to be concealed."

"And what, exactly, do you want to keep so well hidden?" Nah asked, glancing to her dragonstone to gauge whether she would capable of transforming again. She frowned as she silently decided that she would need to bide more time.

"I'm not the one who did this!" Robin reiterated, though Nah still gave no indication of believing him. "Come to think of it, though, this magic is pretty impressive. I kind of want to know what's being hidden, too."

Nah took a deep breath, using the action to resolve that she was strong enough to go all out against Robin once again. She raised her dragonstone and began to funnel magic into it, the weapon glowing briefly in response.

Robin narrowed his eyes on the weapon and launched in her direction, firing a nosferatu spell at it before he even reached Nah. The spell drained some of the energy she had fed the stone, catching Nah by surprise and forcing her to transmit more energy in order to activate it. Robin flew up to her and grabbed the stone before she could finalise her transformation.

He placed his left hand over the dragonstone and directed his right back at the Manor's ley lines, hoping to kill two birds with a single stone by using Nah's magic to destroy the hidden lines. Nah ripped her hands away from the stone as he drained its magic, her energy sapped rapidly from her careless exchange.

Robin continued to drain the stone of its energy when she had let go. His face became bathed in an eerie green light that combated the soft yellowish golds of the afternoon sun, all of his surroundings growing to be glossed by the same shine as he overcharged his magic to an unnecessary degree. The dragonstone fractured in his grip, the magic within draining too quickly for it to maintain its shape.

As Robin charged his spell to the point that his arm began to ache, the stone shattered completely. He fired his spell off at the ley line at the edge of the Manor several seconds later, when his cast had grown all the fiercer and Nah's expression had become dismayed at the loss of her only weapon. The hidden ley line exploded in a brilliant shower of colour. Robin stared at where the edge of the Manor for a moment with a contented expression on his face before turning back to a horrified Nah.

"Well, there goes the ley line." he said, Nah's expression failing to shift away from complete dismay. "Whatever's hidden, we'll probably find out soon."

As if on cue, the ground beneath their feet shifted, tumbling over itself in churning clumps. Both Robin and Nah stumbled as they tried to remain upright, the earth below them mixing at a greater rate as if to oppose their movement, with more uneven clumps of dirt spraying upward every second.

"I really shouldn't have done that, huh?" Robin asked rhetorically, not expecting or receiving an answer from Nah.

A patch of dirt gave way next to Robin, exposing a writhing mass of discoloured ashen purple. Robin's eyes widened as he slowly began to recognise the mess of rotted flesh. More clumps of earth tumbled away to reveal additional sunken limbs worming their way aboveground.

Nah noticed the same matter an instant after him, when a patch of ground next to her gave way, revealing the same mess of bodies lying breath the surface of the island. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands, her survival instincts activating at the last minute to remind her to fear the risen.

Limbs began to shoot up to the surface as undead scrambling through the ground and over one another. Robin backed away toward the relative safety of the Manor, the risen that were first to push themselves upward favouring tracking him mindlessly rather than pay any attention to the immobile Nah. Ground stretching as far as Robin could see, from the distant coast of the island and the nearby corners of the Manor, continued to shift around as more risen moved about underneath.

"We need to move!" Robin hissed at Nah, as though the few risen that hadn't seen him wouldn't be able to hear.

Nah gave no verbal response, not bothering to nod as she slowly began creeping sideways, away from both Robin and the primary amount of emerging risen. Whereas Robin couldn't see to where the risen's reach extended, Nah could determine that the barren town at the end of her vision would be safe. The mass grave of risen seemingly only encompassed the whole rear of the island - the few square kilometers that sat behind the Manor.

Robin hurriedly drew his thunder tome as the first of the scrambling risen neared him. He fired off a rapidly charged thunder spell into its chest. The risen deteriorated instantly despite the weakness of his cast. Several more followed the example set by their fellow, swiftly proving that the risen on the island protected by the ley lines had in no way been subject to the rapid evolution and hardening of their exposed counterparts. Robin took off in the same direction as Nah after felling several more undead, hoping that she had somehow devised a strategy to handle the seemingly endless horde emerging from underground.

More risen tore upward as they moved, honing in on Robin's nastier movements over those of Nah. A few still targeted the Manakete, and where Robin was easily able to fire a few quick spells and save himself from any rampant attacks, Nah was left defenseless. Several undead hands clawed at her lower legs, forcing her to stumble and scramble away from wherever more deadly obstacles continued to appear.

The risen began to focus on Nah with the same ferocity with which they had targeted Robin. New sets of arms sprouted from the dirt as more risen attempted to claw up above ground, tripping her. She kicked backward to free her ankle from where one had grabbed hold of her, successfully yanking her limb free only to have another risen charge into her as she lay on the ground.

Nah raised her arms against the risen's slashing, malformed hands, its bone ripping through its own skin for the chance to harm her. Without her dragonstone Nah was left defenseless, and so had to endure the risen's attacks until such a time as she could expel them from her personal space.

Thankfully, before the risen could deal any significant damage to her unarmoured body, Robin annihilated it with a beam of thunder magic. The risen turned to ash immediately, freeing Nah and enabling her to stand with little opposition. She refused to show Robin any form of thanks, instead dedicating all of her effort into darting away from the ever growing pool of risen.

Robin stumbled as more ground gave way to the swarm, but unlike Nah managed to retain his footing as he slipped about. He charged and fired a thoron shot down into the shifting ground, hoping to eliminate a large amount of the risen quickly in order to offset their number and buy him and Nah more time to maneuver.

The shot tore through the ground and several risen with ease. Purple ashes spewed upward as his magic raced deeper and deeper into the earth. Each risen was too weak and lacked the resilience to so much as dampen his spell, and so it continued ever downward. Robin was of half a mind to pause in horror when the telltale sound of the spell crashing against something solid failed to meet his ears.

After over a full second of waiting for the shot to stop on something, he could faintly hear it crash into the lowest depths of the risen pool against the growing wails of the undead. He blinked, a small sinkhole appearing where he had annihilated so many risen before more of their near countless number streamed into the empty space and caused it to surge. To test his newfound concerns about the depth of the grave, he fired another shot, this one verifying the same result as the first.

Robin forced himself to resist shivering in cold fear, and turned back to the Manor and fired off a thoron shot at its roof, ignoring the risen approaching him from all angles. The shot connected with the lip of the roof in a fraction of the time it took to descend through the ground. Robin paled as the several tall stories of the Manor proved drastically shorter than the hole full of untold amounts of flesh was deep.

He shook his fear out of his head and ran after Nah as the risen continued to claw upward. Progressively more undead were worming their way out from underground, unleashing inhuman screams as their world narrowed onto their new prey and they took chase. In the opposite direction of Nah and Robin, risen were merely strolling out of the ground as they gained their bearings.

Nah skidded to a halt on the now horribly uneven ground as more risen poured upward, clawing through other risen to get a chance at harming their targets. Her eyes darted around the clearing she was in, looking for some means of escaping to safety, but found only the nearby Manor, the distant shores of the Isle, and Robin. She cursed beneath her breath and continued on the path she had chosen, darting past several risen as she attempted to reach anywhere other than her current location.

One of the early risen drove their hand into her shoulder as she attempted to pass them, eliciting a scream of pain. Several more clawed at the Manakete as she was forced to a premature stop. Robin cleared away many of the risen attacking her with a weak wind spell, leaving Nah to handle her greater attacker as he redirected his attention and spells back to the constant flow of emergent undead. Nah tugged the risen's talons out of her shoulder, refusing to express anything more than a sharp wince as blood streamed down her arm and chest.

The risen wailed and swung its other arm at her, this time missing when Nah had the sense to back out of its range. She charged when it staggered through its miss, barreling past it and onward toward the town. Robin, too, dashed past the risen, boosting himself along with his wind magic to catch up to Nah, who looked in no way pleased by his presence.

Nevertheless, they continued to run in tandem away from the constant flow of risen, with Robin occasionally firing more magic at any that pursued too well.

* * *

The sound of cracking stone forced Kjelle's attention skyward, up to the roof of the Manor and away from her wounds. Anthep and Lenhum joined her in looking for the source of the invasive sound, with even Raeshe tilting his head by a few degrees before wincing in intense pain.

"What the hell was-?" Anthep began, cutting himself off and dropping his jaw when he caught sight of a dazzlingly pink dragon that began flying away from the Manor rooftop.

"Nah!" Kjelle shouted excitedly, as though her friend would be able to hear her from such a distance. She attempted to take a step toward the Manor, knowing that Nah would likely require help or be in the midst of fighting Robin if she had transformed, but faltered when it came time to shift weight around on her legs and was forced to an awkwardly weak kneel.

"Whoa, whoa, you aren't ready to move anywhere yet." Lenhum advised, being the first to tear his attention away from Nah in order to rush to Kjelle's side, leaving Raeshe to his own failing devices. "Take it easy. We need to get back to the ship, and get more potions to heal you three. We can get help for your friend after that, okay?"

"Not okay." Kjelle said, shaking her head in a small, surprisingly painful arc. "If she's already fighting someone, or something, then I want to help her. She may not need it, knowing her, but I still want to be there just in case. Besides, there's a high chance she's fighting Robin without realising, um… quite what that entails?"

Kjelle continued to watch Nah as she transformed midair, her eyes widening as the manakete began to plummet downward. "Something's wrong! We need to go help her!"

Anthep lowered his head from its position craned skyward and nodded. He moved away from Kjelle, approaching Raeshe and kneeling to help him up in the direction of the Manor. Raeshe failed to move at any of his prodding, causing Anthep to grow concerned as he took to shaking Raeshe's shoulders as a means of rousing him.

"Raeshe? Son?" Anthep said, continuing to shake Raeshe's shoulder despite the lack of a response. "He's not responding! Oh, gods, Raeshe…"

The faint sounds of more fighting, of heavy crashes and spells casted, sounded at ground level around the side of the Manor. Kjelle attempted to move herself forward yet again, this time having both the malformations of her armour and Lenhum's grip on her arm holding her back.

"There's fighting. We need to put an end to it, one way or another." Kjelle said, her legs straining against her words.

Lenhum swallowed dryly, looking over to where Anthep was still futilely shaking his son's shoulder and then to the corner of the Manor that would need to be moved around to catch sight of the supposed fighting. He began to shuffle toward that corner of the Manor, pulling a grateful Kjelle along with him at an addled pace.

"We're going on ahead to look at the fight." he announced as he left Anthep and Raeshe, neither member of his crew paying him or Kjelle any mind. "Run Raeshe back to the ship as fast as you can, and heal him. He's not gone yet - there's no way!"

Anthep gave him no words of acknowledgement, but scooped Raeshe up in his arms as though he were weightless. He gave a quick nod to Lenhum, finally acknowledging his presence, and dashed off toward the town behind them in the general direction of where they had landed the Ship of Lost Souls.

Together, Kjelle and Lenhum stumbled onward, hugging the wall of the Manor nearest them to provide Kjelle with additional support should she so need it. She collapsed once they had neared the corner of wall separating them from the now eerily quiet fight, the jagged mess of metal that was the armour of her lower legs clawing at her flesh with intensity to rival an enraged risen.

Kjelle waved Lenhum ahead toward the fight as she slid down the Manor wall, knowing that she wouldn't be capable of aiding anyone in her current predicament. She extended her legs, wincing when doing so caused her armour to dig further into her calves, before forcefully ripping off all of the metal plating from her knees down. The light clothes she wore underneath her armour were stained red by the damage she had sustained, and were torn in several areas, but fortunately had remained more or less intact throughout her ordeal.

The unforgettable guttural scream of a risen tore Kjelle's attention away from herself and over to where Lenhum was tentatively leaning his head around the corner of the Manor wall. Though she couldn't see his expression from where she was sitting, Kjelle could determine that he had paled since she had last looked in his direction.

Lenhum whipped over to her, the fear in his face confirming what she had been able to guess since sitting down. "Robin, and some girl - that friend of yours, I guess - they're fighting the undead!" he informed Kjelle. "There's so many… gods…!"

"We need to go help them, then." Kjelle grunted, using the Manor as a support to rise to an unsteady stand. The removal of the armour on her lower legs was already proving beneficial to her mobility, though she couldn't help but worry over fighting without full armour - not to mention the emotional turmoil she experienced in leaving the damaged remnant of her mother in such a disgraceful manner, destroyed beyond repair.

Lenhum shook his head as he backed away from the corner of the wall. "We're leaving, and that's that. Hell, they're running, too, away from us… there's so many!"

"Then we should help them clean up the last few." Kjelle persisted, shuffling along the wall as feeling gradually returned to her lower legs, and with it another course of sharp pains.

Her jaw dropped as she turned the corner, her face paling in much the same manner as Lenhum's. A constant stream of risen was appearing from below the expanse of land behind the Manor by effortlessly tearing their way up through the dirt. The flow of undead showed no signs of slowing even as their visible number climbed well into the hundreds.

The emerging risen spotted Kjelle immediately, sounding a chorus of wails that identified her and Lenhum to all of those that hadn't already focused on Robin and Nah. A wave of weakness overtook Kjelle's legs, numbing her pain and preventing her from running as she gaped in horror at the sheer mass of undead.

Kjelle prided herself on being powerful, fearless, determined - everything she could perceive as being the finest traits of humanity. In the face of so many risen, however, she felt nothing short of powerless, indecisive, and worst of all, afraid. She had seen risen hordes before, ones that could have rivalled the size of that before her, but she had never expected to see one in the past.

She had wished, above almost anything, to never have to see one again.

Now she was face to face with the horrors of her time once again, and it paralysed her. She was forced to see what made so many strong people fall - what had made her lose her own strength, and more than anything, she saw the reminder that when her chance to prove everything on which she had prided herself in her time had come, she had acted as the most despicable coward she could have imagine. She had run away from the horror, but now, the horror had truly come for her.

"Let's go, now!" Lenhum shouted, grabbing Kjelle's arm and pulling her into a run in which her legs refused to cooperate.

Kjelle stumbled after him, regaining control of her body once she had turned away from the risen and convinced herself that her eyes had been mistaken. The risen wailed ever louder as they pursued them, but she convinced herself that her ears, too, were deceiving her.

Her legs screamed against movement in both fear and pain regardless of what she did. Lenhum was able to run quickly, but insisted on pulling her with him as he fled.

Some of the faster, more intrepid risen gained on them, sprinting ahead of their pack. None of the risen carried weapons, though that fact did nothing to assuage the fear in Kjelle's heart. After all, a risen needed no weapon to be a threat. Their being was conditioned to kill and nothing more.

Kjelle pointed her arm back toward the pursuing risen as they neared her, choking down her fear to little success but nevertheless remaining in control of her body. She pulled out her fire tome and began shooting weak fireballs at the nearest of the risen. After a few direct shots that the risen didn't bother to attempt dodging or blocking, it crumbled away into ashes. A small horde more swiftly took its place without any care for their fallen member.

Kjelle cursed and placed away her tome, its use deigned inefficient against so great a number of rapidly approaching foes. Lenhum had never stopped pulling at her arm despite the nearly full stop she had used to cast her magic, and she joined him again in running from the risen.

Together, they bypassed the small fence that enclosed the Manor, cutting through the ruins of the ejected room in the direction of the town. The risen pursued them as swiftly as before, having gained ground when Kjelle had slowed to attack. A tidal wave of sound crashed around Kjelle and Lenhum as the risen's screams grew all the more intense.

Several of the undead caught up with Kjelle and Lenhum as they passed the destroyed room. One leapt out and tackled Kjelle from behind, knocking her to the ground as it instantly began to tear its fetid claws into the armour on her back. Many of its hits failed to do any serious damage, either glancing around or being blocked entirely by the protective metal, though its attacks only grew more vicious as a result.

Kjelle struggled to move with the risen's weight atop her, but managed to flip them off of her in short order. Lenhum ran it through with his sword before Kjelle could ready her lance, ending it in a single strike. Kjelle took the opportunity to push herself up off the ground before any more risen could slam into her.

Another risen tackled Lenhum as he turned to run again, knocking him to the ground. He fared worse than Kjelle, sustaining multiple long strikes to the back before she could reach him, by which point his light shirt had already been shredded into uselessness. Kjelle stabbed her lance through the risen's head, annihilating it in an instant and reminding her once again how pathetically weak her magic was in comparison to her usual weaponry.

She helped Lenhum up as more risen charged after them. Lenhum swiped at one that leapt at him, killing it before it could contact him and causing himself to be coated in fading purple ashes. He coughed through the smoke, choking on the dissipating vapour left in the wake of the risen, leaving himself open as he mass of death continued their unending pursuit.

Kjelle killed two of the faster risen as they neared Lenhum, running them through with her lance before shifting over to use its enchanted properties. She covered for Lenhum as he recuperated from the wave of ashes, firing off a series of flame effigies that proved far more powerful than her spellcasting, each one felling or staggering a risen on contact.

Lenhum coughed away the few remaining ashes on his person before they could dissipate completely. He raised his sword in time to barely catch the swing of a risen that had bypassed Kjelle, blocking its attack and countering with his own, killing his foe.

Kjelle backed away from the growing onslaught, and seeing that Lenhum had recovered, began running toward the town once more. She was still slower than Lenhum, her legs aching in pain as they struggled to respond to her commands, having not yet fully healed. The risen caught up to her again in a heartbeat, though she managed to spin around and slam one to the ground with her lance before it could damage her.

More risen swept over the ashes of the one she had killed, causing her to block their attacks with the length of her lance and stumble backward. The undead attempted to rip her weapon from her grip, but failed, and Kjelle pried their hands away before shooting them with more fire lances. Her breathing accelerated as more risen instantly poured into the space she had opened, acting as an immovable wall she could no longer see past.

"They're weak, but don't bother fighting! Run!" Lenhum shouted, grabbing Kjelle's shoulder and spinning her around before taking off himself. He continued to pull at her as he ran, her slowness persisting. The risen continued to swarm forward as they ran.

The duo miraculously managed to reach the edge of the town without any more of the undead assaulting them. They couldn't stop running when they had reached the initial buildings, the unending screams behind them informing them of how far the risen horde had run.

Kjelle's legs never stopped hurting, but she moved through the pain knowing that it would undeniably be less awful than being left to the risen. She and Lenhum charged their way through the first door they found, forcing themselves into a small civilian home as an increasing amount of risen lunged futilely after them. Kjelle entered behind Lenhum and held the door closed behind her, the risen battering themselves against it and shaking the aged wall of the house.

"This isn't going to hold!" Kjelle shouted to Lenhum, who was frantically pacing with his hands on his head, silently searching for a way to overcome the horde. "We need a plan! Is there anywhere we can go from here!?"

"U-Um…" Lenhum stuttered, the lack of confidence in his voice doing nothing to assuage Kjelle's steadily building fear. "Yeah! There should be some windows on the upper floor, ones we can use to access the roof. We can jump to a different building and try to lose these things!"

"We won't be able to!" Kjelle shouted in return, a powerful ram from some risen pushing her away from the door for a fraction of a second before she was able to return and hold it in place again. "We need to find some way to-!"

She was cut off when a risen tore the door away and heaved it back in the direction of its fellows, its claws decimating the rusted hinges that held the weak wood in place. Kjelle stumbled when the support she had been leaning against disappeared, but she successfully regained her footing and dashed away from the opening before she could sustain any attacks.

Lenhum didn't bother to glance at the open doorway before he darted into a new room. Kjelle followed behind him, with the risen in equally close pursuit. Lenhum maneuvered through the house as though it had been his own, his familiarity with the island and its architecture allowing him to run directly to the worn down stairway that led to the second floor.

Kjelle and the risen struggled to follow his nearly effortless movements, though thankfully the risen pushed themselves into far more walls, hastily closed doors, and sharp corners than the time traveller. She reached the stairway an instant after Lenhum and a few seconds before the first of the risen, pounding awkwardly up every step as her legs burned against each rise and fall.

The first of the risen reached the staircase as she neared its top. It failed to ascend the steps properly, its shins ramming into the first stair, causing it to fall onto its face over the higher steps. The other risen flowed over it and themselves, rolling and tearing through one another in a disorderly wave of rotted flesh, each one reaching for their prey before more of their own overtook them.

Lenhum advanced into a room on the upper floor after ensuring that Kjelle hadn't fallen to the horde, opening the door to the new room and waiting for her to run inside before slamming and locking it shut. Within seconds the risen were ramming their bodies into it, though by that time Lenhum and Kjelle had already moved to the far side of the room, where a large window promised them an escape to a new building. Lenhum broke through the thin glass of the window with the hilt of his sword as Kjelle waited anxiously for him to finish.

Lenhum backed away from the window as he shattered the last of its glass, his forearm cut in dozens of places where tiny flechettes of glass had caved inward. He nodded to Kjelle in a silent urging for her to go first. The sounds of the risen had dulled, though the thuds of their bodies colliding with the wall remained present nonetheless.

Kjelle opened her mouth to argue going first, but choked on her own fear prior to forming any words. She shook her head and hastily approached the broken window, wiping away the last shards of glass that lined the bottom with her gauntlets and raising her feet painfully onto the windowsill itself. In front of her stood another house much like the one they had entered, but with a noticeably lower and heavily slanted roof. Below her, risen swarmed the alleys and streets of the small town, many having lost track of her and Lenhum but having expanded away from the hole to which they had been confined.

"Jump already!" Lenhum urged, desperation lining his voice. "I'll follow you through as soon as you do, so go! We can't stay here long!"

As if it had heard him speak, a risen jammed its claws through the door, ensnaring the small locking mechanism above the doorknob in its grip. Lenhum yelped and backed away from the door, the sudden, precise action having caught him by surprise. He shakily drew his sword up to fight off any risen that forced their way through the door, shooting Kjelle another impatient and fearful glance as she froze in the window.

The risen tore its hand back out of the door, taking the majority of the lock as it went. Lenhum tensed in anticipation of the wave of bodies that would undoubtedly follow. Kjelle remained frozen in place as she stared at the door in absolute fear, her heart racing too fast for her to think or breathe properly.

Any sounds of the risen slamming into the wall stopped entirely. The door creaked open slightly before something outside the room pulled it shut again, the death throes of several risen entering the room for the moment it was open alongside a wave of purple ashes.

Lenhum furrowed his brow, his fear temporarily being replaced with confusion. Kjelle remained rooted in her terror, the sounds of the risen assaulting the room echoing in her mind even as the actual noise faded out.

The door flew open faster than either Lenhum or the unresponsive Kjelle could predict. A risen slid into the room, one hand planted firmly on the external doorknob with the other trailing purple ashes as it sliced through the throats and heads of several more of its own kind. It pulled its arms toward itself as it entered the room, whisking the door shut behind it and bracing the frame with its back as more risen returned to assaulting the room.

Lenhum kept the wavering tip of his sword trained on the risen, but refrained from outright attacking it until it decided to do the same. It took Kjelle a full second to process that the risen had entered the room.

The risen slowly switched its hollow gaze between Lenhum and Kjelle, refusing to show any emotion on its revived face. Purple ashes leaked from its mouth as though it and intended to speak. Other risen continued to attack the door, failing to bypass the strength added to its reinforcement by one of their own.

"Go, Kjelle." Lenhum ordered shakily. He kept his sword trained on the risen, but walked over to the window to follow her out, utterly perplexed by the undead's behaviour.

Kjelle blinked, failing to understand what had happened and whether or not there was truly a risen in the room with her. Nevertheless, she turned back out the window toward the next building, preparing to jump while shoving her fear to the back of her mind.

She took a deep breath in a final effort to still her hyperactive nerves, failing but following through with her leap anyway. Her arms put in as much toward her movement as her legs, all of her limbs cooperating to propel herself over the small gap between buildings.

In spite of the strength she knew she possessed, Kjelle failed to land flat on the roof of the second building. Her upper body reached onto the small lip that lined the edge of the slanted roof, her abdomen colliding with the lip itself, her legs being left to dangle downward as she squirmed to gain some form of footing. Beneath her, the risen took note of her floundering movements and started to swarm at the edge of her building.

Kjelle attempted to pull herself onto the roof with her upper body, gripping the frail, worn shingles that lined the structure's surface. Thankfully, her arms proved more willing to cooperate than her wounded legs.

Her grip slipped alongside the shingles, her body sliding down the roof against her will. She managed to grab hold of the tiny edge lining the roof with one hand, preventing her from falling completely but leaving every other part of her body to flail about in the space above the alley. The risen swarmed beneath her with more ferocity at the prospect of her falling, pushing each other into walls and to the ground, slowly building a mound of their own bodies that built up toward her legs. Whenever one drew close to grabbing her, it was torn down by one of its equally eager fellows

Lenhum cursed as he watched her struggle, the risen piling higher and higher to meet her. He put away his sword and ran up to the window, moving to climb through it and make the jump to the roof she had failed, then help her up away from the swarm of risen. The single risen in the room watched him intently all the while.

Kjelle wasted no time in lifting herself up, swinging her free arm up to the edge of the roof beside its counterpart and using solely her arms to pull her entire body. She strained the muscles along her arms and core as much as her grip, but slowly succeeded in lifting herself slowly upward at a pace that was mocked by the growing pile of mindless risen beneath her. Within seconds she had returned to having all but her lower body atop the roof, though at the cost of most all of her waning strength.

Lenhum perched in the open window, leaping at the same time as the once-friendly risen darted away from the door it had been protecting. The risen barreled through the window after him, cutting itself carelessly along shards of glass but successfully catching the pirate's ankles with its extended claws. Lenhum shouted in pain as the claws dug into his skin, the risen's added weight pulling against his movement and causing him to collide with Kjelle's back, knocking the air from her lungs and effectively resetting her progress.

Miraculously, Lenhum caught Kjelle's leg as he fell down toward the alley, the risen in turn grabbing a strong hold on his own legs. Kjelle's grip reached its limit as their combined weight pulled at her, her arms extending to the point that her hands could barely maintain their hold on the roof.

The risen removed one of its hands from where it had punctured Lenhum's ankles and raised it up to stab through his thigh on the same leg. Lenhum howled in pain at the action and attempted to kick out at the risen, but finding its grip on his legs to be unbreakable. Between vain attempts from Lenhum at breaking free, the risen removed its other hand from the man's ankle and used it to cleanly tear through the flesh above both of his heels. As Lenhum cried out in pain once again, the risen used that same hand to dig its claws into the thigh of his less damaged leg and cut downward, slicing deep in order to slice through artery and muscle alike.

Lenhum shouted once more in pain, trying and failing again to kick out at the risen as it began to repeat the process with his other leg. "P-Please, pull me up! Kjelle, please!"

Kjelle looked down at Lenhum, still straining to maintain her weak grip on the roof. She was easily able to see the damage the risen had caused to his legs, as well as how the risen had stopped its attacks to stare at her, almost as though it were appraising her next actions. More than that, though, she saw the growing pile of risen in the alley beneath her, many of those near the top having begun to reach for the risen clinging to Lenhum as a means of reaching the pirate and her both.

She wore the fear the risen imparted upon her clearly in her expression, giving Lenhum more reason to be afraid than ever before. Despite how much she had prided herself on being strong and fearless, she was able to see now that when faced with the brutal reality of her time she had been so close to forgetting, she was still inexorably weak.

As much as Kjelle resented what she was about to do, she didn't hate her actions, having already accepted it as necessary for her own survival long ago. Granted, she had and always would despise what she had done to subsist against the onslaught of death that had plagued her world, but in the face of so great an embodiment of fear any action that avoided death was acceptable. She kicked down at Lenhum's head, his eyes widening the second before the sole of her boot contacted his face and broke his grip on her leg.

Lenhum fell into the pile of risen growing beneath him, taking his attached risen as he went and freeing Kjelle of their added weight. Kjelle pulled herself up onto the roof with a renewed vigour, being all too eager to distance herself from what had happened and what she had done. She crept up the roof, moving as silently as she could to avoid having any of the risen notice her, relying on the sound of Lenhum screaming before being abruptly cut off in an all too familiar manner as her cue for when the risen would be intent on locating her again.

Her experience in avoiding the risen payed off, allowing her to ascend to the top of the roof without revealing her location to her distracted horde of foes. She crouched low to the top of the roof as the risen returned to their usual state of searching for prey, choking down her hatred, fear, and the far too vibrant memory of her future.

The risen that had attacked Lenhum lay unmoving in the alley as its fellows annihilated the pirate's body, staring at the spot where Kjelle had disappeared onto the roof. Its torn torso slowly leaked away all of the dark miasma that allowed its undead life to persist. It smiled before sighing into nothing.

Several risen froze in place, then turned to ash within seconds until one held in place resolutely. Most of the common risen were weak and unstable, but their use and expense was necessary to aid the Shepherds and drain what little energy remained in the Isle's undead conglomerate. The new risen raised a hand in front of its face and nodded, then began making its way through the horde and toward the edge of the town.

* * *

Robin and Nah sprinted toward the entrance to the Manor, at least two dozen risen in close pursuit behind them. Anna stood by the doorway that would lead inside the massive building, a tricorne hat planted firmly on her head and a neutral expression belying the array of emotions playing out in her mind. The merchant raised her head toward Robin and Nah as she heard them approach, her eyes brightening for an instant upon seeing them before widening greatly at the sight of the risen behind them.

She joined them as they ran, falling into the same sprint as them both that allowed her to outpace the risen by a thin margin. "What did you do!?" she shouted to Robin as they ran, making the mistake of glancing back to their risen pursuers for a split second and finding herself instinctively running faster.

"Why do you think it was me!?" Robin shouted back, his breaths significantly shorter than hers.

Anna didn't need to say anything or look at him to convey her expression, the notion that anyone else could have conceivably brought out the risen being absurd at best.

"...Okay, so, I might've broken a magic ley line that was keeping them in some kind of mass grave and let them all loose." Robin explained quickly as he continued running, not daring to look behind him.

Again, Anna didn't need to give him a reply. Nah too said nothing as they ran, her occasional glances failing to convey the urgency of her situation to the impassive merchant. The trio neared the outskirts of the town almost at once and skidded to a halt in equal measure.

Risen swarmed over the entirety of the island that they could see, extending far beyond the town and over the plain that reached beyond the Manor. More undead were constantly herding away from their disturbed grave toward the rest of the Isle, primarily its town, with incredibly few having followed Robin and Nah. Those that had followed them continued their chase, though Robin, Nah, and Anna all failed to notice them in the face of so great a number more.

"How are there so many?" Anna breathed, her eyes instinctively widening at the sheer number of bodies. "This… this has to be hundreds of times more than what the island could normally hold. How did they all…?"

"So many people have been 'disappearing' all over Ferox…" Robin muttered, his left hand finding its way to his chin despite the tome it held. "If she somehow transported them all to this island, and stored them here… but why?"

"'She'?" Anna asked, startling him out of his doldrums. She kept her voice low, as though she were afraid of alerting the horde of risen ravaging the Isle, though she knew her noise would have been easily drowned out by the pursuing risen seconds behind them.

"It's nothing, really. Forget I said anything." Robin dismissed with a stronger tone than he thought he would be able to form. He then spun around to the risen behind them, his hands glowing in the preliminary stages of a spell. "We can't head into the village. So, we need to fight these risen, and try to find some way to endure whatever's happening."

Anna spun around at his words, the risen almost upon her as she drew her levin sword. "Alright, then. Let's do this, I guess. Then you can make a plan to get us out of here ."

"Yeah, that's the spirit." Robin said dryly. He shot his spell off into the first few risen, annihilating several of them with a powerful gust of wind before rapidly swapping to his more acclimated thunder tome.

Not wanting to give the risen any ground on their position, Anna began to fire off bolts of magic in the wake of Robin's spell. She killed three more risen before her arm was yanked aside by the girl Robin had appeared with, giving the remaining risen a stable window in which they could advance.

"Lady Anna, you need to kill Robin - now!" Nah hissed, afraid that the grandmaster would overhear her. "I don't know what he's done here, but he is… or, I don't know, he'll become Grima, the fell dragon! He needs to be stopped!"

Anna smiled and patted the girl harmlessly on her head. "Nice to meet you, too. Nah, right?" she turned back toward the risen without waiting for a response, the girl before her obviously holding the traits she could only describe as being Manakete in nature.

One of the risen leapt at Anna as she turned back toward the onslaught. She managed to sidestep it easily, sending it flying past a bewildered and confused Nah. Anna sliced into its side as it passed, reducing it to ashes as it collapsed to the ground.

Robin cleaved through the remaining risen with a series of thunder spells, killing almost all of them without pressing need for aid from Anna or the unarmed Nah. "You know, in hindsight, these risen really aren't that strong. We probably should've done that way sooner."

His eyes widened in a fraction of a second and he spun to face toward the town again. "Wait, we didn't pass Kjelle on the way here, and she's not with you… that means…" he covered his mouth with one hand and his forehead with another, lurching in place.

"She's out in the horde somewhere?" Anna finished for him, doing nothing to better his state.

"She… she might still be alive." Robin suggested shakily yet with an irrevocable hope. "We need to go out and find her, try to see if she's found somewhere safe. We need to help her."

"Didn't you just say that we can't go to the town?" Anna asked in a deadpan voice, almost wincing at how cold she sounded to herself. "Come on, Robin, this is Kjelle." she added a moment later in an effort to atone, as much for her own sake as the grandmaster's. "She'll probably be fine. Definitely. It's Anthep, Raeshe, and Lenhum I'm more worried about."

"Is Kjelle actually here?" Nah asked quietly, hugging close to Anna's side far from Robin. Anna nodded and smiled to her, doing her best to assuage the time traveller's apparent fears.

"What happened to the sorcerer? Where are they now?" Robin asked Anna, ignoring Nah for the time being to focus on any ray of hope pissible.

"He died, but Steth was killed in the process." Anna said gravely, her voice conveying a gravity not often found in her array of smiles. "They used some weird magic, too. I've never seen anything like it before."

Robin cursed loudly, his hands lifting to run through his hair as he took to pacing in a short line. "Okay, okay… we can still find a way out of this without them. Um… we need to make a bottleneck, where we can lure the risen and kill them off in manageable numbers. We may have to kill every single one on the island if we alert them all, but that's also the best way to make sure Kjelle's okay."

Nah furrowed her brow, Robin's plan being extremely dangerous and doing nothing to dispel the suspicion, fear, and hatred in her heart. At the same time, though, his distress over Kjelle appeared to be wholly genuine, to the degree that Nah found herself as concerned by it as she was by his true sinister motivations.

"And where do you propose we could do something like that?" Anna asked, frowning as she overlooked the horde that had thankfully yet to notice them. "Maybe the Manor again, but I don't really want to go into that deathtrap again."

"No, we need to try to find Kjelle - and the others, of course - as soon as we can." Robin said. "If her legs are still damaged, we need to get to her as soon as possible. She can't hold out forever, regardless of how strong she is."

The swarm of risen continued to expand as they spoke, more of their number pushing out of the mass grave and forcing those that had already left further along the island through their sheer need for space. Several risen slowly began to notice the three people standing on the path to the town, and began to advance on them when they had resolved the figures to not be of their own kind.

One risen in particular took note of where the other risen were running, and took to sprinting far harder than their body would ever naturally allow in their undead state. It neared Robin, Nah, and Anna faster than the other risen, raising its hands above its head in the crude yet peaceful shape of a heart as it ran.

"Ah, great, more are coming." Anna grumbled, brandishing her sword for another bout of combat. "If you're making a plan, Robin, I suggest you make it fast - I don't want to have to face all of these risen in the middle of an open road."

Robin's eyes widened and his expression brightened as he noticed the approaching risen. "Wait, Anna! Don't attack them, they're a friend."

"A 'friend'? You're friends with a risen?" Nah asked incredulously, her words still aimed at Anna over Robin. "He's blatantly evil! How can you not see that!?"

"People say that I'm like that too, sometimes." Anna shrugged. "I'll give Robin the benefit of the doubt for now. He hasn't killed me yet."

"He will." Nah whispered, her voice more hoarse than she had intended. "He already has, once."

"Things are pretty different between now and what you knew from your future." Robin said as he innocently waved to the risen. "You should probably go over everything with Kjelle if- er, when we find her. She knows… well, not everything, but a fair amount."

The risen neared Robin before any of the others, stopping a purposefully respectful distance from him. It watched him through its empty features, though its eyes notably held a spark that could have only been due to the voice's influence.

"Hey there." Robin greeted the risen with a calm smile. "Are you here to help us?"

The risen nodded silently and turned back toward where the other undead were nearing them. It barely opened its mouth, allowing a noise to grate out of its throat in a low rumble. "It says… it's sorry about… the sorcerer. It would have been… a greater help… but the risen… are too easily… pushed too far."

"Eh, it's okay." Robin shrugged, nonchalantly preparing his magic to fend off the growing number of risen nearing them, any concerns he may have held being mitigated by the presence of the voice. "Hey, do you know what happened to Kjelle? I was hoping she's okay…" he mumbled, not entirely certain of why he was now so indecisive.

"It says… that Kjelle is safe." the risen relayed, a massive weight instantly lifting from Robin's shoulders. It raised one arm to point at the roof Kjelle had accessed. "It says… she's there. Safe for now… but shaken… and not in… the best of ways. It says that you… should talk to her. It's also… sorry about her legs… and the room. It didn't… want, or fully know… what had happened."

"I'll talk to her as soon as I get the chance." Robin smiled, holding back his magic momentarily as he conversed with the risen. "Don't worry too much about the room, either. Kjelle can recover, and I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt her."

"It is… thankful." the risen said. It transferred its full attention over to the nearing risen, brandishing its claws in order to combat their rank. "It says… to let me handle the most of them. You… might draw… more attention."

Robin nodded acknowledgment of the ordnance and allowed the risen to charge at its fellows. It tore through scores of undead as the others foolishly ignored the actions of one of their own. Robin killed any that got too close to him, Nah, or Anna, using weak spells so as to avoid alerting the larger mass of the horde.

Nah gawked at the risen and Robin, her eyes and mouth both open wide. "They can talk!? Like, have a conversation level of talk!? And Robin's their friend, and you still trust him!?" she turned back to Anna.

"For some reason, the changed risen on this island favour the Shepherds." Anna observed, placing her sword away when it became apparent she wouldn't need to bother herself with excessive fighting. "Apparently, there's someone who makes them like that, but I don't know who could do something so extraordinary."

"Grima or Naga." Robin spoke over his shoulder, eavesdropping on their brief conversation. "They're gods, remember? They can do practically anything, including something that requires intense magic like controlling the risen." _As could anyone with the power of a god._ he added silently to himself.

"So Naga is still trying to help us, even after we've arrived in the past?" Nah breathed, amazed once again by the divine dragon's power, before she blinked in confusion. "Wait, how would Naga control the risen? Also, if she was trying to help us, why would she not kill you? This is another terrible attempt at deceiving me, isn't it?"

Robin shrugged. "Take it as you will. That's the best explanation I can offer, but feel free to come up with a better one whenever you please."

Nah glared at him, her suspicions in no way dispelled by his nonchalant attitude. On the other hand, Anna was perfectly contented with the flimsy explanation, much to the Manakete's visible dismay.

Together, Robin and the possessed risen cleared all of those who had taken notice of the two Shepherds and Nah, wiping them into ashes with either claws or magic. Soon, the road they stood on was cleared entirely, though their thinning of the herd had done almost nothing in regard to the true mass of undead awaiting them in the town and around the Manor.

The friendly risen heaved, coughing and leaking purple ashes from various areas it had damaged when pushed too far. Still it stood tall to address Robin, Nah, and Anna, the voice on the other end having sustained no damage during combat.

"It says… that you shouldn't have… destroyed the ley line." the risen said.

Robin groaned in response. "Alright, look. There was something there that I could mess with, so I messed with it. Can you really fault me for that?"

"It says yes."

"That's exactly right, no one can be faulted for curiosity!" Robin continued, ignoring their answer. "Besides, what would you need them for? To hold that many bodies… it must have taken you an absurd amount of time and effort, and I'm sorry, but storing a bunch of risen doesn't seem like a good use of such energy."

Nah gazed at Robin and the risen blankly, then shifted her line of sight over to Anna once more, remaining close to the merchant's side. "Please do something. You don't have to kill him, just give me a weapon and look the other way. Seriously, this needs to be done as soon as possible, before whatever he's doing here gets worse."

Anna stared at Nah with a menacing slyness that rivalled what Nah saw in the Robin of her nightmares. "Okay, so, I know the term kind of has a few negative connotations, but have you ever considered slavery as a career path?"

Nah stared at Anna as blankly as she had looked at Robin and the risen. Part of her almost wished to go to their sides for protection from Anna.

"Hey, that was a joke, that's all! I'm a changed Anna - no more slavery for me! Er, not that I've ever done anything like that before." Anna smiled when she saw Nah's expression, though it was in no way alleviated. "I mean, unless…?"

Nah shook her head in a small arc, wishing now for nothing more than to reconnect with the friends from which she had been separated. Anna concealed what she knew would be an instinctive pout form the Manakete, and resolved to stick with her lighthearted side more often.

"It says… that it needs power." the risen continued to speak with Robin after a long pause, offering an explanation for his query. "It wants… to save everyone… but for everyone to be saved… so many more… need to die."

Robin raised an eyebrow at the risen and its conveyed words. "What are you saving them from?"

"From… everything. Everything… is to be saved… everything… is to be remembered… but everything… is a danger."

"So… you were harvesting the power from all of these risen to help people?" Robin asked.

"No… the risen were living people." the risen said. "It gathered us… from across Ylisse, Plegia, Ferox… stole us away as it pleased… to harvest power as they lived. To drain life. Risen hold less power… than a living being… but at the same time… all power is precious."

"Ah. You're the one causing the disappearances, then." Robin said matter-of-factly, neither displeased nor happy at the revelation.

The risen paused for a second before affirming the claim. "It says yes. It already has… so much power… but it needs… so, so much more."

"I see. I wish I could help you, then." Robin sighed. "Well, you know, preferably without the whole killing thousands upon thousands of people thing. That's kind of… yeah."

"It wants to… reiterate… that it wished things… could have been better." the risen said. "It's glad that… you want to help. It wishes… it could still talk to you… or meet you sooner."

"When can we meet, anyway?" Robin asked casually. "You mentioned it last time we… uh, 'spoke', but you never gave a time or place."

"Follow… the path from Flavia… from the dossiers. At the end… it will meet you… and explain all that it can."

"Alright. I'll look forward to seeing you then." Robin said, his smile growing strained to a negligible degree. "Anyway, do you have any plans for what we can do here? I'm game for exterminating the risen, but if that's not someone you want, I'm perfectly fine with getting Kjelle and leaving."

"That's… not good enough." the voice said via the risen. "The ley lines… are gone. The risen… roam free… unrestrained. Their power… is already so insignificant… compared to what they once were. It wishes to… destroy them all… and harvest the last of their energy."

Robin nodded, accepting the voice's desires. "Any easy way to go about that, or do you want us to kill them all?"

"It can… harvest them from afar." the risen conveyed, then pointed to the roof of the Manor. "If you… can activate the last of the ley lines… with their catalyst… and vacate the island… it will kill the risen… and destroy the final ley line… destroy the Manor."

"Sounds good." Robin said, accepting the plan without any doubts in his mind - he didn't want to ever have to doubt the voice. "What spell is the catalyst for the ley line? I'll go hit it, get back to Kjelle, and get us all out of here."

"Thoron. It says that… it has always preferred thoron… for all of its catalysts."

"Hm… me too." Robin said. "I even use that most often in battle, at least when I'm not using wind magic. I guess great minds think alike, eh?"

The risen said and did nothing, leaving Robin to stand awkwardly and wonder if he had been heard.

"It has… a request." the risen eventually said, ignoring his last statement. "It wants… for everything that it has done, today and always… to be vilified by history. It would like… if you could carry out that desire."

Robin raised an eyebrow at the risen. "You're helping people, though - saving them. What you're doing isn't evil. Why would you ever willingly want to be vilified?"

"It has killed… millions. It will kill… millions more." the risen explained. "It wishes to bring about… greatness… but brings only… pain. It… hurts…" the risen whimpered, its voice for the first time wavering. "It… hurts… me."

"You haven't hurt anyone - hell, maybe you have, but who cares?" Robin argued, surprising himself with how vehemently he was defending the voice to herself. "You're saving everyone! You've said so yourself! I know that whatever happens, it'll be for the best, because you're the one who's done it. So don't hate who you are, or what you've done, okay? For my sake?"

The risen stared at him blankly, and in that instant Robin knew he was no longer seeing the expression of whoever had previously been in control. "It hurts… so frivolously. Please stop it… it hurts… it hurts…!"

"No." Robin adamantly refused, though he knew not if he was intended to answer. "Know that however much pain you inflict, however much you do that you yourself know to be wrong, I'll never hate you. You're remarkable, no matter what you might think. Don't forget that, okay?"

As a final step, Robin curled his hands into the shape of a heart and held them up to the risen.

The risen failed to move again for several seconds, but then began to emit a quiet whimper that devolved into a pained shout. "It hurts… it hurts… it hurts!"

A distinct, hollow grey threatened to gnaw away at Robin's mind. He attempted to smile, but the continuing anguished wails of the risen made it practically impossible to do so, and a grimace soon overtook his features.

Then, the risen suddenly tore its claws through it's own throat, silencing all the noise it had spewed forth. The risen stared at its hand in what could only be shock before it crumbled away into nothing.

After a few moments of stunned silence, a new risen ran up to take the place of its fallen counterpart. This one also had raised its hands into the shape of a heart as it approached Robin.

"It apologises." the new risen said without bothering for reintroduction. "The risen here… are weak. Control over them… is easy to lose. It will heed your advice… and make right… by the world."

Robin smiled at the risen, completely ignoring all that had happened with its deranged predecessor. "Good. I'll go hit the ley line, and you can go do whatever you need to, then." he said, and after a quick nod he launched himself skyward with a burst of wind magic.

Nah watched Robin soar away listlessly, her gaze lingering on the risen once he had departed her field of view. "Did he give Naga a proxy pep talk?"

"May he rest in drunken peace." Anna added, her voice largely snide. Nah furrowed her brow, confused by the statement but unwilling to ask for an explanation.

"Hey, what was that stuff about Naga killing millions of people and planning to kill more?" Anna asked in the following silence, directing the question to both Nah and the now unresponsive risen.

"Maybe she blames herself for all that happened to humanity?" Nah proposed, surprising Anna by giving an authentic answer. "She's lived so long that it wouldn't be much of an assumption for her to blame herself for not helping humanity to a greater degree than she already has."

Nah regarded the risen once more, her face set in a small frown. "Why are you possessing a risen right now, anyway, Naga? Can't you meet us yourself? Or maybe you could talk to one of us telepathically, like how you spoke to Lu- to Marth, before we left?"

The risen stared at her before slowly speaking. "It says that… you're cute."

Nah blinked as she stared at the risen. "Gods, I hope this is a bad nightmare…" she said in a quiet murmur, talking mostly to herself.

The risen paused for a moment, its gaze silently lingering on Nah. A flash of light atop the Manor followed by a lasting, muted prism of colour heralded that Robin had carried out his task, with the grandmaster himself landing back on the path to the town within a few moments. The risen waved to him, Nah, and Anna calmly before lifting a talon to its neck and slitting its own throat. It collapsed into a pile of ashes in front of a perturbed Nah and a relatively nonchalant Robin and Anna.

"Alright, I'm assuming that means we're on a timer here." Robin said. "Anna, can you take Nah to the ship? I'm going to go get Kjelle, and it'll be easier for me to do that if I can fly on my own."

"Got it." Anna complied easily, gesturing for Nah to follow her as she headed for the beach in a path that purposefully wove away from the expanding horde of undead.

Nah temporarily forewent following Anna in order to turn to Robin, the merchant pressing on regardless. "Is Kjelle actually here? Are you actually going to help her?"

Robin nodded as he charged his wind magic. "She's here, and I promise to do everything I can to keep her safe. I'm not about to let her die, after all - she and I still have some dueling to do."

Nah said nothing, frowning to herself as she turned to follow Anna. Robin watched her leave for a second before shrugging to himself and initiating his attempt at flying to the house the voice had indicated as hosting Kjelle.

* * *

Shingles and roofing exploded as Robin crashed into them, his shoulder connecting before any other part of his body as he attempted to brace for the impact. He cursed several times at erratic volumes and tempos as he rose from the small crater he had created, brushing dust from the damaged roofing off of his cloak.

His flight path had by no means been perfect, with wind magic once again proving insanely difficult to control while airborne. He had landed a rooftop away from Kjelle. The risen roaming the alley and streets around his building took note of his landing but failed to do much in the way of reaching his position.

Across from him, on the roof that had been indicated, Robin could distinguish Kjelle's form. She hadn't moved from her spot on the top of the roof in a long while, her roost being out of the line of sight for most if not all of the risen below. Her legs were drawn up to her chest and her enchanted lance gripped was tightly in both of her hands. Despite looking in his direction, Kjelle had as of yet failed to notice Robin's appearance.

Robin neared the edge of his roof, taking care to not slip and fall into the risen awaiting him in the alleyway below. A greater concentration of risen than those that had spread evenly across the island had gathered in the tight alley, milling about and bumping into one another as they shuffled around the awkwardly cramped space. Between movements of the risen, Robin could catch glimpses of a body, one that had been marred so greatly by the risen that he could only assume it had once been human.

He ignored the body in order to gently float over to Kjelle's position. The short cast proved far more successful than his extended flight, as he managed to touch down on the other roof without destroying its surface.

Kjelle blinked as Robin landed, noticing his appearance for the first time. Her expression added an unstable caution to its distance. Somehow, her look perturbed Robin more now than when it had been merely detached.

"Um… Kjelle? Are you okay?" Robin asked, his brow knit close in concern. He approached her but stopped a few paces away from where she sat, uncertain of how to proceed.

Kjelle stared at him, her gaze remaining remote as she slowly shook her head. "I… I was scared. I am scared."

Robin's brow only drew closer together. "What do you mean?"

"The… the horde…" Kjelle muttered, her sight shifting over toward the edge of the roof. "When it came down to facing them, I was afraid. I was a coward. Again…"

"You weren't a coward, Kjelle." Robin reassured her, uncertain of what she was referring to, but resolving that nothing mattered as much as helping her in this moment. "I know you. You're strong, and have never been a coward. Not even when it would have served you well, like all those times you tried to kill me."

"...I killed Lenhum." Kjelle confessed. Robin took small measures to ensure that his expression remained unchanged at the revelation. "We were chased here by the risen, and were trying to climb to the roof. I… I kicked him down into the street to save myself. I was a coward, and I killed him."

Robin couldn't conceal his frown, but did his best to ensure that she wouldn't see it and be able to judge herself further. He closed the distance between them and bent down to one knee, looking at her directly on eye level to better convey himself.

"You're not a coward, Kjelle." he reiterated, though her distant, remorseful expression failed to change. "I released the risen - on an almost-accident, mind you. You were injured, were being chased by hundreds of risen, there was still so much more happening here than any of us could have expected… nobody's death is on you. No matter what, you have to remember that. You'll be able to save people, regardless of what you may tell yourself now. I believe in you, so you should, too."

Kjelle looked over to him, her expression remaining mired in something far too dark for Robin's liking. She gave a short, strained laugh. "That's all easy for you to say. You aren't afraid of the risen. You aren't a coward. When you guided the Shepherds, as you now act to find some murderous stranger's friends scattered around a continent, you've been helping people every step of the way. You're strong enough that you don't have to be afraid, or worry that you might fail, or get people killed. You haven't had to worry about doing the wrong thing."

"I am a coward, Kjelle. I can't face anything, even though I know what's going to happen in the end due to my own stubbornness. Deep down, I know the truth, I know about what I am and what I'll do and what I've done, but I refuse to face it. If I face it, it becomes real. That's the last thing I want. So, as an actual coward, I can tell you that you're the strongest person I've ever met. Fear doesn't make you weak, and it doesn't make you a coward."

"My fear has gotten people killed, Robin." Kjelle argued, her voice shaking. "That's not simply being afraid. I've hurt people because I'm afraid, and that makes me a coward. There's no way around that, around the things I've done. They're reprehensible. They've made me the coward I truly am."

Robin made his frown known to Kjelle. Part of him wished to continue arguing, to futilely attempt to convince her that she wasn't as she believed herself to be, though he could also tell that an argument was in no way what was necessary.

Instead, Robin leaned forward and pulled Kjelle into a hug, draping his arms around her upper back to pull her close to him, his head maneuvering to rest on her shoulder. "I'm glad you're okay. No matter what's happened up to this point, right now, that's what matters most to me."

Kjelle held still when Robin pulled her into the hug, her legs remaining braced in a position that was now awkward between them, but she didn't resist the embrace. After Robin had said his piece, she remained motionless, then shuddered and allowed her head to fall into rest against his. Her shaking only caused Robin to want to hold her closer, to put an end to her fear and insecurity, though he knew she would likely disapprove of his intentions and would reject any aid he offered.

They remained in the hug for several long moments, Kjelle not wishing to break the action and Robin seeking to give her the time she needed. Eventually, Robin pushed away from her minimally, and she removed her head from its place on his shoulder. Robin stood and held out a hand to aid her in doing the same.

"We should get going soon." he said, his face more a mask than hers. "We need to get off the island before too long. Anna and Nah should both be waiting for us by the ship."

Kjelle looked up at Robin, her mouth naturally curving into a faint grin as she mimicked the reassuring smile on his own features. She shifted around to take his hand and used it to pull herself up to a stand. Her darker memories and thoughts faded alongside her dour expression.

"You met Nah?" she asked. "Is she alright? Are you alright?"

"We're both fine." Robin confirmed with a brighter smile. "Well, she's down a dragonstone, but other than that… yeah."

Kjelle's smile grew less certain, but more pleasant. "Good. That's good." she pulled Robin into another abrupt hug, wrapping her arms around his back and holding him awkwardly in place. "Thank you, Robin. For everything."

Robin stood still against her, initially being unsure of how to conduct himself. That feeling only grew when Kjelle didn't immediately let him go. He slowly wrapped his arms around her, and she held him tighter as a result.

For a moment, Robin forgot the timer he was operating on, and merely relaxed into the hug. The muffled sounds of the risen shuffling around the town faded away, and he slowly closed his eyes, the tension in his body leaving him in acceptance of their embrace. Kjelle behaved much the same, her shoulders lowering and stiffened muscles calming.

Together, their breathing calmed and their tensions relaxed. Each enjoying the security and comfort offered by the other. After far more time had passed than either had realised, they simultaneously eased away from one another. Robin retracted his arms and Kjelle swiftly followed suit.

"Um… are your legs alright?" Robin asked sheepishly, uncertain of how to begin speaking.

"Yeah, they're doing fine now, more or less." Kjelle said in much the same manner. "I can probably run if we have to… but, listen Robin, if I freeze up or do something that might put anyone at risk again, if I become afraid again, I want you to-"

"It won't happen." Robin reassured her, causing her expression to become caught between a frown and a smile. "I should be able to fly us over to the ship. Hopefully. So, no need to face the risen, and no need to be afraid, okay?"

Kjelle's smile won out over her frown. "Somehow, when you say that, I think I almost believe you."

Robin reciprocated her smile as he readied his wind tome, preparing for the magic he would need to boost them both over the mob of risen. "That's good. Probably. Anyway, I'm not entirely sure of how we should do this, so… hold on to me, I guess? I'll try not to shake you off while I'm casting my spells, but things are absolutely going to get rough."

"You sure you're not just trying to get another hug?" Kjelle grinned, but draped her arms tightly over his shoulders all he same, locking her hands in place against his back.

"I wouldn't complain." Robin smiled, though he had to combat a blush at his own words. He had deemed the action necessary to help her, and would admit that the hug had been far more welcome than he could ever have anticipated, but the closeness of the entire ordeal made it strangely uncomfortable. Though he couldn't see her, Robin could tell that Kjelle was going through the same thought process and array of emotions in time with him.

"Can you not tell Nah about all of this? Or anyone at all?" Kjelle asked before Robin could fire off his magic. "About me being afraid, or how I really needed that hug."

"I'll promise if you do the same." Robin said, and though he still couldn't see her expression, her acceptance came across when she nodded her confirmation into his shoulder.

"Alright, then." Robin breathed deeply, finally preparing his magic for a certain cast. "Let's try this. Three, two, one, launch!"

* * *

Anna landed on the beach before Nah, jumping the short distance down the small cliffs that bordered the beach holding the Ship of Lost Souls. The risen had thankfully yet to travel to the beach despite their expansive numbers. Nearer the ship were two figures, one lying on the sand of the beach as the other knelt next to them. Anna ignored them in order to watch Nah stumble and slide down the sharp cliff.

Nah hit the ground harder than Anna, falling on her back where Anna had landed on her feet. The young Manakete groaned and rose to a stand, wiping the sand away from her lightly damaged clothing as she waited for Anna to continue taking the lead.

"Should I be apologising for that whole slavery thing?" Anna asked instead, watching Nah intently in hope of a direct answer, though her tone remained in its usual happily carefree nature.

Nah blinked. "Um, probably? To be honest, I'm more concerned with finding my friends and getting away from here, and everything with Robin…" she blinked as she looked past Anna to the ship, catching sight of the two figures in the sand but refusing to move at anything other than Anna's discretion. "Are those… people over there? Pirates?"

"Well, then, sorry for the whole slavery thing." Anna said, ignoring Nah's last statements entirely and coming across as slightly more genuine than her characteristic demeanor would normally allow. "I really do want to be a better- er, well, no… less mean of a person, so… sorry. We're good, right?"

"Can you kill Robin?" Nah asked hopefully. Anna's eyelids fell a short distance, and she looked at Nah in distaste, wordlessly conveying her answer and causing the manakete to sigh. "Yeah, alright, fine. We're good. Happy?"

"You don't know the half of it." Anna beamed, and for a moment Nah felt as though she had actually done something to help the merchant.

Anna turned toward the ship and began to lead Nah in its direction, acknowledging the presence of a wounded Anthep and a collapsed Raeshe without changing her expression. Nah's eyes widened as she took them in, the notion that there were more unanticipated people present being as great a shock to her as the damage they had sustained.

Anthep was leaning over Raeshe's body, his head held low to the younger man's chest. A blossom of blood had worked its way around Raeshe's body, covering practically the entirety of his torso. The wounds Anthep had sustained were solely those he had endured while facing off against Kjelle and the risen he had mistaken for his daughter, though the inevitable scars they would leave were testament enough to their severity.

As Anna and Nah approached, Anthep took note of them. His head whipped up to see them, tears visibly staining his eyes. "I can't get him up the ship, or myself. I-I can't feel his heartbeat… I… I did this…"

"Hm… let me see him." Anna said. She knelt next to Raeshe, with Anthep being in no way eager to separate from his son but allowing her to carry out her examination unopposed. She passively hid Steth's hat behind her back, hoping that the theft would pass by unnoticed.

Anna checked the pirate's pulse in every major artery and vein she could recall, even going so far as to monitor the rate at which blood was seeping from his open wound in the hopes of gauging his condition. Nah silently observed every step of the process for no purpose other than to be close to a familiar Shepherd. Every form of examination proved negative, with even the wound only responding to Anna's gentle input rather than continue bleed all its own.

Anna frowned deeply and stood up. Anthep watched her with more hope than she would like to crush shining in his eyes. As she opened her mouth to deliver the bad news, a dull crash pulled her attention away to the far edge of the beach. She was actively seeking a distraction.

"Gods, how could you call that a landing?" Kjelle groaned, rolling onto her back from where Robin had touched down on the beach. They had hit their sides hard against the soft sand, with Kjelle rolling a small distance as Robin remained in place, their course having strayed dramatically from where Robin had planned to land by the seaside. "I feel like I got sand in all of my armour…"

"I said it would be rough." Robin groaned, his head pounding from the crash. He wiped and coughed as much sand away and out of him as he could, flapping the trails of his cloak despite knowing that the enchanted clothing was able to dispel particulates as well as water or attacks.

"When you say 'rough', I'm thinking a hard landing, not a straight crash." Kjelle said, standing and causing sand to cascade out of her armour. "I think you somehow managed to make something as soft as sand hurt. That's impressive."

Nah's face lit up as she processed the presence of her friend, and she ran over to Kjelle's side without care for how doing so would bring her close to Robin. "Kjelle! You're here!"

"Hm? Nah!" Kjelle turned to see the source of the call, and her expression brightened in the same manner as the Manakete's. "Gods, it's been so long! What happened to you? How did you end up here?"

"Come on, it's only been a few minutes… right?" Nah asked, swiftly coming to doubt her assumption. Robin had claimed that her friends were already scattered across the land, something she had assumed he knew due to some power of Grima, but part of her was beginning to believe his claims against her better judgement.

Kjelle shook her head. "It's been over two years, Nah. Did you only now arrive? Did your version of the portal open on this island?"

"Did yours not?" Nah asked, her eyes widening as she came to accept the reality of her situation. "Oh, no… don't tell me that… that I actually… i-is everyone okay!? I didn't get here too late, did I!?"

"Everything is… complicated." Kjelle said, doing nothing to calm Nah. "Almost everyone is alive, including all of our parents, but some things have also changed pretty drastically. I'll tell you about it all as soon as we get off this island, okay?"

Nah nodded, but still seemed incredibly shaken. "Kjelle, why is Robin here? Why are you here with him? Why isn't he, you know, dead?"

"Like I said, it's complicated." Kjelle said. "For now, let's get to the ship. I don't want to have to stay on this island for any longer than we have to."

Nah hesitated, but accepted Kjelle's desire all the same. They progressed together toward the ship, Kjelle faltering slightly when she saw the state Raeshe was in and that of Anthep over him. She came close to stopping and speaking with them, but knew that such a thing would only lead to her confronting Anthep on his actions, and knew that would in no way be for the best given their current predicament. Besides, Anna had approached Robin while she was meeting with Nah, and the grandmaster could undoubtedly be trusted to handle the matter.

"So, Raeshe is very dead and I don't know how or want to explain that to Anthep." Anna explained in a hushed whisper as she guided Robin toward the body on the edge of the beach. "Think you can handle telling him?"

Before Robin could respond, Anna was smiling brightly and making her way toward the ship ladder. "Awesome, I knew you could do it! Thanks, Robin!"

Robin watched her flee in dismay before ultimately sighing and kneeling down in the sand to examine Raeshe's body for himself. While she had left for the ship, Anna refrained from boarding it in order to survey his actions. Kjelle did the same and Nah followed her lead.

"Is… is he…?" Anthep asked shakily, not daring to finish the statement. Robin examined Raeshe in the same manner as Anna, a frown manifesting and deepening on his face with every passing moment.

He looked up to Anthep with an oddly convincing false smile on his face once he had completed his cursory examination. "He's not doing too well, but I'll probably be able to help him with enough time and supplies. I'll get him up on the ship with some magic and take him into a room where I can look after him, and I can't be disturbed at all while I'm working, okay?"

Anthep latched on to the ray of hope Robin offered, ignoring the confused expression and disbelieving mutters from Anna. "Yes, I understand. Please, help him. I don't want to lose him, too…"

Robin's smile remained present on his face, resoundingly unchanged. He quickly prepared and casted wind magic under Raeshe's body, easily elevating the man onto the ship's deck without any complications.

"That's way easier when I'm not moving." Robin remarked, tracing the arc he had made Raeshe travel in his mind before shrugging. "Alright, I'm going to get to work. We need to get off the island soon, though, so no one can dally. And, uh… this is everyone, now." he waved a hand out toward those gathered by the ship.

"I… I can't move up the ladder…" Anthep murmured, his voice lowered in embarrassment despite having already made the fact known.

"Do you want a boost, too?" Robin offered, more hesitant to move a living person than dead weight.

"Don't worry, I can get him." Kjelle interjected, stepping forward and waving Robin away from the pirate captain. "You can get to work on Raeshe. He looks like he needs it."

Robin raised an eyebrow at her offer, silently doubting that she could outmatch his magic but stepping aside to allow her to try anyway. She easily lifted Anthep in both of her arms, carried him to the side of the boat, shifted him into place over one shoulder without complaint from him, and then began to effortlessly climb the ladder while effectively down a usable arm.

Robin's gawked at how undemanding the task seemed for her. He shook his expression clear and launched himself up to the ship, beating Kjelle to the deck by virtue of his speed but clipping his shins on the rail that guarded the edge, face planting onto the deck as a result. He quickly picked himself up and ensured that his complexion was unharmed before Kjelle could reach the deck and notice his blunder, quietly cursing his misjudging of what he had assumed to be a correct trajectory.

Nah passed Anna and ascended the ship, paying the merchant no mind. Anna stood in thought on the beach for a moment longer, knowing that her examination of Raeshe had been perfectly accurate but not knowing why Robin would lie. Eventually, she too ascended the ladder to the ship, the thought of what Robin may be doing continuing to swim about her mind.

Before Kjelle and Anthep could reach the deck, Robin floated Raeshe's body into an open room, one that he could only assume was the captain's quarters. He blew the door shut and spun back around to greet Kjelle and Anthep as they neared the top of the ladder. Kjelle was still moving as effortlessly as when she had first begun climbing.

She eased Anthep off of her shoulder once they had reached the deck, taking care to avoid damaging the pirate captain any more than his extensive wounds already had. As soon as his feet touched wood, Anthep made for the wheel, already preparing to set sail and leave Robin to his work.

"How did you do that?" Robin asked Kjelle once Anthep had gone about his business. "You carried him up that ladder like it was nothing. Was there some kind of trick to that? Because if there is, that'd be an insane help on battlefields."

"No, he's just really not that heavy." Kjelle said with a shrug.

Robin blinked and looked over at Anthep. The man had a muscular build, and was by no stretch of the imagination small. "He looks heavy. Seriously, how did you do that?"

"Are you not used to strength training? That's the closest you'll get to a 'secret' for this kind of thing." Kjelle said, making way for Nah and Anna as they each climbed onto the ship.

"Yeah, sure, but you don't exactly look that strong." Robin said carelessly, and the glare he instantly received told him that he had made a grave mistake. "Er, ah, I mean…"

"Do you think I'm weak!?" Kjelle shouted, failing to restrain her voice.

"Hey, I've seen you without your armour - back when I kind of almost drowned you at the Ruins of Time." Robin said in his defense, though her expression didn't waver. "You're not exactly beefy or anything. I honestly thought you were more thin than built up."

Kjelle seethed at him, glaring so intensely that Robin felt vaguely fearful. "Oh, because you would know what it means to be fit, having to constantly rely on your magic to stand a chance against me? Come on, show me your muscles, see if they can compare to mine! Come on!"

"Ah, no?" Robin said, backing away from her instinctively and raising his arms in a futile attempt at pacification. "I'm fine with my magic, and I'm healthy. I'll be good without having to compare my body to you, because I can guarantee that you would win - practically everyone in the Shepherds would, aside from some of the other mages. And Gaius; he eats a lot of sweets."

"Exactly, you know you would lose!" Kjelle persisted, though she had grown genuinely curious of the grandmaster's condition since having begun. "Come on, just once! Even if you know you'll lose, you should know by exactly how much!"

"No!" Robin said, continuing to back away from her.

Nah stared at Robin and Khelle as they continued to shout, her gaze resoundingly uncomprehending. Beside her, Anna's gaze was also blank as the merchant remained lost in thought. "What's… what's happening?"

"I'm not entirely sure…" Anna murmured, paying no attention to Robin and Kjelle's antics.

"Flex on me, you dastard!"

"No!"

"Is there any chance that this is still a nightmare?" Nah wondered aloud. Anna wss still focused more on her own thoughts than the world at large and failed to answer the rhetorical question.

After a few more moments of insisting that Robin show his physique, Kjelle begrudgingly relented her pursuit and set about preparing the Ship of Lost Souls for voyage. Robin blew the ship away from the beach with his wind magic, taking pride in the usefulness of his ability. Anthep insisted on piloting the boat despite his incredibly poor condition.

As they left the island, the ley lines Robin had activated atop the Manor grew to be blindingly bright. Suddenly, the building erupted in a spray of light, crumbling in on itself as the ley lines burst entirely. A shock wave from their detonation expanded out over the island and a short distance into the surrounding sea.

The wave annihilated any risen it passed over, reducing each to ashes that spread over the Isle before dissipating entirely. As each risen perished, an eerie green light over the island grew increasingly brighter, until it abruptly blinked out of existence alongside the final undead. Robin could only assume that the voice from Valm had successfully harvested the energy it had desired.

After a few moments on the open waves leading south of the Isle, Robin retreated to the room in which he had placed Raeshe's body. He ensured that the door was closed tightly behind him, and then set up an elaborate spell to ensure that he would be able to examine and record Raeshe without fear of him becoming a risen - any sudden movement from the body would result in a small halo of thunderbolts ending the reanimated body in a fraction of a second.

Robin believed he would now be able to fully understand the process a human body underwent when becoming a risen. For what reason he was uncertain, but he wanted to know all the same. More importantly, he would know if people could still become risen after recent events.

Robin had withdrawn his thunder tome in order to ensure the spell had been accurate, and with his magic now established, he moved to place the book away within his cloak. It fell from his grip before he could return it to its pocket, causing Robin to blink at his own carelessness and bend to pick the volume up from the floor.

His right hand moved over the cover and toward the spine of the book, but failed to pick it up. Each finger resisted movement and his wrist would no longer rotate. Robin retracted his hand only to find that everything from his forearm up was too tight to so much as flex, as though he had spent hours working his arm and had grown unable to properly use the entire appendage. Furthermore, his palm and fingers felt as though they were tightening, his skin and flesh painfully condensing without moving.

Robin clasped his left hand over the wrist of his right arm, only to be met by a total lack of sensation from the right. After a few seconds of massaging his wrist, palm, and forearm, Robin was able to move the entirety of his right hand and arm as though there had been no issue with it in the first place. He picked up his book and returned it to his cloak without any difficulty. The only lasting effect from what had happened was a screaming note of fear in the recesses of his mind.

* * *

 **I gave myself more time than I thought I would need to get this out, and I still ended up being late. I really underestimated the size of this one.**

 **There were originally going to be a lot of parallels between Robin speaking with the risen and him speaking with Kjelle afterward, but a lot of that was changed around or removed. Some of it's still there but not a lot. Other small things were also edited out, but that's all stuff that wasn't of any real worth to the story.**

 **As it turns out, I wasn't entirely decided on how the first antagonist would play into the story when I wrote this, which led to some slightly contradictory sections. Those should all have been edited out into a single concrete version now, since I have the entire story planned out now, but there's always a chance something small slipped by me.**

 **Status: As of 30-12-18, I've yet to move on to chapter 34. I prioritised finishing this over working on anything new, and I still ended up being late. I'll hopefully have enough time and a better work ethic to make sure that doesn't happen again over the next few months.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	22. Chapter 22

Waves gently lapped against the hull of the Lost Souls. The ship had sailed for a long while at a painstakingly slow pace, and would continue to crawl across the sea for a while longer. Nothing faster could truly be expected after losing all but a single crew member.

Nah stood on the ship's top deck and stared blankly at Kjelle. The young Manakete was as unimpressed with her friend's resolution as she was struggling to retain all of the information she had been given over the past hour of nonstop recounting. Based on everything Kjelle had told her, not only was she in the wrong time and place to ensure that the first Plegian war would go smoothly, but Robin had managed to grow more threatening over time, having trained with and against Kjelle herself.

Not to mention that now, Kjelle was claiming he was the selfsame Robin as the one who had destroyed their time, and was saying that she had no intentions of killing him.

"Are you certain about all of this?" Nah asked, her mind refusing to wrap around all she had been told. "If he's really that same Robin…"

"Then he might be far more dangerous than we already thought." Kjelle finished for her. "I know, but I believe him when he says that he has amnesia, and I think that he really does have the chance to overcome Grima. I want to believe that he's come back in time in order to set things right, and not doom the world again."

"How could you possibly believe that?" Nah asked, though her voice was less scornful than it was inquisitive. "After everything that's happened, after what he did to our families and our time, you still think there's something good about him? That he won't bring about our future?"

"I think there's a chance." Kjelle said. "Besides, maybe that was Grima, and not him? That might be reaching a bit, but based on how the other Shepherds acted about him, and in response to everything I did, I think they really do care for him, and he them. I don't think he's completely evil. Not yet."

"You'll still kill him if the need arises, though, right?" Nah asked, and after a moment of hesitation that gave the Manakete reason to frown Kjelle nodded. Nah couldn't help but doubt her friend. "You've gotten kind of close to him, haven't you? Are you two friends?"

Kjelle blinked, the question catching her off guard despite Noire having already accused her of something similar. "I… I don't know. I definitely don't hate him as much as I used to. I can't bring myself to completely despise him. If I do, I end up feeling like crap, and I know I would end up hurting the other Shepherds in one way or another."

"You say that Robin improved your standing with them, and he's been actively helping you out since. As if he would want to genuinely help us, or rather trick everyone." Nah said, her frown remaining in place. "Say, Kjelle, do you really think he'll die? That he'll ever go away, or that Grima will, and we'll actually have our peace?"

"I hope so." Kjelle nodded. "I'm also hoping that there's a way to go about that which doesn't kill him, too. There's still a bit of goodness in him - something Grima hasn't warped."

Nah nodded in turn, slowly coming to accept Kjelle's conviction, if not much else. She closed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, her frown deepening in intense thought. Without changing her position, she said "Okay. If that's the way you're going to be, then I'll accept it, and everything you've said. For now."

"You aren't going to kill Robin, or try anything of the sort?" Kjelle asked.

"As long as an opportunity never presents itself, I won't. Promise." Nah confirmed. "If I'm ever able to stop him before he can become Grima, or if that supposed journal of his reveals his actual villainy, or if you fail this duel you've told me about, then I'll still kill him. Those situations notwithstanding, I won't try anything."

Kjelle smiled effortlessly at her friend. "That's as much as I would ask for. Thanks, Nah."

"It's not a problem for me - at least, I hope it won't be." Nah said. "Anyway, what else has happened already? I get the big picture, with Emmeryn and Plegia and everything, and where you've been and what you've been doing, but what are the little details? It sounds like there should be a lot of them that are important to know."

More than happy to satisfy her friend's need for information, Kjelle launched into a far more in depth explanation of everything she knew of the past Plegian war, and everything she had done since meeting with the Shepherds and Robin. She purposefully omitted a few small details from her recounting, such as her more recent sensitive embrace with Robin and how she had used him as an anchor to keep herself grounded, deeming them to be in equal parts unnecessary and embarrassing. Nah appeared wholly satisfied with her explanations nonetheless.

* * *

"Hey!" Anthep shouted, straining and failing to gather the attention of Anna from where she stood a short distance from his own position at the ship's wheel. His voice had grown hoarse since he had left the island, and he knew that his condition was rapidly deteriorating. "Hey! Anna!"

Ignoring him, Anna leaned onto the guardrail in front of her, gazing out across the deep blue hued of the ocean. She held her acquired tricorne hat in her hands and frowned as she muttered to herself. "It's already been well over an hour… what's he doing in there? He doesn't know healing magic as well as I do, and he didn't bring a staff with him. What is he trying to do?"

"Anna!" Anthep shouted louder. His voice came out rough, and the intensity of having to raise his voice caused the captain to wince and instinctively hold some of the wounds lining his body.

Anna noticed the old man and snapped out of her line of thought. She sighed and placed the hat back on her head before approaching him.

"What is it, Anthep?" she asked impatiently, urgently wishing to return to her thoughts..

"You need… to take control of the ship." Anthep wheezed out, clutching at his side with one hand as the other slipped off the wheel. "I-I can't… keep this up much longer. Keep in line with the compass, and resist wherever the waves pull you… we should be on course directly for Mount Prism."

Anna furrowed her brow, allowing a modicum of concern to enter her mind. "Are you alright? Wait, have you not healed since the island?" her eyes widened when she saw the slow trickle of blood that continued to seep out of Anthep's multitude of wounds, either sticking to his clothes or leaking out onto the floor of the ship. "Are you still bleeding!? How have you not had a vulnerary yet?"

"My son needs them… more than me." Anthep said, waving her concern away and causing more pain to course through his body.

"He's dead, Anthep." Anna said bluntly. The pirate captain's expression grew more pained and sullen, but was otherwise unchanged. "He's been dead since the island. I don't know what Robin's doing, but he's not going to be able to bring your son back. Let's get you some medi-"

"Leave me be." Anthep grunted, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "All I want for now… is to sit down… and rest…"

Anna watched Anthep struggle toward the railing on the side of the ship. She didn't offer him any aid, though she winced internally with every obviously painful movement he made. Once he had eased himself into place, Anna stepped away from the wheel he had intended for her to use, and moved toward the room Robin had assigned himself.

"Kjelle, Nah." she said abruptly as she passed by the two time travellers, who were still in some form of discussion about the discrepancies of their time frames. "Go look after the ship for me. Ask Anthep what to do - oh, and also, try not to let him bleed out. He seems kind of out of it right now, so keep an eye on him, okay?"

Without waiting for a reply or any form of confirmation from either person, the merchant pressed on to Robin's room. She paused before entering, and rushed back to where Kjelle and Nah had overcome their brief confusion at her instructions and had begun to move toward Anthep. Anna caught up to Nah first and was able to place her hat on the Manakete's head before the girl was able to understand what was happening. Nah spun around to her in shocked confusion, but Anna merely smiled at her and turned back to the room for a final time.

"You've gotta look the part, right?" she said over her shoulder, ignoring whatever response may or may not have been given. She didn't want to have to look at that hat anymore.

No audible response was received from Robin after knocking on the door into the ship several times. Anna therefore impatiently pushed the door open. Robin hadn't locked it despite his apparent desire for privacy, and it swung open easily, revealing the entire room to Anna in a single swift movement.

Robin had placed Raeshe's body on a table he had moved from elsewhere in the room, a pile of miscellaneous supplies that Anna assumed had once lined the furniture's surface having been stacked a little too neatly in one corner of the room. The grandmaster himself was seated next to the table, a quill and piece of parchment in his lap. He hadn't noticed Anna enter. His attention was held solely on Raeshe. His left hand was massaging the wrist of his right, and he was passively clenching his hand every few seconds, though Anna paid the action no mind in comparison to everything else Robin had done.

A glowing ring of yellow magic was in place around Raeshe's head, encircling the man before it contacted the sides of the table and stopped its transmission. Occasionally, the ring would tremor, arcs of electricity wavering in place before returning to their resonant state. Each tremor failed to disturb the massive spikes of lightning aimed toward Raeshe's skull, extending to a sharp point mere centimetres from the man's face and slowly shifting about as though they desired to get a better angle at which to pierce the dead pirate.

"What the hell…?" Anna asked without bothering to think too greatly on the matter, the arrangement of Robin's magic being undeniably threatening.

Robin's head snapped over to Anna as he finally noticed her presence. The spell he had cast wavered again as his attention was shifted, but refused to dissipate. He smiled brightly at her, as though he weren't sitting less than a few metres from a corpse with dangerous magic playing about in front of him. "Hey, Anna. Sorry, but could I have a little privacy in here? Things might get kind of messed up soon." he continued to massage his wrist as he spoke.

Anna gawked at what was happening, failing to give Robin the privacy he had requested. "What is this? You're not healing him, you're planning to kill him?"

"Well, yeah, of course. He's dead already." Robin said matter-of-factly. "I want to be prepared for when he rises again, so I've set this up. It should trigger automatically once the ring is disturbed, meaning that if he moves his upper body or head, he'll be killed."

"Why, though? Why wouldn't you kill him now and be done with it entirely?" Anna asked. "Also, what happened to trying to help him? Anthep is out there bleeding to death because he thinks this guy can be saved!"

"Seriously? He hasn't looked after himself?" Robin asked incredulously, glancing back to Raeshe's body constantly for fear of missing anything significant. "Huh. I didn't think he cared that much about his son."

Robin rose from his seat to check the supplies he had stacked in the corner of the room, fishing out a concoction from its depths to toss to Anna. "Take him this, then. Tell him that Raeshe doesn't need it - that much is true, at least. Sorry, I didn't know Anthep would be like that. I'd give it to him myself, but considering how I'm locked in here with Raeshe, he'll probably make me spill the whole 'your son is dead' thing, and I don't really want to do that yet. Not until I have some good news to soften it, anyway."

Robin's right hand appeared to seize up for a moment, and the massaging of his wrist intensified, though his face gave no indication of pain. The ring of magic wavered further, but still refused to weaken.

Anna caught the concoction and stared at Raeshe, continuing to ignore Robin. "What's the good news supposed to be?"

"I might finally be able to document the moment a person becomes a risen!" Robin announced happily, though the goal did nothing to persuade Anna. "To be honest, I didn't make the link that people would be risen up until relatively recently. I always thought they were some kind of ancient machinations, that existed in limited supply but could be brought back by magic or the Grimleal - I somehow failed to make the connection between them and humans, again and again. Probably something to do with how generic most of them end up looking after whatever transformation turns them into risen… at least, that's my excuse."

"How is that supposed to be good news to Anthep? His son is dead, in case you've forgotten, and he doesn't exactly seem like a man of science who would care about this kind of thing."

Robin shrugged. "He may not care for it, but it's actually some substantial research. What if some kind of weakness is exposed by observing this process? What if we learn more about how the risen operate, and can adapt to fight them from that? More information is always better, from whatever viewpoint you want to take, and I for one want all the information I can possibly attain. Then I can start making strategies around the undead."

He turned to Raeshe, moving his feet while watching the body without breaking eye contact. Robin plopped himself down in the same chair in which he had originally sat. "Most importantly, though, is a new question we need to answer: what if he doesn't come back? What if what happened to the risen a few days ago changed everything, and they've become a finite threat? Knowing anything more about that would be monumental, and critical to however the world decides to combat them."

"Is that a possibility? That he won't rise?" Anna asked skeptically, eyeing Raeshe closely without approaching the dead man.

"No idea!" Robin answered, too cheerily for all that was transpiring. "The best hypothesis I can form right now is that maybe the change has possibly affected something in the risen's transformation - which has never been observed before, mind you - and that said change may stop risen from forming anew. Maybe. I won't know until I check, though."

"You don't know what's going to happen?" Anna asked, her face screwed up in restrained disgust. "How could you possibly think that any of this is ethical?"

"Because it's science. Obviously." Robin replied, dangerously close to sounding as though he were mocking Anna for not agreeing with his ambition. "Raeshe is dead, so why not try to learn something from what happened? We could help so many more people, save so many!"

"His father is outside, slowly dying because he still has hope Raeshe will live." Anna said. "Couldn't you try to help him, someone who's actually alive, rather than do all of this theoretical 'maybe' and 'possibly' junk?"

"Like you're one to talk." Robin laughed, directing his full attention back to Raeshe and away from her. "Aren't you the one who's willing to do practically anything unethical to turn a profit? Or was that another Anna who thinks exactly as you do? I guess it doesn't matter, since according to you, they're all the same. At least my research will benefit people, unlike everything you've been doing."

Anna's mouth fell open before she tightened it into a pointed frown. "You aren't helping Anthep by letting him die. I'll admit, my practices haven't been the best for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean what you're doing here will be any better!"

"Go look after Anthep, then." Robin said easily, waving her away. "Once I get some results, I'll prove you wrong. You'll see."

"I'll be waiting." Anna said coldly. She ducked out of the room without another word, leaving Robin to merrily attend to his operation all on his own.

* * *

Nah frowned to herself, her expression unchanged since her conversation with Kjelle. She had removed Anna's hat from her head and had placed it next to the ship's wheel, which she held resolutely so as to not set the ship off its course. Kjelle stood a short distance from her, saying nothing but being satisfied by merely being in the presence of her friend. Anthep rested a short distance from them both. His ragged breathing indicated that he hadn't yet fallen asleep and would undoubtedly continue to refuse any aid offered.

"Hey, Kjelle?" Nah spoke up after a long while spent sailing. "Can I see Robin's journal, and the notes left to you by Khan Flavia? Not that I don't believe what you've told me, but I want to double check - maybe catch something you missed, or at least satisfy my own curiosity."

"Sure, no problem." Kjelle agreed instantly. "Er, well, possibly no problem. I've got the notes, so those are fine. Robin probably has the journal on him still, but provided that he doesn't try to keep it from me, I should be able to get it to you."

"Couldn't you take it by force?" Nah suggested, sounding almost hopeful.

Kjelle couldn't help but scoff at the suggestion. "I'm strong, but nowhere near that strong. He'd probably kick my ass if I tried something like that."

"Would he, though?" Nah asked.

Kjelle cocked her head curiously. "What do you mean?"

Nah shrugged. "Based on the way you've been talking about him, it seems like he'd be more likely to chastise you than attack. He's still not giving way to being Grima, right? I'm willing to bet you could attack him and he wouldn't hurt you."

"Yeah… that's right." Kjelle agreed slowly. "Honestly, I think he's been holding back in our duels for a while because of that. He could destroy me with magic, but he's practically never tried to actually hurt me, and I don't think he's intentionally done me any serious damage. When we duel, he beats me, but purposefully doesn't cause me harm. Damn, that's a hit to the ego… I thought I was making good progress recently, too."

"What, you're unhappy that he hasn't hurt you?" Nah asked incredulously.

"If he did, that would mean that I've made actual progress - he'd be threatened by me." Kjelle explained. "If he had to hurt me to win a fight, it would mean that I had him on the ropes. That I could stand a chance against him. Right now, I can fight with everything that I am, and he'll still win without having to worry."

"If you push him that far, you might actually die, though." Nah said, failing to understand Kjelle's desire in the most basic of senses. "I was thinking more that he wouldn't hurt you in order to keep up his innocence charade. He beat me pretty soundly, too, and I was a dragon at the time. You're not." her frown intensified for a second, her voice falling to a murmur. "Come to think of it, he disarmed me and didn't bother killing me… what's his angle?"

"Don't get me wrong, I know exactly what you mean, and I'm glad I'm not getting hurt." Kjelle hastily explained. "It's just… after all this time, I haven't really done anything to push him. I've lost every fight against him for weeks. Even now he doesn't have to put that much toward beating me. I want to be stronger than this."

"You're strong already, Kjelle." Nah reassured her friend. "Just because you can't beat the literal ender of the world doesn't mean you're weak, and if you keep at fighting him you'll probably be far stronger before long. All I'm saying is it's weird that he hasn't killed you."

"Like I said, I don't think he intends to, not yet." Kjelle said. "He's said stuff before about how he's wanted me to become a challenge for him, to make killing me worthwhile… I don't think he's serious about that either, though. One of us is going to have to die for the final duel, but until then, he legitimately wants to help."

"Are you ready to kill him?" Nah asked, piercing deep into Kjelle's thoughts and causing the knight to wince.

"I'll do what I have to." Kjelle said after too long of a pause for Nah not to be concerned.

The young Manakete's eyes lit up in realisation. "Gods, is that what he's doing!? He's making you a weapon, manipulating you with all of his crap until he can kill you, or set you out on the world!? Is this all some kind of weird mind bending dependency thing he's using to control you? Did he lock you in a room, or force you to be around him, or do anything that would manipulate you into not hating him?"

"No! He's not doing, or has done, anything like that!" Kjelle said emphatically. "I'm the one who brought him on this trip, and I can guarantee you I'm not being manipulated right now."

"He's a tactician, though - a schemer." Nah argued skeptically. "What if this all setup for you doing something horrible? What if he really will kill you, or use you? What if he's been manipulating you all this time?"

"That's not-!" Kjelle began to argue again, but fell flat. Nah's words carried a small amount of truth, something that scared her more than she liked to think about. "Look, Nah: I don't think he's doing anything foul. I've come to trust him, and rely on him when need be. If he is evil, or is trying to manipulate me, then I promise you, I'll do what has to be done. Until then, I choose to keep trusting him."

Nah glared at Kjelle, not being angry with her friend but rather the choices and misguided trust that had lead the knight to this point. "Fine. I'll trust in you, if not him. Let's hope this doesn't end poorly."

"It won't." Kjelle reassured her. She couldn't hide the small trace of doubt in her own voice, but Nah failed to comment on the matter any further.

Before Kjelle could leave to grab Robin's journal, Anna appeared on the deck, a concoction in hand and frown steadfast on her face. The merchant walked briskly over to the two time travellers, intent on passing them by on her way to Anthep.

"Is Robin still in that room?" Kjelle stopped Anna before she could pass, causing the merchant to scowl.

"Yeah, and he's doing some pretty evil stuff, too." Anna said. "You want to stop it, be my guest. It's messed up even by my standards." she departed from them without saying anything more, causing Kjelle to blink awkwardly and Nah to raise an expectant eyebrow in her friend's direction.

"Don't look at me like that." Kjelle said weakly, failing to lower Nah's eyebrow with her words. "I'm sure she's exaggerating. I'll prove as much when I get the journal, alright?"

Nah didn't say anything, but continued to look at Kjelle expectantly as the knight departed for Robin's room. A short distance from Nah, Anna had approached Anthep, and was now holding the concoction out to him and waiting impatiently for the potion to be taken from her grip.

"Come on, old man. Time to heal yourself up." Anna said when he refused to acknowledge her outstretched hand, loud enough for Nah to overhear.

"Raeshe… my son… he needs it more…" Anthep wheezed, weakly refusing the potion with a halfhearted wave of his hand.

"He's dead." Anna said coldly, surprising Nah with her bluntness. "Take the potion - he won't be needing it, but you can still live."

Anthep stared at her, his face devoid of emotion. "He… he's dead. I… I'm the one who…" his entire body shuddered as acceptance finally worked it's way into his mind. Anna dropped the concoction into his hand, and for a moment he appeared ready to take it, giving the merchant proper reason to smile.

Instead, Anthep tossed the potion over his shoulder and into the seas between Ferox and Ylisse. He struggled to a stand as Anna gawked at him, his wounds hurting screaming as much as ever before.

"What are you doing!?" Anna shrieked, as dismayed by the loss of a valuable concoction as she was Anthep's refusal to heal - though she preferred to think that the latter far outweighed the former. "You need to-"

"I don't need to do anything." Anthep cut her off, beginning a slow shuffle toward the ship's wheel, where Nah was doing her best to pretend she hadn't noticed their interaction. "I'm done. All I'm going to do is get you to shore, and then… I want to sleep."

Anna opened her mouth to counter him, to form some manner of reply that would convince Anthep of his need to survive by tending his wounds, but no words proved forthcoming. Anthep ushered Nah away from the wheel to the ship. The Manakete quickly complied as she repeatedly glanced from him to Anna. She and Anna both knew that in the end there would be nothing they could tell him, someone so incredibly resigned to his fate, that would change his mind.

Anthep took to using the wheel of the ship to support himself as he steered. Anna closed her eyes and sighed. Her head fell and she shook it from side to side as words consistently escaped her. Ultimately, she resolved to leave Anthep to his decision, and sighed once deeper before leaving his area of the deck.

Nah remained in place, studying Anthep closely with muted interest. He noticed her, but couldn't move his head far enough to look at and confront the girl directly.

"What is it, lass?" he said, his voice weaker than before. He coughed once after speaking, wincing as his wounds struck ever more painfully.

"You're going to die, aren't you?" Nah asked bluntly, sounding colder than she had intended.

"Aye." Anthep confirmed after a short pause, his voice sullen but face unperturbed. "You aren't going to try to stop me, are you? I don't want to waste the little time I've still got on worthless crap like that."

"No, no… at least, I don't think so." Nah said. "Can I ask why, though? You could survive if you tried, and it's not your fault that people died; it's Rob- er, Gri- ah, it's… it's not your fault."

Anthep shook his head in a small arc riddled with pained winces. "It's on me, lass. Maybe not all of it, but what's happened today, and had been happening to my whole crew for so long, that's all on me. I've done too much. Now, all I want is to rest…"

"I… I think I get what you mean." Nah said slowly. "You're afraid, and weak, and powerless, and you already know that you've failed and hurt so many people… it's easy to let that feeling control you, to allow it to warp everything you know. I know a lot of people like that. I was someone like that."

"Have you gotten past it?" Anthep asked her, a shred of curiosity winning out over his lack of caring.

Nah remained perfectly silent.

Anthep nodded his head knowingly. "Word of advice from an old man? Don't let that kind of thing control you, else you'll wind up the same as me. Try to overcome it as best you can."

"My friend wants me to trust in her - and I really do want to - but I can't." Nah confided, Anthep not bothering to give any indication that he had heard her. "If she's wrong, she'll be hurt, or worse. There're a lot of things I've been afraid of over my life, but the thought of losing someone close to me, someone I consider to be so great of a friend… that's the most terrifying thing I've ever considered."

"I'll admit, I don't really know what you're up to, but based on what I've heard it's something big." Anthep said. "I don't have anything specific to tell you, so… try to compromise with your friend. Hell, you could argue forever with them if you want, or secede your point entirely, or do whatever. All that matters is that you cherish every moment of it."

Nah trembled almost imperceptibly on the edge of his vision, her voice low. "I don't want to lose her, too. I don't want to lose any of them."

"Again, don't let your fears and weaknesses control you, and cherish what you've got. That's all the advice I can give."

Nah frowned. "I think I'll go check in on my friend again. Thanks, um… guy. Sorry, I don't think I ever caught your name, and if Kjelle mentioned it I didn't hear. Good luck with the whole 'rest' thing."

"It's Anthep." the pirate captain called after Nah as she turned to leave in pursuit of Kjelle. "Best of luck to you too, lass."

* * *

Kjelle didn't bother to knock on the door to the room Robin had chosen, and instead barged her way directly inside without any indication of her presence. Part of her feared what she may find, but that section of her thoughts was swiftly silenced by all the rest.

"Hey, Robin, I want to-" her words caught in her mouth as she caught sight of the grandmaster's threateningly sinister ring of magic floating about Raeshe's head. "Godsdamnit, and right after I was telling Nah about how you aren't blatantly evil…"

"Hi, Kjelle." Robin responded, cold to the fact that his research had been interrupted yet again. "Why would you go and do that? Doesn't it go against me being Grima? You know, me being the very reason you're here now?"

"Possibly. Possibly not." Kjelle replied, causing him to frown. "I know you're good, despite what you want me to believe. This is all a means of strengthening me, of pushing me further. I'm not entirely sure of why you would do that instead of, you know, trying something less sinister, but I know you're still a good person, no matter what you say or pretend to do."

Robin stared at her, one eyebrow raised before he turned back to Raeshe and hid his expression from her view. "Out of curiosity, what kind of condition do you think Raeshe is in right now?"

Kjelle blinked, having not expected the question, and shrugged. "I don't know. I'm assuming he's not doing too great, but is still going to recover soon, otherwise you wouldn't be-"

She was cut off when Robin activated his magic trap, the spears of lightning hovering in place over Raeshe's head stabbing down into the man's skull. Each hit sounded its own sickening sizzle and crack, harmonising with one another to form a unified cacophony far less bearable than any single part. A few flecks of blood flew up from the wounds before they could be cauterised by the magical lightning.

Robin turned back to Kjelle, a smile upon his face pronounced in its indignity. Drops of smeared blood lined one side of his face that had been nearer his attack. "I'm such a good person, aren't I?" he asked, his voice disturbingly taunting.

Kjelle balked at Robin, her mouth hanging open for a moment before she found the will to close it. She retained total control of her expression despite her surprise, her mind racing to find an answer she knew was hidden somewhere in the rapid progression of events. Whatever that answer was, she wasn't quite able to find it, no matter how hard her mind begged for her to search.

"You got blood on your face." she said simply, hiding all traces of emotion that may have dared to appear in her voice.

Without intending to allow his mask to break, Robin blinked and hurriedly brought a hand to his face. Any threat he was attempting to convey or reaction he wished to evoke was killed with the shameless horror that began to line his entire expression, and he began to rapidly wipe away the sprayed blood with the gloves on both of his hands.

Kjelle sighed and lowered her head, shaking it as she failed again to understand his motives. "Where's the journal, Robin? I'm going to show it to Nah."

"It… it should be in my bag, in the back of Anna's cart." Robin said, no longer trying to maintain the same personality he had first conveyed. Kjelle nodded her acknowledgement of the location and turned to depart, but was stopped by Robin as she opened the door to the ship anew. "Look, Kjelle… don't make excuses for anything I've done, or am going to do. Hate me, okay? Please?"

"Because you still think hating you will make everything easier." Kjelle murmured. At this point, she hated that reasoning more than Robin. She said nothing more as she left the room.

Nah met Kjelle as the knight was making her way below deck, running up to and stopping her before she could descend ship's staircase. "Kjelle! Hey. Was Robin being evil?"

"I'm not sure anymore." Kjelle admitted. "I don't think so. He's acting strange, but even then I'm pretty sure he thinks it's for the best, despite how obviously idiotic that is."

"Oh?" Nah raised an eyebrow, having neither expected nor been shocked by Kjelle's words. "What did he do, exactly?"

"Killed Raeshe to try to prove that he's evil." Kjelle said. She surprised herself at how unperturbed she was in the face of the man's death, though somehow, the matter struck her as oddly unimportant.

"Raeshe was dead since the island!" Anna shouted from a ways down the ship, having stopped her aimless saunter around the perimeter of the pirate frigate in order to eavesdrop and now speak. "Robin was doing… I don't know, some kind of weird study on him. It didn't exactly strike me as being too scientific, though."

Kjelle's eyes widened as she realised Robin's ploy, her mind already working to irrationally dissolve him of any wrongdoing. "That's it! Of course he wouldn't actually kill Raeshe; he knew he was dead and used that to deceive me! Why the hell does he want me to think he's so evil!?"

"Maybe because he feels guilty for all the things he's done to us?" Nah suggested, though Kjelle mostly ignored her.

"Anyway, Raeshe is definitely dead now, even if he somehow wasn't before." Kelle said. "Robin had this weird ring of magic set up around him, with a bunch of lightning spikes he launched into his head. I don't know what he was trying to learn, but it seems like he decided it was better to try at making me hate him than it was to actually follow through with what he was doing."

"Seriously? He couldn't even stick with it?" Anna asked with equal parts vitriol and remorse. "He really is playing at something bad here, isn't he?"

"If he wants you to think he's evil, then why not believe him?" Nah asked, directing the question toward Kjelle.

"Because I've seen what he's actually like - I've seen the good parts of him, and I know that they outweigh the parts he thinks of as evil." Kjelle answered. "I don't exactly know what's causing this, but I can only think that it's related to our future, meaning that either he really does remember what he did, or that what we've been trying to do here isn't a good thing."

"Are you feeling sorry for him? Are you feeling guilty for trying to save everything and everyone!?" Nah asked, stupefied by the notion.

"No, it's not that… well, maybe in part, if I'm making him feel any of the things we had to work through. I don't want anyone to go through anything like that ever again." Kjelle said. "At the same time, though, I've seen what makes him human rather than Grima. I want to help that part of him as much as the rest of everyone from this time. He… he's good."

Nah stared at Kjelle, her unfavourable expression carrying over through the clarification. "Gods, you've really become friends with him through all of this. How could that have happened…?" she shook her head, clearing her thoughts. "I know what you think, Kjelle, and I know that I said I would go along with you for now, but I don't want to go easy on Robin. You may not want this, but I want to let him know what we've gone through, to experience that unyielding fear for himself. No matter how hard I try, I know I'll never be able to forget what he's put me through - what he's put every last one of us through."

"I've got some spiders on me, if you want to try those." Anna popped back into the conversation, one of her hands already moving down to one of the many pockets on her coat. A sharp yet confused glare from Nah stopped her before she could do anything.

"I felt the same for a while." Kjelle admitted cautiously, then found herself wondering why she felt so wary speaking to her own friend. "I did, but then, once I did manage to see who he is and could be, that feeling kind of melted away. That's the only real way to describe it, though the actual reality was a little less amicable than that makes it sound."

"I… see? I think?" Nah said. "I still don't necessarily agree with you about any of it, but I'll respect what you want to do. Don't get hurt, okay?"

"You know I won't." Kjelle smiled at Nah, with her face then lighting up as she remembered her original purpose. "Ah, that's right, the journal is in the wagon in the ship. Flavia's documents should be down there, too - we can go get them now."

"Have fun, you two." Anna said, barely paying either if them any mind as she moved in the direction their opposite. "I've got some stuff to talk to Robin about." Both Kjelle and Nah had already left Anna's vicinity by the time she had finished her statement, though the merchant failed to notice.

Anna pushed open the door to the room Robin had chosen, the simple lock on its front having remained unsealed throughout the day despite Robin's 'experiment'. Inside, the grandmaster was sat in the same position he had been in when Anna had first entered, though he had taken to steepling his hands before his face and staring over them at Raeshe's definitively lifeless body.

"Hey, Robin." Anna greeted him quietly, her vouch lowering as soon as she stepped into the room to match the more grim atmosphere he had set. "Just so you know, Kjelle's aware of that little thing you tried to pull on her."

"Oh." was Robin's only reply, his hands remaining completely motionless as his eyes continued to study Raeshe intently, yet without purpose.

"Why'd you do that, anyway?" Anna asked him, easing into a moderately more comfortable position next to the open doorway. "She seems confused, and is trying her best to believe in you, but you aren't doing her any favours. Not to mention that Nah and I are about as weirded out as her."

"Kjelle and I are going to have a massive duel sometime, hopefully soon." Robin explained without turning to face her. "We should hate each other when that time comes. We have to, in order to ensure that it plays out well. We shouldn't and can't be anything more than acquaintances or coworkers, at best."

Anna frowned at the back of Robin's head. "You should give being her friend a chance. The two of you seem to get along well enough when you aren't trying to have her hate you, so you should embrace that. You may find yourself enjoying it."

"I'm certain I would - she's a consistently remarkable person." Robin said through his hands. "That's why I can't give it a chance. She and I might end up not hating each other, and that makes everything way more difficult than it needs to be. Besides, I'm pretty sure she values hating me over trying to get along. It'll do, and has already done, far more than cooperating would reasonably have done in the same circumstances."

"The two of you have been cooperating, though. Since before you met up with me." Anna reminded him. "Give working with her a chance, rather than whatever you keep trying to do. Seriously, it'll be good for you. You both seem like you could use it, in one way or another."

Robin finally looked over to her, his hands remaining in place facing Raeshe. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Anna used the fact that he could now see her to convey her meaning in a shrug. "Pretending to kill someone to prove that you're evil is in no way a healthy thing to do, Robin. If Kjelle hadn't found out that it was a trick, do you have any idea how badly it could have messed her up?"

She succeeded in making Robin wince and mercilessly pressed her advantage. "No matter what you're trying to prove here, it's wrong. You want to help people, and help her, and that's okay because you aren't actually evil. Whatever's going through your head to make you want to do this, it's wrong too. Think about yourself here, and think about Kjelle, and try not to hurt either of you because I know that's the last thing you would want. Personally, I say you should call off that final duel thing entirely."

Robin's wince deepened into a grimace and he turned back to Raeshe. "Are you here to make me feel bad and preach, or is there another reason? If there isn't, I… I'd like some time to myself, for now."

Anna didn't move, remaining in place next to the open door to the rest of the ship, perfectly silent. Robin continued to watch Raeshe's body, as though some unknowable secret was moments from revelation, though none ever proved forthcoming. Both he and Anna refused to kill the silence between them for far too long of a time.

"Your experiment didn't work out, did it?" Anna eventually asked, being the first to break the quiet.

"No." Robin shook his head in confirmation, though he didn't appear particularly dismayed by the matter. "I went a little far when Kjelle came in here, and wanted to prove the evil thing again, so… I ruined the whole thing."

"That's too bad." Anna said, surprising Robin with the sympathy in her voice. "What do you think would've happened if that hadn't happened? There's no real point in dwelling too much on it, but…"

"Probably nothing important, to be honest." Robin sighed. "There was the stuff I mentioned before, about information, but that'd all be figured out sooner or later, with or without my help. All I wanted was to pretend that I'd be able to help people along, have some kind of positive impact instead of all the negative ones."

"The negative ones you're forcing." Anna said, though her voice was far warmer than it was cold. "Besides, you've already guided a nation through a war, and will probably do the same again, and you have your entire life ahead of you to do good things. I'm certain you'll be able to do something amazing, provided that you somehow don't see what you've already done as pretty spectacular all on its own."

"Those things were horrible, Anna. They did nothing toward the betterment of humanity, the prosperity of people. They killed and destroyed." Robin said, his voice them falling into an unintelligible whisper. "And I… I loved it so, so dearly…"

His voice snapped back to its usual volume, possessing now a cheer that had been absent for a short time. "Thanks for the support, Anna. I hope I can leave behind something good rather than evil, and I hope that the Shepherds can ultimately be part of that, since I doubt I'll be making much progress with the risen anytime soon."

"Glad I could help." Anna smiled. "It's a shame nothing could come of it, though. I was kind of looking forward to what you might learn. It'd be interesting, you know?"

"That's honestly what drives a lot of what I do - solely the fact that it's interesting." Robin said. "It might not always be for the best, but if there's something to learn, I feel obligated to learn it, you know? It's like some kind of instinctive drive I can never shake."

Robin's eyes widened as he suddenly realised a new aspect of his failed operation. "Ah, gods, I'm going to have to explain this to Anthep. Godsdamnit, that's going to be awful… I shouldn't complain, though, the poor guy's going to be hit hard by this."

"I already told him." Anna said. "He's not exactly taking it well. He doesn't want to heal, and he'll probably die soon without any help."

Robin nodded solemnly, in part thankful that he hadn't been the one to inform the pirate captain of Raeshe's passing. "I… I see. That's his choice, then. If he wants to die, I won't be the one to stop him."

"Really? You're not going to try?" Anna asked, though she was resoundingly unsurprised. She had seen firsthand the unrelenting resignation in Anthep's expression, though Robin couldn't say the same.

Robin shook his head, his solemn mood a little less heavy. "No, that'd be way too hypocritical. In my eyes, he's free to do what he wants, even if that results in his death. You did at least try to give him that concoction, right?"

"He threw it into the ocean, and when I tried to urge him to heal he wouldn't have any of it. Guess we've both messed up a bit, huh?"

"You haven't messed up that much - I'm still mostly to blame for what's happened, after all." Robin reassured her, consequently shifting much of the blame into himself. "It was my curiosity about the ley lines on the island that unleashed all of those risen, and probably caused both Raeshe and Anthep to get hurt. I'm also the one who destroyed the first line, and got the attention of the sorcerer… who knows what would've happened if I hadn't done that?"

In truth, Robin believed that not much would have changed, secretly holding to the belief that the voice would have been made aware of his presence without his interference of the ley lines and that it would have aided him as it had regularly done. That wasn't what he wanted to tell Anna, though, and he knew it also wasn't what she would want to hear.

"Like I said, there's not much use dwelling on any of it." Anna said. "What happened is done, and there's no way to change it. Er, well, as long as you ignore the stuff about Kjelle and her friends doing exactly that… gods, they kind of kill my entire point, don't they?"

"With any luck, they will." Robin said. "I really do hope that their future is avoided, and I sure as hell don't want to be the one to do the contrary."

"So work with them. Work with Kjelle, and Nah, and Noire, and whoever else we meet, and help them defy their fates." Anna said. "Sorry for 'preaching' again, but that's really the best way you can go about something like this - you'll make more ground with friends than if you keep growing your enemies."

Robin couldn't help but smile at her. "I get it, Anna. Thanks for talking to me, I feel like it may have helped a bit."

"Not a problem." Anna smiled in return. She stood in place for a while longer, not quite wanting to exit the room, with Robin himself not desiring to dismiss her rudely in order to attend the business of dealing with Raeshe's corpse.

"Um, Robin?" she began again tentatively after even more time had passed. "I… a few years ago, I sold a girl into slavery. She was a Manakete, like Nah, and I don't really know why I did it anymore. It was wrong, though - I know that much - and I hate that it's something I've done to get where I am now, that it could have in any way contributed to who I am. I understand if that means I can't be part of the Shepherds anymore, considering what I've done and how it would reflect on all of you, but I wanted to make it known."

"You… sold a person?" Robin asked slowly, taking longer than he knew he should have to wrap his mind around the statement. Anna nodded, confirming her words silently once more for the grandmaster. "Oh. That's… certainly something, alright…"

"Yeah, it's I'm not proud of it anymore." Anna said, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head. "Um… yeah. Sorry for not telling you before, when knowing that probably would've mattered a lot. Once we reach the shore, I can go somewhere, I guess. You know, away from you, and the Shepherds, and everyone from the future. It's probably not best to be around me in case we run into someone that recognises me beyond being a mere Anna, because as good as that cover can be, it'd still be pretty damaging if anyone found out about the slave running."

Robin had to actively subdue a smile. He would be able to play his situation as an advantage for himself, ensuring that he and Kjelle wouldn't have any interference in their inevitable final duel - and would get to make Anna happier in the process. "That's nonsense, Anna. You can still be a Shepherd even if you haven't done the best of things in the past. As long as you don't do anything like that again, I'm certain that nobody will blame you too much for the mistakes you've made. Some people are definitely going to want you to atone for it, though."

"That's not something you can atone for." Anna said, her voice wavering. "I sold a Manakete, one that was still a young child by Manakete standards, into slavery. They might be suffering right now, or dead for all I know. That isn't something people come back from."

"Do you have any dragonstones in your loot- er… inventory?" Robin asked abruptly, defying the trace amount of tears gathering in Anna's eyes. "You know, anything Nah would be able to use to transform and fight?"

"Um… yeah, I think I might have a few from that bandit fortress a while ago…" Anna confirmed, her voice continuing to shake.

"Pretend you don't have any, okay?" Robin said. Anna's face contorted slightly in confusion, asking him to explain without need for words. "I'll lie for you to take Nah to Port Ferox. The Shepherds should all be there by the time you arrive, and apparently you haven't met with all of them yet despite everything we may all have done together in Plegia, if that was actually you. Keep an eye on Nah when you get there, where she goes, and who she talks to. It'll be a valuable experience for you, to say the least."

Anna furrowed her brow, blinking away the early formation of her tears. "Why do I have to do that? What could possibly be there that would be valuable to me? Unless… this is a joke about me being greedy again? Is that what this is, some kind of business proposal meant to mock me?"

Robin blinked, wincing internally at how crestfallen and utterly wounded her voice sounded. "No, no, that isn't it at all! There's a Manakete in the Shepherds, a young girl named Nowi who had been sold into slavery before we met her. I'm pretty sure she's Nah's mother, so Nah would lead you to her, and I think it'd be good for you two to meet. I don't know if she'd be one to hold anything against you, but you should at least meet her, especially if you feel guilty."

Anna's face turned completely blank as Robin gave his explanation. As soon as he had finished, her mouth fell open, and she whipped out of the room before Robin could say anything more. Robin watched the door to the room slam behind Anna in shock, but ultimately decided against pursuing her, allowing her instead to do as she pleased as he turned back toward the body of Raeshe.

* * *

"Here are all of the dossiers from Flavia, and… here… is Robin's journal." Kjelle said, plopping first the assortment of papers and then the thin, eerily marked book she had located into Nah's outstretched arms.

"Thanks, Kjelle." Nah smiled effortlessly. "I'll check over these quickly, then give them back to you and you can do whatever you want with them. I have to be sure that Robin isn't hiding something, is all."

"Trust me, I understand." Kjelle reciprocated her smile. "I doubt you'll find anything too damning, provided that you can't undo the flow of time. The only possibly incriminating parts of the journal have been removed, and I didn't get Noire to reveal them before she left for the port."

"Hm… that's a shame, but I should be fine regardless." Nah hummed to both herself and Kjelle. She leafed through all of the dossiers, glancing at their images and titles one by one. "Like you said, there's nothing on Owain, Gerome, Cynthia, Brady, Inigo, or Lucina… you said that Lucina was probably the one to give these to Khan Flavia, though? After receiving the info on them from Naga?"

"That's the best guess I can make, yeah." Kjelle nodded. "Flavia lied about getting them from her, though - probably to protect her identity, though I can't imagine Lucina needing to remain hidden from me."

"Good to know she's still around, at least." Nah murmured, losing herself a little more to her materials as she cracked open the first pages of Robin's journal. "She's more determined than anyone to save the future, and knowing that she's still fighting for it is… wait, why…?" her brow furrowed as her eyes rapidly flipped between the journal and one of the pages from Flavia. "These were written by the same person, Kjelle."

Kjelle's brow furrowed as well, and she stepped toward Nah in order to get a better view of the writings. "What do you mean?"

Nah held a page of the journal and the copy of Kjelle's own dossier up for her to see, awkwardly manipulating them both in her grip and pinning them against her body so that she would be able to point out passages from each with her hands. "Look at the word 'Shepherds' in the dossier, and then the one here, in the journal. The loops in the letters 'p' and 'e', the slant to the 'S', the curves on each 'h', everything about them are practically identical. It's the same for all the rest of the words and letters, too."

"So what? What does that…?" Kjelle wondered aloud, moving her hand over the open page of the journal as if it would somehow help her understand. "Are you saying that Robin wrote the dossiers, not Lucina?"

"Not necessarily. There's a lot of possibilities for what this might mean." Nah shrugged. "Maybe Robin did write both, or maybe he somehow copied Lucina's style of writing flawlessly, or maybe Lucina wrote both, or a third party did… do you have anything written by Robin other than the journal? Something we could reference?"

Kjelle closed her eyes for a moment to think, but ultimately shook her head. "Nothing at all. I can't remember what Lucina's writing is like, either, so I can't compare with that. Damn…"

"Is there really nothing at all?" Nah asked. "There's got to be something, even if it's only a single word. Maybe some notes on the battles you had? Or maybe copies of some letters and missives he sent back to Ylisse?"

"I can't think of anything like that he would still have on him… I don't think he wrote down anything for those battles, either." Kjelle said, continuing to shake her head. "What does this mean? Did Flavia get the missives from him, then lie about who she got them from? Why would she do that?"

"Probably to protect Robin, if what you were saying about the two of them in your explanation is anything to go by." Nah said. "Then again, she might not know. She said that sir Gaius was the one to bring her the information, right? Maybe Robin got him to do it, and has been fooling everyone else this entire time?"

"No, I don't think… hm…" Kjelle murmured, her hand leaving the pages of the journal to pensively hold her chin. "It makes sense, but I don't think he would try to trick me or anyone else like that."

"Didn't he try to trick you a few minutes ago? Why wouldn't he be willing to do the same on a different, more significant level?"

"Yeah, I… I guess." Kjelle slowly agreed, though she couldn't help but form a deep frown. "That doesn't seem right, though. He was as confused as me about it, if not more, and I don't think he would lie to me."

"Why not?" Nah asked, her voice a small amount colder than when she had last spoken. "You can't think that because he's your 'friend' he wouldn't lie to you. He's covering for himself, hiding his schemes. It makes sense that he'd want to deceive you. We'll have to find out whether any theory here holds merit, but for now, I think it's safe to say that he hasn't been honest with you."

"Well, yeah, all the stuff he's been concealing makes that a given." Kjelle said. "I don't think he's trying to lie about writing it, though. If anything, he might not remember having written one or both of these, and I… I at least want to pretend that he's being as honest as possible with me." her gaze hardened for a moment as she looked over at Nah. "Also, he and I aren't friends. We're working together, and I admit that I don't really hate the idea of that, but we're still mutual threats. With the knowledge of what he can do and everything I've done up to this point, I don't think he'll be too eager to get along with me, even if I wanted to be his friend. So don't get the wrong idea, okay?"

Nah raised an eyebrow, Kjelle's words coming across as absurdly defensive. "Alright, alright. I swear, I didn't mean anything bad by it. The two of just you seemed closer than I'd expected."

"I get that, but…" Kjelle sighed. "That's not the point. It's not important. Let's focus on what we know for sure, and what we can do."

"You know, if you do want to be his friend, I won't stop you. Or fault you, for that matter." Nah said, surprising and confusing Kjelle. "It's an idiotic and disagreeable choice, sure, but if that's what you want - and it seems like it is - then I say go for it. Just make sure you don't get hurt, please?"

Kjelle blinked, being far more taken aback than she could have anticipated from Nah's encouragement. "That's not-! I'm not about to-! Nevermind, let's… let's keep working through where we can go from here."

"Got it." Nah said simply, a small and annoying smile plastered on her face. "For now, I don't think we should do much with what we've learned. If Robin finds out, it could be bad. However, I think we should try to learn more, like trying to have him write something for us to reference against the journal and missives - to be completely sure that he was the one who wrote them. Other than that we should find some solid evidence that he's evil, or good if you're right about him, and take off from there."

"Okay, that makes sense. I can get behind that." Kjelle nodded in acceptance of her plan. She turned back toward Anna's wagon, leaving Nah to go over the journal and dossiers as she pleased. "Speaking of changing topics… er, which we weren't… uh… Anna has dragonstones! Robin said you were down on yours, and I noticed she had some while he and I were sorting her stuff when we first met her, so provided that she hasn't sold them off, you're in luck."

Nah blinked at her friend's sudden shift, and placed away the pages of the dossiers within Robin's journal as Kjelle was rummaging through the carriage. She set the combined resources within the carriage itself before speaking. "I wouldn't have expected her to have something so rare on hand. I suppose this time is less strained for resources."

Kjelle dove into the rear of the carriage in search of the dragonstones, leaving Nah standing awkwardly in wait. After almost a full minute of searching, she emerged from within the mess of wares Anna possessed, a simple yet remarkably clear dragonstone gripped in her right hand.

"Here you go. This'll do, right?" Kjelle smiled, causing Nah to do the same. "Also, don't tell Anna about this. I don't exactly have money right now, she wouldn't let you have it for free, and it'd feel weird to ask Robin for help buying it, so…"

As Nah reached out to accept the weapon and say her thanks, as well as her acceptance of refusing to inform the Anna, she was interrupted by the appearance of the merchant herself. Anna rushed down into the lower level of the ship, her expression uncharacteristically frantic.

"Nah!" she shouted as soon as she caught sight of the Manakete, her face brightening yet remaining disheveled. She dashed toward Nah faster than she had rushed onto the lower level and placed her hands over the girl's shoulders, focusing the time traveller's attention solely on her. "I'm so sorry that I sold your mother into slavery!"

"You what?" Nah asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Um… u-uh…" Anna stammered, her common cheery expression returning to mask her loss of composure. "Nothing! Sorry, I got a little carried away there… needless to say, we should get to Port Ferox as soon as we can! I have someone I really need to talk to, and I'd love for you to be there more than you'd probably love to go. She'll be so happy that she has a family, she won't even be mad about what I've done. Hopefully."

"What did you do, lady Anna?" Nah narrowed her gaze on the merchant. Anna persisted in smiling, though it grew imperceptibly more strained.

"Ah, nothing much!" Anna continued to smile. "We'll have to go to Port Ferox to find out - and hey, you'll get to meet up with your mother again! It's a win-win, right?"

Nah continued to glare at Anna, and took the dragonstone from Kjelle in an act of defiance against the merchant's will. "No, but thanks, Anna. My place for now is here, with Kjelle. I have a mission to see through, and I'm not about to abandon it for my family."

Anna's expression faltered slightly, but remained intact. "Ah, I understand! Of course you would want to do that!" she darted her hand out and stole the dragonstone away from Nah in the blink of an eye. "It's a shame you won't be able to help anyone and will only weigh them down and get everyone killed!" she turned and whipped the dragonstone into the sky, out of the stairway that led up to the top deck, with a splash not being necessary to convey the intensity and distance she had thrown the weapon.

"What!? Why would you-!?" Nah started, her hand still gripping for a phantom of the stone.

"Sorry, that one was… defective!" Anna smiled disarmingly. "Yep, it was all out of… uh… dragons? Looks like you're out of luck, and will have to go back to the port with me to get a new one!"

Kjelle blinked at Anna's erratic behaviour, and reached back into the wagon to grab another dragonstone. She passed it to her friend, but before they could complete the exchange Anna had slapped the stone down to the floor of the ship.

"That one's defective, too!" Anna said. "They all are, so don't bother checking! I've only kept them so long so that I can pawn them off on someone looking for decorations, so you really shouldn't use them in a fight. They'd be less than useless, and trying them out would only end for the worst."

"I'm not leaving my friend, or my objective." Nah said, her gaze narrowing anew on Anna. "You can go do whatever you want at the port, but I'm staying here, and you aren't about to change that."

Anna's smile wavered into an uneasy frown. "Ah, that's… that's not… ah…"

"Did you sell Nowi into slavery, Anna?" Kjelle asked warily as she leaned back into the cart for another dragonstone.

"Maybe a little…" Anna admitted slowly, with Nah's glare growing a small amount more intense as a result. "I know that it was wrong, though! I want to make things better, too, I just… I think having Nah there would be for the best. Any apology I could give wouldn't be much compared to Nowi knowing that she has such a lovely daughter regardless of everything I caused."

Nah unabashedly scoffed at Anna's remarks. "Ha! Please, as if she would care - and if she did, I sure as hell wouldn't. No, my place is here, with who I've chosen to be with rather than with who I was born."

Kjelle found her expression caught between a warm smile and a concerned frown. "Nah… you don't know how glad I am to hear that I have your support like that, but if you want to go see your family, you should."

"I don't." Nah stated firmly, though she didn't manage to shut down the concern coursing through Kjelle. "My family is as much here with you and everyone else from our time as it is my mother and father. No… no, actually, it's more here with you and my friends than with them."

"You never knew your family, did you?" Kjelle asked softly, finally determining what had caused Nah's borderline animosity, and in turn her own concern. "People like Noire and I knew parts of them, and could hear stories of those we had lost, but both of your parents died in Valm, didn't they? You were raised in the castle, and never got to meet your own family…"

Nah nodded resolutely. "Compared to you, they're nothing more than strangers to me. It wasn't only me, either - Gerome, Yarne, and Inigo each lost both of their parents to the war as well, and I'd be surprised if they didn't largely share my sentiment. I can't really complain, though, since everyone else there acted as surrogates, more or less… though they died in the end as well. Their sacrifices were far more impactful than that of strangers half heartedly named 'mother' or 'father', too."

Kjelle frowned at the cold tone of Nah's voice. "I may not be able to fully understand where you're coming from here, but that doesn't sound good at all. You may not care for them much, but they're still your family. It's not like you'll ever be born to different people, so you should try to get along with them. Maybe you'll find that you actually enjoy being with them."

"Yep! Sounds like you need some time for reconciliation!" Anna agreed immediately. "So let's agree to go to the port, okay? Okay? Nah?"

"I'm not going." Nah reiterated sternly, leaving no room to reasonably doubt her conviction.

"You should go, Nah." Kjelle said emphatically. "Blood is thicker than water, and all that. Your family should matter more than me, or anyone else that came back with us. Don't worry about us, or Robin. I'll make sure everything turns out alright."

Nah glared at Kjelle. "Are you serious? You want me to leave, even though we need info on Robin and he's right here with us? Not only that, but you want me to leave the people I know in order to meet up with complete strangers? Seriously!?"

"They're your family, Nah!" Kjelle argued, though she knew it was weak in comparison to her friend's determination.

"My family is with the people who raised me - who are all dead - and with the friends I've come to care for. Not some nobodies who couldn't bother to live long enough to so much as meet me!" Nah shouted, each word lined with more emotion than she regularly conveyed.

Kjelle gradually grew enraged by her friend's words. Nah's disrespect for her familial bonds, for the people who had given rise to her, was beyond what Kjelle had considered possible. More than anything, she began to see it as an affront to her own goals - her mother and father were that which tied her ambitions to the past, alongside saving the world, though that latter goal paled in comparison to the family Kjelle knew she could have if she were strong enough to save them. Before she could begin to refute anything that had been said, Nah began speaking again.

"Didn't you say that your parents aren't together, and that lady Sully is with sir Stahl?" Nah asked, her mouth forming a thin, frail smile. "Your 'family' is already broken, Kjelle, and more than it had been in our time. Do you think that those people are still your parents? That they would love and care for you as those you grew up with, and in the case of your mother, imagined? I have no idle dreams for my parents, or any wayward hopes for who they may be - they're corpses in the ground in a world we've left behind. That's all. They won't come back, and we won't find them here. All we can do is stop what we experienced from happening again to a new, unique set of people who happen to be wholly unrelated to us. All of our families are, and forever will be, dead."

Kjelle tightened her hands into fists. Once Nah had finished, she struck the Manakete across the face, her fist remaining closed. Anna's eyebrows shot up as Nah staggered and nearly fell from the force of the hit.

"I'm going to save them both, bring them together, and ensure that everything that needs to happen, happens." Kjelle said, forcing her voice to be steady. "I won't let you tarnish that. You're wrong if you think our families don't matter, and I'll make sure you see that."

Neither looked directly at the other, but Kjelle could tell that Nah was blinking away tears. Deep down, Kjelle knew that she had been wrong to harm her friend, and that she had done far more damage than a single punch would entail, yet somehow she felt little guilt over the matter. She felt no pride either, but attributed that to the notion of her own friend opposing her goals rather than as a result of her own actions.

Anna placed one hand on Nah's shoulder, offering the girl a small amount of support. "If you do want to go to the port, you wouldn't necessarily have to meet your parents, I just thought it would be nice - and helpful to me. There'll be other people there you may want to see, too, from all of the Shepherds and Noire, to possibly more of the people you travelled through time with."

Nah looked at Kjelle, her eyes shining with unshed tears as one of her hands held the spot at which she had been punched. "Fine. Let's go to the port, Anna. Maybe I'll find something of worth there."

Part of Kjelle's chest clenched at the genuinely hurt tone and expression Nah wore, but she suffocated those feelings with her pride. No one would be able to stand in the way of her goals, and if her own friend were to decide to be of less help than Robin or anyone else, she would need to respond with an assertion of her ideal and the strength she would use to attain it that left nothing to be questioned. Even so, Kjelle found it progressively more difficult to smother her growing pangs of guilt with every passing moment she stood before Nah.

"I hope your family will find you well." Kjelle said coldly, making one final attempt to snuff out her fledgling guilt. For the greater part, she succeeded, though her words seemed to having nothing but an adverse effect on her friend.

Nah hmphed and turned away from Kjelle, leaving for the upper deck before shedding any tears. Kjelle continued to hold her head unnecessarily high as Nah left, and continued to do so when Anna's perplexed stare trained on her and turned into a combination of a frown and glare before she too left for the upper deck, leaving Kjelle alone on the lower level.

After a few moments of being left with only her thoughts and the faint sound of waves crashing into the ship's hull, Kjelle sighed. No matter how much she wished to ignore it, she felt irrevocably guilty about what had transpired, and knew now that she had only made matters worse than they needed to be.

She wasn't about to correct herself or give Nah the knowledge that she had accepted being in the wrong, as both would be an affront to the vision she had already done too much toward, but she was at least willing to admit her mistake in the privacy of her own mind.

* * *

Much later in the day, quite some time after Robin had shown Anthep and then promptly stowed Raeshe's body in the room of the ship he had been using, and a short time after Anthep had left Nah to steer the ship in order to enter a rest each person aboard knew to be his last, the Ship of Lost Souls arrived on the northern shores of Mount Prism. Every living person on board departed it in short order, leaving the bodies of Anthep and Raeshe behind.

The greatest draw on time came from Anna, who revealed immediately before their leaving the mechanism through which they would remove their horses and cart, by undoing a grate in the centre of the upper deck and having Nah, Kjelle, and Robin each aid her in raising a platform atop which their caravan resided. Robin would admit that he felt foolish for not having realised the means the pirate crew before them had used to lower their cargo, but only if anyone had asked him - which no one did.

Kjelle and Nah kept each other at a great distance, something Robin was able to observe before Anna had hurriedly informed him of their dispute and Kjelle's resulting assault. Before Robin could corner either of the parties involved, they had begun to say their goodbyes, though he had already decided upon the necessity of speaking with them both before their departures could be made final.

"So… this is it, for now." Kjelle opened, addressing Nah as they both stood resolutely on the raised, grassy shore at which the ship had landed. Robin could barely hear them from where he was struggling to delicately move Anna's wagon to land with his wind magic. His odd weakness from before had thankfully yet to manifest.

"Yeah. For now." Nah said, largely matching Kjelle's colder tone.

"It sucks that it's been so long since I've seen you, and yet we have to part ways so soon." Kjelle said, genuine remorse in her voice despite its chill and her dedication. She had yet to relent on the matter, and she held strong to the belief that she never would.

"Maybe for you, but I think we've both learned that our perceptions can be dramatically different." Nah said, her pointed ears flattening in muted anger. "For me, I've only been gone from the future for a day, and was away from you for less than an hour… but I guess there are bigger differences than that, huh?"

Kjelle resisted the urge to wince. "Look, if this is still about that stuff you said about your own family, and what you were implying for mine, I'm not about to apologise. I won't go back on-"

"That's not the point!" Nah seethed, successfully silencing Kjelle, if for only a moment. "It's Robin. If he turns out to be more of a danger than we could have thought, I don't want to be away for that. I don't want to have to leave you behind. Not for something as petty as this."

"Good thing it isn't petty, then." Kjelle said, her heart caught between a warmth and all too familiar chill at the memory of what it meant to be left behind. "This may not seem like it's for the best, Nah, but I assure you that it is. You need to get along with your family, and I'm more than understanding if that means you have to leave. I promise, I'll be fine - I'm not in as much danger around Robin as you think."

Nah's gaze lingered on Kjelle for a moment before falling toward her feet. "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. That's… that's the full phrase for what you were talking about earlier. The bonds you choose are stronger than those that you're born into."

Before Kjelle could begin to refute anything she had said, Nah launched herself forward, embracing her friend in a tight hug. "I… I don't want anything bad to happen to you, because you're part of my actual family - the one I've chosen, and the one I know I'll have. So… please, don't get hurt?"

All of the guilt for her actions that Kjelle had held back welled up as as Nah embraced her, and she buried her face into the smaller woman's head. "Gods, Nah… I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have hit you, or gotten so angry over that…"

"You're right." Nah agreed immediately, burying her head further into Kjelle's collar. "But I'm not one to hold grudges. At least not against family. So, as long as you come back safe, I'll forgive you."

"I'm sorry…" Kjelle whispered again, squeezing Nah tighter before relinquishing her grip entirely, with Nah doing the same in turn. "You know I'll come back safe, though. I'd make you a promise, but considering how many times people had promised things like this in the future, only for it to fall flat…"

"I know, and I get it. Kind of." Nah said. "If you don't come to the port soon, or if Robin gets there alone, I'm going to come looking for you. Or kill him. Just so you know."

"You wouldn't have an easy time of it." Kjelle smiled, the cockiness she had always worn on her sleeve in her time making a return in order to reassure Nah of her fortitude. "I've yet to win a match, and I think it's safe to say that I'm a little bit better of a fighter than you. Though, to be fair, those duels have all been with him using magic…"

"You're still counting the duels where I transformed as illegitimate, aren't you?" Nah asked pointedly, though she allowed a small smile to grace her features as well. "If you would, then I would have won, like… at least two thirds of our duels. If you're still against all forms of magic, though…"

"I'm not against them or anything - I told you that I'm learning some spells!" Kjelle said. "It's more that… well… don't you think it was a little unfair that you could use magic and I couldn't back then?"

"It's not like I could use a lance or anything!" Nah countered, oddly happy to be bickering over something so inconsequential.

"Well, at least that way, I was the one to win." Kjelle grinned, and Nah gave a short laugh.

"Hah, you really haven't changed." Nah smiled in turn. "Actually… no. You have changed; I couldn't imagine the you I had once known ever apologising for hitting someone - or bothering to learn magic, for that matter. I kind of like the new you. It's nice."

"It's not like I've changed that much." Kjelle murmured, finding that she disfavoured that notion.

"You definitely have." Nah continued to smile. "I guess I should thank Robin for that, huh? It seems like he's humbled you, or something. Normally, I would have to rely on Lucina to do that, but I can assume that Robin is a bit less humble than her."

Kjelle glanced back to Robin and nodded in short order. "Yeah, but in fairness that's a pretty difficult bar to pass. He's not that bad."

"So I keep hearing." Nah grumbled, her dissatisfaction with the statement lasting less than a moment before her smile returned. "I'm glad I didn't have to wait long to see you again, Kjelle. I promise, I'll try to get along with my family at the port - I'm not making any promises, to be clear - and then I'll rush back out here with everyone to save your sorry butt, if need be."

"I can handle myself… but, I appreciate it." Kjelle returned the smile. She pulled Nah into another rapid embrace, each holding the other tightly before they broke apart again. Somehow, she found that the hug didn't make her feel quite as warm as when she had done the same with Robin, but that was a fact she swiftly dismissed.

Nah smiled at Kjelle one more time, and then both made their way to Robin and Anna. The horses and cart had been offloaded from the ship without incident, with the fact that Robin had been able to control his magic so well as to not elicit any loud responses from the horses during their moving almost meriting amazement on behalf of those gathered. Despite the success of his transport, Robin was still in the middle of recovering from the immediate aftereffects of his spells, and was doubled over in order to regain his breath. Anna had observed Kjelle and Nah for the majority of their farewell.

"Casting magic like this can be hard, but… I shouldn't be this… winded." Robin huffed, stretching his back straight only for his right hand to pulse in a worrying disagreement. A wave of pain coursed through much of his body, forcing him to briefly double over once more before any trace of it faded entirely, leaving him feeling as capable as ever.

Anna pursed her lips as she watched the end of Kjelle and Nah's interactions, then frowned without turning to Robin. "I'm not going to hug you. You know that, right?"

Robin blinked. "I wasn't about to ask you to."

Anna turned to him, her frown deepening for a moment before she spun back toward the two approaching time travellers. She tilted her head from one side to another as if conversing with herself, the quickly spun back toward Robin and pulled him into a rapid embrace. Robin didn't resist the action, but instead stood dumbly in place as Anna threw her arms around him.

Kjelle turned from Nah back to the ship, saw the two Shepherds' embrace, and flinched in the middle of a step. Her mind convinced her that in that moment, by way of Anna hugging Robin, she herself was being deprived of another comforting hug all her own and felt a pang cross her chest at the thought. She was able to quickly reprimand herself, and finished her step without great pause, shaking her head clear of its silliness as she walked.

Nah caught the odd misstep Kjelle had made and was swiftly able to pinpoint its origin. Rather than be disgusted or shocked as she had at first been, she instead merely allowed a tiny amount of air to quietly pass her lips in a mixture of a groan and a sigh, her eyes rolling inconspicuously upward.

"Thanks for everything with the Shepherds, and letting me stay." Anna said to Robin moments before she pulled away from the hug. She sent him an easy smile, one that felt more genuine to both parties than her usual. "You're good people, Robin. I hope we can meet again soon."

Once again, all Robin could bring himself to do was blink. "Um… yes? None of it was a problem, really, and… yeah. Let's see what happens."

Anna continued to beam at Robin before she made her way to her cart to retrieve what little supplies weren't hers. She returned before Robin had completely regained his bearings, passing him the single bag of equipment he had retained as well as the journal and conjoined dossiers Nah had left behind. She then handed Kjelle her respective bags, and gave a short, exorbitantly showy bow.

"Alas, my friends, we must part!" she said, her voice matching her movement - and seemingly mimicking Virion incredibly well for someone who had yet to properly meet the man. "Ah well, it was fun while it lasted!" she continued, immediately dropping character. "See you two at the port!"

Anna walked forward until she was standing directly beside Kjelle, at which point she stopped and stood in place. "Hey, so, um… I'm sorry if I've come across as less than amicable. I hope we can get along better once we meet again."

Kjelle mimicked Robin perfectly by blinking, almost failing to understand the merchant's words. "Um… yeah? I hope we can get along well, too, even if you aren't exactly who I remember you to be. We can at least try to be friends regardless, right?"

Anna smiled brightly. "Of course. Until then, Kjelle!"

As Anna made her way past Kjelle, Nah made her way toward Robin. He didn't greet her, thinking the action to be unnecessary given how shortly they would be parting.

"So. You're going to be alone with Kjelle again for a little while." Nah opened, holding her arms close against her body and glaring at the grandmaster. "If anything happens, I'll do everything in my power to save her, and kill you. I hope you know that."

Robin smiled brightly enough that Nah was perplexed for a rapid moment before managing to return to her glare. "Trust me, things'll be fine. Er, well, I guess you won't really have any reason to trust me, but you can trust Kjelle. I promise, I'll make sure she doesn't get hurt to the best of my ability, regardless of how unnecessary such protection will undoubtedly be. She's a strong person."

"Until you decide to kill her, right?" Nah asked coldly. "She's told me about your plans - how you want to train her into someone worth killing. She doesn't believe you, but I know that playing with someone like that is exactly the kind of thing you would do. I can only hope she'll get the better of you before then."

Robin's smile didn't waver. "I understand your concern, Nah. I won't make any promises regarding the final duel, but know that Kjelle is far stronger than you're giving her credit for. I've underestimated her at times. You shouldn't be surprised if the outcome isn't what you would expect from what happened in your time."

"Do you honestly think she has a chance to beat you, let alone kill you?" Nah asked skeptically, her glare remaining to counter his smile. "She's told me that she hasn't won a single duel against you, and that she can't get past your magic. She rarely could in duels in our time against friends, too. If everyone remaining in our Shepherds didn't stop you, then she alone isn't going to stand a chance."

"She's made excellent progress, though." Robin argued. "Soon, she'll be more powerful than you can imagine - probably strong enough to kill someone like me. It's not like I'm powered up by Grima yet, like I probably was in your time."

Nah held her malcontent against him. "I'll be seeing you, Robin. If Kjelle isn't there when that time comes, or if you still are…" she trailed off, not needing to finish her statement for it to make sense to Robin.

"I get it." Robin said, his smile having yet to fade. "Goodbye, Nah."

"Goodbye, Robin." Nah said tersely, her glare staying on her face as she turned away. Once she had turned, it momentarily faltered in an odd reassuring confusion, though that feeling soon faded and was replaced again by her discontent.

"Hey!" Anna shouted once she saw that Nah had left Robin, waving one hand high above her head to ensure that the group's attention would be gathered on her. "What are we doing about the ship? Do we leave it here? With Raeshe and Anthep on board?"

"We could burn the boat?" Robin suggested, straining his voice unnecessarily to ensure that his uncertainty would be heard. "It's not like we have the tools to give them a proper burial, and considering that the entire crew is dead and what had happened to practically everyone they knew, I'm guessing there isn't going to be anyone waiting for the ship's return."

Doesn't that seem a little… savage?" Anna protested, inwardly wincing. "There are still things of value on that ship, after all, and there may be people waiting for them back at that one town… knowing them, it was probably called the 'Town of Lost Souls' or something, which I'm not going to bother remembering."

"You're still bothering with funerals?" Nah asked, surprised. "Huh… I suppose that not much has changed from the world we wanted, even after two years of being on the wrong path. Ah well; I say we burn the boat with them aboard and be done with it."

Ignoring the raised eyebrow from Anna, Kjelle said her piece. "I'd like to give them a proper burial, but realistically speaking, we can't. The burning seems like the next best option, so let's go with that."

Anna held her eyebrow high, but eventually shrugged. "Alright, not like it's a major problem for me. Before we do that, though, everyone is certain they didn't leave anything valuable behind? No potential sales, or personal effects, or anything?"

"For a minute there, I kind of thought that you had actually changed." Kjelle said dryly.

"Eh, I've made progress." Anna shrugged dismissively. She looked to Robin and Nah, counting Kjelle's remark as indication that she had no ties to anything aboard the ship. "Anyone have anything at all worth going back for? Yes? No?"

Robin and Nah both shook their heads, and Anna clapped her hands together merrily. "Alright, then!" she said with a matching merriment. "If you can do the honours, Robin?"

With a wave of her hand, Anna ushered Robin forward toward the ship. She kept Nah and Kjelle at bay, giving him room to use his magic against the wooden behemoth and in doing so send it to its inevitable grave.

First, Robin blew the ship back toward the ocean with a significant burst of wind magic, and then bathed the hull with flames in succession. He held tightly to his wind tome for the first phase of his spells, and part of him desired to request his gifted fire tome from Kjelle, but he refused to do so due to how irregular such an action would be. Perhaps, if he pretended that it didn't exist, his predicament would disappear all on its own - at least, that was what he told himself, beyond outright denying that anything was amiss. He inaudibly sighed with relief when his spells fired off without complication.

Anna stared blankly at the retreating ship as it burned, her lips pulled into a painfully tight smile. "I… may have remembered now that I was going to give you a tent to make up for the one Noire took. Or, you know, sell you it, if you were down for that. I may have pulled it out if my carriage before we moved it, hoping to give it to you, and then forgot it on board… and it may have been the only one I had left. Whoops."

"You were going to give me a tent? Why would you-?" Robin asked, cutting himself off as his eyes flashed with realisation. "Oh, godsdamnit! I don't have a tent!"

"I had a feeling someone was forgetting something." Anna murmured as she continued to blankly watch the ship. "Huh. Who would have thought that it would be me?"

Robin's hands found his head as his posture sank. "Ugh… okay, that's okay. I have my cloak; nothing bad will be able to happen to me for as long as I have it. I can sleep in it, and it'll keep me safe, and warm, and secure…"

"You place a weird amount of trust in that thing." Kjelle commented wryly. "I can understand why, since it was pretty great when I was able to try it out, but still. It gets weird."

Robin glared at her with greater humour than animosity. "You're jealous you don't have something like this for yourself. I could enchant your armour, or you could do it yourself, but even then I doubt it would compare to this beauty." he said, pulling the sides of his cloak in order to flaunt the enchanted fabric.

"Don't care, that's still weird." Kjelle said. "Also, my armour is perfectly fine as is. It protected my mother throughout the first Plegian war, and it's done a fine job of doing the same for me, regardless of how much I've faced so far. Not to mention that it's comforting."

"'Comforting'?" Robin repeated back to her. "You're wearing a dead woman's armour. That's not exactly what I'd call comforting by any stretch of the imagination."

"Well, it's comforting to me." Kjelle shot back, a typical fire lining her words. Robin had to suppress a smile, her usual flame being a welcome reminder of the potential he saw in her.

"Alright, my bad." Robin acquiesced easily, his voice lilted enough as to be bordering a laugh. "Anyone else have goodbyes to say, or are we good to go?"

"We're good." Anna said, speaking on behalf of Nah without bothering to check with the time traveller. "Again, sorry about the tent. I'll see you both back at the port!"

"Goodbye, Anna." Robin waved to her, maneuvering away from where he had placed the carriage and horses in order to allow her and Nah to depart. Kjelle followed suit, giving a short wave of her own to both Nah and Anna.

The cart sped away once Anna had fastened to it the two remaining horses, disappearing a short time after Robin and Kjelle had both finished tracing its movements with their eyes. Robin turned away first, setting his sights on the distant yet near summit of Mount Prism, the ship burning behind him offering as much illumination than the gradually setting sun.

"I'd say… two days to reach the shrine atop the mountain, one to meet with Naga, and then probably two more to reach the last destination - that Laurent guy." Robin said aloud, garnering part of Kjelle's interest.

"We're going to meet her, aren't we?" she breathed, her thoughts threatening to freeze in awe at the idea. "It doesn't seem real… she only ever talked to Lucina in my time, and I don't think that she ever showed herself."

"With any luck we'll be meeting her." Robin corrected her. "There's a chance we may not, if she simply isn't there, or something else like that. Also, did she really never show herself? Not once?"

Kjelle shook her head. "Never. Lucina only knew it was Naga because she identified herself by name, and was able to pull off some insane magic - mostly being able to speak directly to Lucina whenever she pleased, and opening a portal through time."

Robin's brow furrowed as Kjelle finished speaking. "Really? Naga could do that, huh? Did Lucina ever make known what the experience was like? Did she hear any piercing tones, or anything of the sort?"

"Not that I know of." Kjelle shrugged. "Why? Do you think there were supposed to be tones?"

"No, that's not it… nevermind." Robin dismissed with a sigh. "We should get moving. There's a fair amount of ground left to cover, and not much sunlight left to do it in." he began walking toward the mountain, pressing toward the dense forest that surrounded it, no trails making their existences clearly known.

Kjelle remained in place, her eyes honed in curiosity. "You mentioned those tones before… after you passed out and the risen changed, you said something about some tones in your head, and a woman. Were you talking with Naga when that happened?"

"I don't think so." Robin admitted genuinely without turning around. "It's more like… it's complicated, okay? I was thinking that Lucina may have experienced something similar, but I don't have much to base that assumption on."

"Who was that woman, then, if not Naga?" Kjelle asked. She began moving in the same direction as Robin, no longer needing to remain in place to gather her thoughts.

"Final duel." Robin said simply, as though it excused all of the information he was concealing entirely. Kjelle groaned, but made no effort to pry any further.

After a short stretch of time, Kjelle spoke again. "What kind of things are you going to ask Naga when - er, if we meet her?" she asked, causing Robin to pause at the edge of the forest as he considered the question.

"Hm… some things about the future, and about myself, maybe some things about the memories I've lost… and, of course, everything that's happened recently with the risen and your time travel weirdness." he eventually answered. "What about you?"

"Y'know, stuff about my friends, like where the ones that Flavia couldn't find are, and about my family in this time. I'll also probably ask her for some tips about how to get stronger, especially if she's only super strong and not a literal god, like what you were going on about before. And any weird stuff, too, of course."

Robin nodded several times, as much to himself as her. He cleared his throat, uncertain of whether he should be telling Kjelle of his plans for Naga, but found that he trusted her too much to not inform her. She would soon see his plan anyway, and he preferred to inform her beforehand rather than surprise her entirely - he felt as though she deserved that much, considering how much he was already hiding.

"Look, Kjelle… if we do find Naga…" Robin said, sighing before committing to his desire to trust her. "If we do find Naga, regardless of what she says or tries to do, I'm going to attempt to kill her."

Kjelle blinked, knowing that she should be taken aback but finding such a reaction to be impossible in the situation's absurdity. "You what? You realise she's the closest thing the world's known to a god, even if she technically isn't one, right? Not to mention that she's a divine dragon - according to you yourself, you would need to share her blood to kill her."

"That's what I want to test out, the theory about needing to share her blood." Robin said, a weight already lifting from his mind at having revealed his intentions. "It's not everyday you get to try something like this. I'd be a fool to not want to experiment a little. Besides, there's something I want to prove to myself."

"And that would be…?" Kjelle asked, trailing off to allow Robin to finish on his own.

"A secret." Robin smiled cheekily, causing Kjelle to roll her eyes as well as give another muted groan. "Really, it's a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation. Either I successfully kill one of the most powerful beings in existence, and therefore vilify myself to everyone who follows her, or I don't and have to accept what that means. I don't really want either outcome, but I'd prefer knowing to the opposite."

"You actually think you could kill Naga…" Kjelle breathed, as amazed by the concept as she was stunned by its stupidity. "Could you warn me before you try anything against her? I'd like to get out of the way before she smites you down."

"Whatever." Robin replied distantly, effectively ending the conversation. "Let's see where that day takes us. Hopefully, nowhere bad."

Kjelle smiled, hiding a pang of concern beneath her expression. No one could possibly kill Naga, but she was afraid that Robin would legitimately try, and was as scared that he would succeed as that he would fail.

* * *

Robin plopped down onto the surprisingly soft earth that lined all of Mount Prism, giving his legs some much needed rest after his and Kjelle's hours of near constant travel. The sun had set less than an hour ago, but without horses to ease their movement Robin was unwilling to press far into the night. He ensured that his cloak was positioned in such a way that its tail protected him from any possible residue from the ground.

They had found a path within a few minutes of walking, and had stuck closely to it for the duration of their travel. The path seemingly led up the majority of the mountain, with more roads joining to it and it to others as they progressed up the sacred land.

A short distance from Robin, Kjelle began to stretch her legs. Unlike him, she remained standing, allowing only her stuffed bags of equipment to fall to the ground at her feet. Each gave a dull thud from the amount of supplies that filled them. Sadly, though, neither possessed a tent for Robin, something Kjelle had checked for over the course of their travel with fleeting hope, with the time traveller feeling a small amount of guilt at Noire's theft despite Robin having already told her that such feelings were misplaced.

"You should try to stretch out a bit, not flop down." Kjelle advised, seeing Robin's incredible weariness. "We've only been walking for a few hours, tops. Tomorrow and the next few days are going to be more of the same."

"Ugh, don't remind me…" Robin groaned. He rose to a stand again, wincing and pausing intermittently as his calves resisted the movement. "You don't think Naga would have horses, do you? Or that she might make a portal for us to use?"

"You're going to ask Naga for a portal through time and space because you're too lazy to walk for a few days?" Kjelle scoffed. "How is it possible for you to be that exhausted?"

"I'm exaggerating… mostly." Robin said, finally easing himself into a full stand in which he was able to properly stretch his strained legs. "Anyway, want to try some magic or duels before turning in for the night? You've still got some progress to make in a short window of time."

"We've got a few weeks left until Valm, but sure." Kjelle said, continuing through her routine of stretches before she pulled out her enchanted lance. She pointed it at Robin threateningly, though the smile on her face betrayed her false emotions.

 _About five days until we reach Laurent._ Robin thought to himself silently, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath as he prepared to fight. _I haven't been thinking about it much, but there's not long left until the end._ His eyes snapped open and he focused on Kjelle with a familiar intensity. _She still has such a long way to go… maybe she isn't ready. Maybe I'm not… no, no, I can't think like that. I can't back out of this. This is the end. It has to be. For the good of everyone._

His heart ached at the thought, and the deep breath he had taken in caught in his throat as he attempted to exhale. He played it off as nothing and persisted in his intense glare on Kjelle.

"Alright, Kjelle. On you." Robin said, fishing his tomes out of his cloak at the last minute. "Like I said, there's still a lot of progress to be made, so don't hold anything back."

"I wasn't planning on it." Kjelle grinned, her smile then immediately faltering. "Er, no, wait… if I win, then that's what I was going to say. If not, then I haven't gone all out, got it?"

Robin rolled his eyes. "Sure, whatever you say. Let's just get to fi-" he was cut off when Kjelle lunged at him, jabbing out her lance at his chest as he was speaking.

Robin blew himself backward with his wind magic, barely avoiding the reach of her strike. Kjelle didn't give him any time to recover, following up with more jabs that pushed her footing to the extreme and forced Robin to back precariously through the forest, avoiding trees from behind and attacks from the front with more wind magic.

Kjelle plushed herself too far with another strike and stumbled during one of her attacks. Robin immediately took advantage of the brief respite and shot a spell at the knight's feet, destabilising her fully and causing her to crash to the ground.

"Ha, that was almost clever." Robin remarked, flexing his right hand passively in silent anticipation of it aching. "You should work a little on your timing. Also, make it something that would take me off guard enough that I wouldn't be able to respond adequately - maybe something personal, if you know anything like that."

"Ugh, alright…" Kjelle groaned as she rose from the ground, her weapon still gripped tightly in her fist. "Hey, Robin! Your cloak is shit!"

Robin levelled his gaze on her. "Make it something believable, too."

"Your cloak doesn't protect anything below your thighs, meaning it isn't as effective as an enchanted set of armour!"

"It's way more ergonomic, though." Robin grinned, completely unfazed by her vain attempt to throw him off. "Seriously, you must have thought so yourself - and look at the amazing craftsmanship!"

"The inner lining is a different material blend that's worse than the rest of the cloak, and isn't enchanted!" Kjelle shouted unnecessarily. "It's probably gotten dirty, and won't protect you if it ever has to!"

Robin blinked and actually opened the front of his cloak to examine its inner workings. "What? No, it's definite-"

Kjelle wasted no time in attacking, sending a flaming effigy of her lance hurtling toward Robin's exposed face and upper body. The grandmaster managed to react in time, bringing the fabric of his cloak up high enough to block the majority of the shot, both with the outer and inner lining of his clothing. Part of the shot did connect with his lower face, but it proved weak enough that it left no damage whatsoever.

"Alright, that time was better." Robin admitted honestly. He looked down at the inner portion of his cloak that shielded him against Kjelle's fire and found it to be resoundingly unscathed. "Also, see? No damage! The enchantments are on the inside, too." his voice fell low the more he spoke. "Huh, she was thorough with this thing. I should've thanked her when I had the chance… or, I should've at least verified that she was the one who did it."

"What was that?" Kjelle asked, failing to hear him and deciding to hold off on continuing her ineffective tirade of attacks until an opportunity made itself known.

"Ah, nothing! Don't mind me, just thinking about some stuff." Robin said too quickly. "It's pointless, really. Better left ignored."

"...Right." Kjelle agreed, slow and skeptical in regard to his hidden words. She refrained from attacking him for a while longer. Eventually, she raised the head of her lance, sighing and holding the weapon at rest, its bottom planted firmly in the ground.

"I'm not going to get anywhere right now, as much as I'd like to believe otherwise." she said. "Can we try straight magic for a little while? I still can't touch you as long as you use spells."

"You're going to have to know how to counter mages eventually, but sure." Robin shrugged, placing away his tomes within his cloak and preparing for her inevitably weak spells. "We should do more toward combating magic soon, though. Maybe after this, or within the next few days. It really is important for everyone's survival."

"Yeah, I can tell." Kjelle said, her lance remaining at rest and her tome staying tucked away in her armour as she spoke. "Got any pointers for how to get better at anything and everything anti-mage?"

Robin brought a hand to his chin and closed his eyes, humming to himself quietly as he searched his thoughts. "Beyond what I've told you of magic counters and simply out matching them… probably getting a strategic advantage would help the most. If you have the metaphorical high ground, you could kill them before they can turn the tide of the battle. Be warned, though, they're good at doing turning that tide, at manipulating the circumstances of battle to their liking. You should probably read up on some basic and advanced strategy before- whoa!"

Robin opened his eyes at precisely the right moment to see Kjelle dashing toward him, her footfalls muffled by his thoughts. She swung her lance into his leg at a point short distance above his knee, beneath where his cloak extended, the head of her weapon successfully shearing through the fabric and drawing blood. Continuing her charge all the while, Kjelle barreled into Robin, knocking them both to the ground with her armoured weight atop him.

Robin responded immediately by rolling, forcing them both onto their sides. He blew Kjelle away from him with hastily prepared wind magic, sending each of their bodies tumbling in opposite directions before Kjelle could land any more hits.

"Alright, that time was well done!" Robin cheered as he regained his bearings and rose to a stand, wincing as weight was put on the light wound Kjelle had inflicted. "Granted, it was kind of underhanded, but you did manage to distract me. If you pulled something similar with another opponent, you'd definitely be able to deal some serious damage, and maybe kill them."

"Not you, though…" Kjelle groaned, staying on the ground for a moment longer before she bothered to stand. "Okay, sorry for the trick. I'd like to actually practice magic now."

Robin nodded, falling easily back into the relaxed yet prepared position he took to sustain her spells. He winced slightly again as he shifted his wounded leg, this time drawing Kjelle's attention to the cut she had inflicted.

"Holy shit, I hit you!?" she asked incredulously, blinking several times when she refused to believe her eyes.

"Yep. Congrats." Robin said, gritting his teeth as he began to feel the delayed effects of the cut. "Gods, please tell me we got some vulneraries or something from Anna before we parted. I don't want to have to suture this tonight…"

"Uh… no, I didn't get any." Kjelle said, wincing for Robin's pain. "I'll try not to do anything serious. To be fair, I didn't think I would hurt you."

"Eh, it'll be fine." Robin dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand, and she did the same after a moment of hesitation. He was more confused than gladdened by Kjelle's instant of uncertainty, but allowed the concept to pass without interruption.

"Okay, then." Kjelle said, placing away her lance in order to focus solely on using her tome. She successfully manifested a fireball above her right hand, and held it in place for a moment to ensure that it was prepared before launching it at Robin.

The fireball collided with Robin and harmlessly faded away within seconds. Robin was left unscathed, the tongues of fire that lapped out from the spell proving too weak to overcome his natural resistance or that of his cloak. After waiting a short time to ensure that the damage of her attack was not merely delayed rather than nonexistent, he shook his head solemnly, wordlessly conveying the spell's lack of success.

Kjelle nodded resolutely, not taking her failure as an indication to stop trying. She fired spell after spell at Robin, sometimes changing their intensity or size to the best of her ability, though she never succeeded in dealing damage. Robin soon began giving her pointers on spell formation and magical assault.

In spite of her lack of visible progress, Kjelle pressed on late into the night. Robin was always willing to support her drive to strengthen herself and only stopped once she did the same. They held a meager meal and went to sleep. Kjelle considered offering Robin space in her tent but ultimately shot the idea down for reasons not limited to her own embarrassment at the notion of voicing the proposition.

Robin never asked for a place to rest in her tent, and in truth seemed beyond content with sleeping in his cloak. So, as Kjelle fell into rest in her shelter a short distance from him, Robin lay on the centre of the clearest area he could determine to be clean. He mindlessly allowed the grass of the forest floor to reach up and cradle what little skin remained exposed about his face and the now-stitched cut along his leg as he drifted into far too deep of a slumber.

* * *

 **I was going to have this out on time, and was going to be super happy about being punctual again, but that didn't pan out.**

 **The pirate crew is gone now. I probably could have done with only one character in order to get everything I wanted to across, but as always, I get carried away easily.**

 **Nah and Anna are also both headed to the port. There's a minor plot hole of Nah not having the same conviction to leave after reconciling with Kjelle, but trying to fix that caused more plot holes! It's almost like code debugging, but I'm trying to be better at writing than anything to do with code.**

 **Status: As of 27-01-19, I'm on chapter 34. I'm still going slow, but better than the past few months. Again, sorry for the waits and all that. This was also supposed to be out yesterday, but I missed that by a few hours. Woops.**


	23. Chapter 23

Dawn broke over Mount Prism earlier than anywhere in Ferox. Warm light washed over the land and its lush forests, eventually waking Kjelle, shining brightly enough through the fabric of her tent to fracture her natural sleeping rhythm.

Kjelle groggily worked her way out from her bedding, yawning intermittently as she struggled to remain awake. After spending longer than needed preparing for the day, she emerged from her tent and made to find Robin. She still had some work to do, most significantly finding a clean source of water at which she could refill her waterskins and clean up, but decided to wait until after she had awoken Robin to do so. A total lack of noise, even that of wind or birdsong, met her as she maneuvered around their meager campsite.

Robin was fast asleep when she found him lying in the grass beneath the limited shade of a tall tree. He always proved unnecessarily difficult to wake in the morning.

Kjelle paused as she stood over him, taking in Robin's calmly rested features with a soft smile. He was peaceful when asleep. She enjoyed seeing him at ease. The relaxation on his face made him seem harmless, giving her a sense of security and hope for her future she had not felt since abandoning her time.

When she had first found Robin sleeping weeks ago, Kjelle had considered killing him, and remembered that fact all too well. Despite the reassuring serenity the grandmaster wore on his resting expression, she could feel a guilt welling up within her at the fact that she had ever considered something so dishonourable. The same guilt slowly began to manifest at the thought of harming him at all.

Kjelle paused further, lowering her gaze away from Robin's face and frowning. When she looked up again, she examined the grandmaster in greater detail, hoping to somehow find an answer to her budding concern written in his smooth complexion. Every soft white strand of his hair and each calm breath he slowly took in his sleep defied her, and she cursed and looked away from him again, now blushing in embarrassment and at having found an unfavourable answer.

Both Nah and Noire had been correct. She had grown close to Robin. The thought of being his foe had been made appalling, a fact Kjelle resented as much as it made her heart rejoice. Her mind coldly reminded her of where their current relationship was headed, and how one of them was bound to perish at the hands of the other, but she silenced it to allow her heart to sing its praises a moment longer.

 _Even if one of us does have to die, even if our paths will never aline… that doesn't mean we have to hate each other, right?_ Kjelle spoke to herself, trying to convince her mind of the song of her heart. _Maybe, if he wasn't to become Grima… maybe we could have been friends._

The thought made her chest warmer than it was already, causing her to feel both pleased and saddened. She would enjoy being Robin's friend. Those were the words of her heart, and they were what she ensured her mind heard, regardless of the difficulties such a thought would undoubtedly entail.

Robin had fought with her, both as an opponent and as an ally, for the purposes of strengthening her in every way imaginable. She didn't care what his possible ulterior motive was, or if he had one - he would make her far more powerful than she could have at first hoped, and that made him an asset in her eyes.

He had been willing to help find and save her friends, and had saved Kjelle herself on occasion. He had humored her desire to challenge him every time it had appeared, and had done practically everything in his power to help her attain her goals. By all counts, Kjelle saw him as a friend, and could no longer hope to view him purely as an enemy.

She grimaced fiercely upon realising that Robin may not feel the same. After all, she had wished to kill him and had done everything in her power to worsen his life. She had come to see the error in her ways in part, and had acted somewhat to rectify her standing with him. Robin was by no means the type of person to hold a grudge, but she felt horrible all the same. She had hated and feared him and could now see that he could feel those same terrible things about her.

Her chest clenched at the thought that he may have legitimate reason to hate her.

Ultimately, Kjelle couldn't fault him for how he thought of her, considering how antagonistic she had acted toward him since their first meeting. She knew that, and yet her chest still hurt to think that he thought poorly of her - that she desired to be his friend, but that he may by no means reciprocate that desire.

She studied his features for a while longer before sighing deeply. No resolution would come from standing about doing nothing. Robin would have to be awoken before she could ever determine whether or not they could have been friends under different circumstances. Kjelle knelt down next to Robin in order to shake him awake, not daring to speak as though doing so would somehow break his serenity, but paused yet again.

He seemed so peaceful as he slept, as she had already silently remarked. They would need to begin walking again shortly if they ever hoped to reach Naga's shrine on the summit of Mount Prism in a timely manner. However, in that moment, knelt at Robin's side as he slept, Kjelle decided that they could wait a while longer. She leaned back, maneuvering her legs so that they rested beneath her in as comfortable a manner as she could manage, and smiled as she took Robin's safe form in anew.

* * *

Robin was truly at peace. His rest had been nothing short of lovely, giving him the relaxation he had desired for so long as it eased away the weariness and stress he had accumulated over too many days.

The warm sunlight and pleasantly soft grass of Mount Prism comforted his senses, lulling him into a more welcoming state of sleep than he had thought possible. He could feel each blade of grass that tickled his little exposed skin, and the beautifully warm rays of light that graced his sleeping body, the factors of his surroundings worming their way into his dreamless slumber.

Robin began to panic.

The grass was too soft, the sunlight too warm, his entire environment too comforting. Even as he subconsciously refused to dream, his mind called him back to the last time he had experienced such comfort, to the first peaceful sleep of all of his memory.

His eyes remained closed as his sleep drifted to the fields of southern Ylisse. The grass and sunlight on his skin followed him, urging him to remain unconscious yet aware, forcing him to remain asleep as the world distorted around him. His heart hammered in his chest.

A weight appeared on his upper body, senseless yet somehow uncomfortably warm. It didn't notice or at the very least care about the dangerously rapid pulsing of his heart. The weight shifted yet remained in place on his body, and his mind slowly began to fill with a silent noise, a constant sobbing whine that shifted between single notes. The sob only increased in volume.

Though the noise was singular and without variation, it began to make sense to Robin. He could feel the message the source of the noise was attempting to convey. Every silent word was caught between sobbing breaths that he simply knew had occurred.

 _I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…_

His heart threatened to burst out of his chest. Everything was wrong, and the world itself was a threat against his survival, and he knew in that instant that there was absolutely nothing he could hope to do. Then, the weight and part of the warmth were suddenly ripped away, taking the noise with them.

A new sensation enveloped him. He could feel safety and security covering him like a blanket, and he felt as though everything were right in the world, even if doing so did nothing to slow his heart.

Then everything went white.

"Chrom, we have to do something."

"What do you propose we do?"

"Uh… I don't know. Ah!"

"I see you're awake now."

Robin's mind began to numb. He could see Chrom, though no images appeared in his mind's eye, and his heart threatened to stop entirely from its sheer pace. Everything was wrong and all of Robin's being said as such, screaming to stop and to run and hide and faint and speak and embrace his friend and kill him and kiss him and shout and vomit and relax and die and so much more.

The cacophony of madness grew too vehemt to ignore, threatening to overwhelm Robin in his entirety, even as only a memory of a dream. Chrom's nonexistent phantom extended his hand for Robin to take. He did so without any hesitation or reservation.

In that instant, everything was made to feel okay again. All of the things that had screamed within him settled into a single, uniform grey, one that he was happy to have in contrast to its original form. He felt sad, yet content.

Then Chrom let go. The nonexistent world around Robin disappeared, leaving all of its nothingness.

Robin opened his eyes and found that he was seated, his legs crossed unassumingly before him. Across from him sat a being made entirely of grey in the same position, their clothing and skin a mess of cobbled black and white. A uniform grey void filled all else. Robin raised one hand toward them and the being mirrored him perfectly.

His fingertips touched theirs, and he found that they carried no sensation, and that neither did he. The being began to weep.

Robin didn't want it to cry. He loved it too much to see it be hurt, to will upon it anything negative whatsoever. He didn't know how or why he felt such a way; he merely did.

He curled his hands into the shape of a heart. The being stopped crying and slowly did the same, no longer mirroring him perfectly but doing its best to maintain such an illusion. As its hands moved into place, it burst into nothingness, leaving him in the grey void with a greater fear than he had yet experienced.

The real Robin exploded into wakefulness, his heart racing furiously in his chest. The sensations of the sunlight and grass against his face heightened his fear, and he quickly began to scramble. His hands clawed through dirt as his feet pushed down to propel him until his back connected with the sturdy bark of a tree. He sat against that tree, his lungs striving to choke on every gasp for air he made as his heart slowly began to calm, his unparalleled fear emblazoned in his widened eyes.

Kjelle sat at a distance that had once been short from him, her eyes wide in a concern that came close to mimicking his fear. Her mouth was open as she watched Robin struggle to calm himself. As he gradually made progress on settling down, she moved to stand by his side.

"What happened, Robin?" she asked as she knelt next to him, her concern in as great of strength as before. She raised one hand toward him in the hope of somehow providing aid, but retracted it in horror when he jumped away from her reach.

"Oh, gods…" Kjelle breathed, rising and backing away from him, that same horror replacing her concern. "You… you're afraid of me."

Robin continued to struggle to breathe, but didn't bother making any attempt toward correcting her. He truthfully had no idea what it was he feared so greatly. Though he highly doubted that it was Kjelle herself, the fear overwhelmed him and ensured that he did nothing.

Kjelle continued to back away from him for several more steps, then turned and ran a hand frantically through her short hair. She then brought her hands to her sides, then to her chest, then emphatically lowered them again, all the while shaking her head and refusing to show Robin the expression on her face.

It took several long, drawn out minutes for Robin to calm to the point where he could speak. At some point, Kjelle ceased her distraught movements, settling instead for standing still with her arms crossed over her chest, holding her shoulders insecurely. She kept her back to him at all times.

"We… we should get moving." Robin said weakly, causing Kjelle to visibly tense at the sound of his voice. "We need to go see Naga. We need answers."

After several moments of silence, Kjelle nodded. She began moving toward her tent, preparing to disassemble it and be on her way, before she risked a glance back at Robin.

In that instant she looked at him, Robin could see on her an unparalleled sorrow. Now fully calm and gradually collecting himself, he stared blankly at Kjelle as she whipped her head back around and broke their brief connection to one another. He questioned what could possibly have caused her to feel such a thing but only found himself growing more concerned for her in turn. He hated to see such sadness.

Robin rose from the tree he had backed into, having difficulty standing properly when his legs proved to be weaker than expected. A sharp pain coursed through his thighs and calves before fading as quickly as they had arrived. He slowly approached where Kjelle was working at folding up and bagging her tent, the time traveller straining to pay him no mind as he did so.

As Kjelle filled one of her bags, Robin bent over and picked up the other. He held it out to her, causing her to freeze in place when she realised what he was doing. She couldn't bring herself to look at him when she accepted the bag.

Robin's breathing faltered, his body tensing at seeing her in such a state. He decided that practically anything would be better than what he had brought upon them. "Look, Kjelle, I don't know what just happened, but… I…" he hesitated, having no idea what to say or how he could put his unconscious experience into words. "Kjelle, I… I-I'm afraid."

His words failed to have their desired effect, and instead caused Kjelle to squeeze her eyes tightly shut for an extended period of time. When she opened them again, the same sadness remained in their depths, and Robin could feel an empathetic force begin to weigh over him at the knowledge that he was the cause of this sadness.

"Let's go." Kjelle said, her voice weak. Without waiting for a response, she began to move in the direction of the path that would lead them further up the mountain, leaving him to follow.

Robin hesitated a moment longer before walking after her. He had no idea what he was to do now, but he knew that whatever poor situation he had placed them in would need to be rectified as soon as possible.

* * *

The duo progressed up Mount Prism for several hours in silence, neither daring to speak in fear of exacerbating their poor situation. Their path never remained consistent beyond growing gradually steeper the nearer they came to the mountain's summit.

Sensing that no good would come from remaining silent any longer, Robin slowed to a halt in his position behind Kjelle. She did the same after a moment, not facing him but making no move to do anything but wait for him to proceed.

"Look, Kjelle…" Robin opened in a complete lack of certainty, sighing as he failed to find proper words. "I really don't know what happened back there, aside from some… really weird, really creepy, hard to understand things. I don't know why or how it happened, but I don't want it to make us like this. I don't know what to say to that end, but if this is related to something I've done, or what I did back there, then I'm sorry. Please, can you talk to me? I feel like that could help a lot, for both of us."

Kjelle wavered slightly, her falsely stiff posture betraying her as she stood, still refusing to face him. "You… are you saying that you're not afraid of me?" she asked, her voice sounding far weaker and drowsier than Robin expected.

"No, not of you." Robin replied without hesitation, his concern growing as Kjelle's stance grew visibly weaker. "Again, I don't know what happened, but it definitely wasn't… um… Kjelle? Are you okay?"

"I… I'm so… glad…" Kjelle said, her voice weakening to the point that it was barely audible. Robin grew more concerned for her, and reached out a hand to support her at the exact moment she collapsed to the ground.

"Kjelle!" Robin shouted, dashing forward rapidly but failing to catch her before she crumpled entirely. Thankfully, she didn't hit anything vital in her descent, instead falling to her knees and then backward with a surprising softness that almost betrayed the unexpected urgency of her condition.

"What's happening?" Robin asked frantically, glancing over her front for sign of some form of wound that would have brought her down and finding no such thing. He began to check the pulse on her neck to help roughly determine her state. "Kjelle, can you hear me? Come on, say something! Kjelle!"

She gave no response, her eyes fluttering shut as her pulse slowed to a crawl. Robin cursed loudly and shifted around from her side to her head, elevating her from the neck up with his legs as he knelt behind her, hoping that doing so would somehow help her. His mind raced for an answer to what had afflicted her so suddenly, searching for a solution that would bring her back to health.

His gaze raced over their surroundings for signs of an attacker, but found none. He continued to search for a something to evaluate and respond to, but failed to find such a thing regardless of where or how he looked.

Eventually, as Kjelle was growing weaker and weaker in his lap with each passing second, Robin's gaze settled on the fabric of his cloak. He wasn't certain if it would be able to aid her in any way, but nevertheless he pulled the garment from his shoulders and placed it over her torso.

Kjelle immediately coughed, her eyes snapping open as her breathing returned to a normal depth and frequency, her pulse regulating in turn. She attempted to sit up, but was held down by Robin, who placed his hands firmly on both of her shoulders.

"Stay like this for a minute." he advised, his brow drawn in concern as he looked down at her confused and pained expression. "I don't know what that was, but I want to make sure that it didn't hurt you too badly. Okay?"

"I… okay." Kjelle said, her voice remaining weak. She wasn't certain of where she was or what had happened, but found everything to now be comfortable. Robin was still knelt behind her, his lap gently supporting her head. Kjelle allowed her body to relax near completely.

Robin examined her again, rotating his head as he searched for anything on her that would give him a hint. Yet again, he found nothing, and returned to studying their surroundings for any indication of an attack. His cloak was protecting her from whatever had happened, and therefore he knew that the ailment must have been caused by something external, and yet he only grew more confused as he searched for the seemingly invisible source.

Though he no longer had any enchantments protecting him, Robin felt nothing similar to what he had seen in Kjelle, furthering his confusion. What else could possibly be protecting him, if not his cloak? Had the attack already subsided? Was he misreading Kjelle's condition entirely?

His gaze settled on a single point of the horizon and he knew that he had been correct in his original assumption. In the distance sat Mount Prism's shrine to Naga, standing proudly in a vibrant radiance framed by unnatural shades of light. Its stone spires jutted into the sky with a surprising menace. Someone had attacked Kjelle with magic, and was in some way incapable of doing the same to him.

 _Everything that lives will age and die. It's an unavoidable tenet of life._ Robin thought to himself. His gaze narrowed on the temple. _If a being were to truly be immortal…_

His gaze returned to Kjelle and widened. _It_ _would need to take more life for itself._

He rapidly switched his focus between the temple and Kjelle, not knowing if his new assumption was correct but deciding it to be the likely. His eyes closed as he thought of what he could do to combat the magic that was undoubtedly assailing Kjelle, but found himself drawing a blank as to what action could reasonably be taken.

There had to be something that differentiated them beyond his enchanted cloak, otherwise he too would be experiencing the effects of the magic. Without knowing what that difference was, though, Robin was left to search for another means of protection. His mind refused to drop that potential difference, and instead began to scour itself in search of the cause.

"Okay, Kjelle. I think this is somehow being caused by Naga, though I don't exactly have anything beyond a hunch to prove that." Robin said, catching her up to speed. His mind passively ran through a list of possible spells that could have been used and counters he could cast in turn.

"By Naga?" Kjelle whimpered, barely following along. She winced in pain as she attempted again to lift her head. Robin elevated it for her by a few degrees, using the space granted to flip the hood of his cloak over her head to better protect her, then eased her down again.

"There has to be something about me that makes her incapable of hitting me with the same spell, or something about you that allows her to." Robin continued. He placed his right hand on her forehead, comforting her as he stared at the back of his glove.

Maybe the Mark of Grima was preventing Naga from acting against him. The wisdom suppressed within the grey told him that such a thing was entirely nonsensical. He trusted what he knew from the grey, though he despised its existence, and so dismissed that line of thinking entirely.

"What could allow Naga to do this over so a great a distance… and why not a greater one?" Robin questioned. "Why is this happening now? What would cause her to do this, and why can't I feel anything?"

"Are you… actually asking me, or…?" Kjelle asked weakly, her voice growing steadily stronger yet remaining below its usual level.

"Er, no, sorry. Thinking out loud." Robin said. "If you've got any insight, that'd be great, but for now… I'm kind of at a loss."

"I don't know." Kjelle said, closing her eyes to better concentrate. "I've never met or interacted directly with Naga before… why would she be doing this? And what is it she's doing?"

Robin switched his gaze between Kjelle and the shrine atop the mountain, uncertain of whether he should share his full realisation. He soon sighed and spoke. "I think she's draining your life to sustain her own."

"Why would she…?" Kjelle began, her eyes opening and clouding in confusion. "Doesn't she have an insane amount of power? Why would she need mine?"

"I don't know." Robin admitted honestly. "It's not like she's starved for resources, having an entire forest available to her. She shouldn't have to wait for you to get close to the temple."

"There were no birds this morning, or yesterday. I don't think I've seen any animals at all." Kjelle murmured aloud.

"That's a little more concerning, then." Robin said. "If Naga needs power, she may be draining it from everything around Mount Prism. The animals are gone, and now she's targeting you… the only reason I can see for this happening is if she were about to die."

"That doesn't make sense, though." Kjelle said. "She's Naga. She's so powerful, how could she die? If she's managed to live for thousands of years already, I doubt she would stop now, and who would kill her? It would have to be someone from the royal family, like Chrom or… Lucina…" she paused and her brow knit in concern. "We still don't know where she is, do we? She's on the continent, but if Flavia couldn't find her…"

Robin frowned. "Would she have tried to kill Naga? That… no, no that doesn't make sense…"

Kjelle looked up at him, only now realising that she was resting in his lap. She didn't bother trying to move. "Robin? You alright?"

"She arrived after I woke up; there's no way she could have left me the journal." Robin muttered, leaving Kjelle uncertain as to whether or not he intended for her to hear. "Besides, Lucina wouldn't have any reason to kill Naga… would she? Would she know about Grima's creation? The books probably would have been in the royal library, if she had bothered to find them in her time, but how would she have pulled it off? Is it possible that… she could have…?"

"What are you thinking, Robin?" Kjelle asked, losing his line of thought as he jumped topics.

Robin looked down to her and blinked, having momentarily forgotten her presence in spite of their positioning. "Did the me of your time die?"

Kjelle froze completely. She opened her mouth quickly to offer an excuse or explanation that would conceal her suspicions regarding Robin's amnesia and true identity, but failed to find one. "I… no. He was alive when I left."

"Was Lucina still there when you left?" Robin asked, glossing over what she had told him, surprising Kjelle.

"Uh… yeah. It would have been her, Gerome, and Severa there when I left, and she had promised to go through after everyone else."

"And Chrom was dead, and I had no family at all - no descendants?" Robin asked, an almost frightful intensity lining his words.

"Chrom was definitely dead according to Frederick, and… I don't think so. I don't think you ever married, and I never met anyone you may have… uh, created." Kjelle said.

"Way to make that sound weirder than it should…" Robin remarked dryly, then shook his head clear. "Anyway, that's not the point. Do you think it's possible that Lucina could have met with the me of your time before she left, or that the future me could have come back in time?"

Kjelle froze again, her body tensing out of her relaxation. "I… I don't know."

"Alright, one last question." Robin said, averting his gaze from her awkwardly. "Is, um… is there any chance that the me of your time was a woman?"

Kjelle blinked several times, having in no way expected such a question. "Um… no. I rarely saw or heard about you, but I know for a fact that you were a man."

"Right. Of course." Robin said, somehow seeming conflicted about the answer. "So, then… I suppose Lucina could be the only one to have done anything to Naga - provided that something has happened. This is still all theoretical."

He shook his head and forced himself off of his own tangent. "Right, so, anyway. What's important is that someone, likely Naga, is draining your energy. The cause doesn't matter too much, what does matter is how it's happening, because if we know that we can stop it completely."

Kjelle tried to stand again, but failed when her legs couldn't manage to move vertically. "Ah, right. Your cloak can't protect me fully. You know, since it's worse than a full set of armour, and everything."

Robin rolled his eyes, but continued to hold her more or less in place. "Like your armour's done so much better. Come on, for now we need to think of… how you could have… godsdamnit." Robin groaned with his realisation, then in frustration. "You ate Naga's tear, then activated it. She's probably trying to get that energy back. Hell, she may not even know that she's hurting you."

"Ah, I… I did do that." Kjelle said, her face threatening to redden at the memory of the Ruins of Time. "Are you sure that's what she's doing, though? What if this is something completely unrelated? Also, that doesn't explain what's happened to the animals around here - there's no way they all ate tears, too."

"You have any better ideas?" Robin asked, and Kjelle shook her head. "Right. Well, this doesn't exactly tell me what spell Naga is using, but it's a good start."

Robin removed his hands from her head and clapped them together, now smiling. "Alright, so, there's two ways we can go about this for now: one, I set up a barrier of magic that prevents Naga from casting anything on you, or two, I drain the power of the tear in a safer way than what she's doing. Have any preferences?"

"What do you mean by 'safer'?" Kjelle asked skeptically, her upward gaze narrowed on him.

"I'll be able to control my magic better than her, and you can tell me what's working and not, and if I should stop." Robin explained. "That'll be permanent, and considering how long you've had the power of the tear in you, the drain probably won't be noticeable. Or it could be crippling. Alternatively, I can set up the barrier and keep it in place until we can ask Naga to stop."

Kjelle's eyes lost their edge as she closed them and sighed. "Set up the barrier for now. It isn't like I don't trust you, but-"

"You don't need to explain anything. Either choice is fine." Robin said lightly, smiling to dissuade her uncertainty. "If I can get my thunder tome, please? I'll need it to cast the spell."

Kjelle blinked, and slowly allowed her mouth to form into a small, easy smile. She fumbled with the pockets of his cloak for a moment, her hands requiring time to be brought to the same level of control as the portions of her body that were protected by the enchantments, but she soon managed to locate the thunder tome.

"Okay, this'll only take a second." Robin continued to smile. "I won't have to do too much, since the cloak should offer some pretty good protection for much of your body, so I'll just set up some points around your face, hands, and legs that'll repel the magic. Understand?"

"Go ahead." Kjelle nodded, her movement remaining slight in fear of any damage she may cause herself. She didn't attempt to raise away from him as he prepared his spell, and instead contented herself with the last few guaranteed moments of tumultuous relaxation that had been granted to her.

"Let's hope this isn't something insanely powerful…" Robin muttered, and without giving Kjelle time to grow concerned over his remark he set about casting his magic.

He shot off a series of tiny sparks, each of which fell into place around the areas he had designated. Together, they all formed a frail webbing of magic that hovered around Kjelle's body at the same varied distances as their counterparts, protecting everywhere they held within their shielding. Kjelle raised a hand to test the tracing abilities of the magic, only for the lightning to predict her movements perfectly.

"Huh. That's actually kind of cool." she remarked, clenching her hand into a fist and finding that her condition was already improving. After a few more seconds of lying in place, she grew uneasy. "Uh… am I lying in your lap?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah." Robin said, focusing on his handiwork. He held tightly to his thunder tome, already determining that he would require it in order to keep his magic active for an untold period of time despite how little effort it took to maintain such a simple spell.

"Well then!" Kjelle said, and quickly pushed herself up and away from him, taking advantage of her regained strength. "Let's, ah, let's get going."

Robin wasted no time in pressing on, leading to Kjelle following behind him on their way to Naga's temple. An odd intensity lined Robin's expression as he focused solely on the structure, and in truth he was attempting to hide it from Kjelle.

One way or another, he knew that he would finally have an answer for the mysteries of his affliction.

* * *

Robin and Kjelle came to a stop outside the entrance to Naga's temple. Massive, cleanly cut and elegantly styled slabs of marble and stone lined the building's exterior, and no doubt composed much of the interior as well. The only obstacle that remained between them and Naga was the short length of steps before them, a trail to the large doubled doorway that reminded Robin of his own study in its unnecessary extravagance.

 _Ha… best to not bother remembering that now._ Robin told himself wryly.

"I'm not sure of how exactly to say this, but… I'm glad that you aren't afraid of me." Kjelle said, pausing alongside Robin.

The grandmaster glanced to her before facing back toward the temple. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't have much reason to be afraid of you. You're determined and confident, and probably capable of killing me if you were really driven toward it, but you're way sweeter than that deep down. Or a- n-nevermind. Sorry, forget I said anything." Robin said. He shook his head in an attempt to dispel the traces of grey that were seeping from his memory to his speech.

Kjelle looked at him for a long time before returning her gaze to the shrine's doors. "Right. I suppose whatever way you see me is up to you, even if I do hold reservations about being… 'sweet'. When you freaked out this morning, I was concerned that it may have been because of me, and that scared me. I don't want to be a person that anyone fears - not like that."

Robin held his gaze solely on the temple, forbidding it from wavering. "I had a dream this morning. I felt the field I woke up in over a year ago, and Chrom, and I felt a lot of things. Then, everything went grey, and I saw what I can only assume was myself, or a mirror of me. That mirror… I feel like it's what's hiding in my head, and it terrified me."

"You're afraid of yourself?" Kjelle surmised, looking to him again. "Look, if this is because of how insistent I was about you being Grima and destroying the world-"

"It's not that." Robin cut her off, still refusing to look in her direction. "There's something in the grey, hidden within it, and I… I know what it is, but I don't want to face it. I feel like there's something else there, too; something deeper that I don't understand yet. That's what I'm afraid of."

Kjelle spun her entire body toward him. "So what? You don't have to be afraid of that, or anything you might have in you. Do what you think is best, and you can't go wrong. That's what I've done, and it's why I'm here now, with you, and I feel like this has been the right path for me. If you're still afraid that Grima is going to do something horrible, then let me tell you right now that won't happen. You've done more than you know to overcome it, and I know that you'll prove that you're yourself, not Grima."

Robin's head angled downward, his vision growing distant. "That's what I fear more than anything else." he murmured. He angled his head back up and looked over to her for the first time since arriving at the steps to the temple. "Wait… are you saying you don't think I'm Grima?"

Kjelle winced and turned her head away, already regretting that she had spun to face him. "Maybe. It's complicated, alright? I think that you're you, and that you'll be able to do some great things. All I'm left to hope for is that those things are for the best. To make sure with all of my ability that they're for the best"

She cleared her throat, an odd mixture of happiness and distress playing out across Robin's face in her peripheral vision. "I've been considering some stuff, and I can't help but think that if things had been better, if I hadn't had my experiences with the other you and my world, if I didn't know what may happen, if we didn't have to fight and could live peacefully, then maybe… maybe we could've been friends."

Robin blinked at her blankly. "I… think I would've liked that." he said. He was smiling, though he wished he wasn't. Robin simply couldn't stop himself. Something about his situation felt so genuine that he actually felt as though he were able to smile.

A matching grin began to creep onto Kjelle's expression. It became strained as she forced herself to remember everything she had listed, and the inevitable outcome of their eventual duel, but her smile persisted nonetheless. In fact, for the first time in what may have been her entire life, she found that she didn't wish to duel - at least not the one that would claim one of their lives. All she wanted was to pretend to have a moment longer in the sun before her happiness could fade.

Robin looked over to Kjelle again, his smile growing at the sight of her own. He saw her genuine happiness, the way that her eyes shone without any trace of the pure burning hatred that had enthralled him when they had first met. Without realising that his thoughts were drifting in such a direction he saw how attractive could be the smile he had come to know. There was something more to Kjelle now, beyond the hatred he had prized, that proved to be so much greater than he could have first appreciated.

He blinked, averting his gaze from her as his smile threatened to disappear. That wasn't something he should have been thinking, not of her. Not of someone who had to kill him. Someone who had only seconds ago become his friend. Robin attempted to rationalise his thoughts, searching for a time where he had undoubtedly thought something similar of Flavia, or Tharja, or Chrom, or Cordelia, or anyone else he knew, but drew a blank. None of them compared to the sudden burst of warmth he experienced when he returned his gaze to Kjelle, and he knew that he had never regarded any of his friends in such a sense. Even the warmth he always received from Chrom couldn't compare to this new rush of emotion.

"Come on. Let's go get some answers." Robin said, failing to subdue his original grin as he started up the stairs to the shrine. He struggled to dismiss his last thoughts from his mind, but did so all the same.

Kjelle followed after him, entirely aware that she must have been radiating an untold happiness. She didn't care enough to stop.

* * *

Together, Robin and Kjelle entered into the domain of Naga's temple. The doors atop the steps were surprisingly easy to move, swinging open as though they had been constantly maintained despite a lack of visitors. Inside the shrine was much the same as the outside, the only main differences being an excess of blue and green hues as well a total lack of natural light, the building instead being illuminated by an assortment of magical torches that lined every wall.

The temple doors closed swiftly and silently behind Robin and Kjelle. Sight was of no issue to them, and they had no difficulty in progressing further through the room the found themselves in.

They had entered a long and wide corridor, with a single set of doors at the end opposite of them promising an extension to the temple. Other than that, their room was objectively barren, the most lively part of it being the torches that flickered wildly to an unheard tune.

"I suppose Naga must be further in." Kjelle said, and continued to walk toward the far doorway. "I kind of expected her to just sorta be here, but I guess not."

"Honestly, I don't know for certain that she's here." Robin said, following after her once he had examined the entryway to the hall. "I've heard legends and stories, that's all. Naga has apparently claimed to reside here when talking to past Exalts, but I'm not a hundred percent certain of anything."

Kjelle stopped walking to spin around and face Robin, staring at him blankly before turning again and resuming her walk. "Great. You get me excited to finally have answers and to meet a literal god - er, pseudo-god - and now tell me that you're not certain? Really, that's just great."

"I'm sorry, do you have any better ideas for meeting a divine dragon?" Robin asked with a forced amount of posturing. Kjelle didn't reply for a second, giving him all the time he needed to continue. "Yeah, didn't think so. She should be here, though - like, at a ninety-nine to one likelihood. Or maybe something like ninety to ten."

"You have no idea if she's here or not, do you?" Kjelle asked, coming to a stop outside the second doorway and waiting for Robin to reach her.

"If you really think about it, aren't all possibilities with only two outcomes fifty-fifty? It's either option A or B, so there's a fifty percent chance Naga's here right now."

"Who the hell made you a tactician?" Kjelle tilted her head a few degrees, smiling despite her uncertainty of if he was making a joke. She righted her posture when he reached her position in front of the doors. Kjelle began to push them open, the webs of lightning covering her hands shifting away from where her skin touched the stonework.

The doors refused to move. Kjelle pushed against them harder, then relented when they still refused to do anything. She searched for a handle, fearing that she had been blind to it and would elicit a snicker from Robin. She found no such thing, and furrowed her brow as she returned to pushing against the doors with greater force, though they still refused to give the smallest indication of opening.

"Here, let me try." Robin said, gesturing for her to step aside. Kjelle tried one last time to open the doors, but was unsuccessful yet again, and gave him the space requested.

As Robin set about the same fruitless efforts to open the door by force, Kjelle searched around them for some manner of opening mechanism. She found none, but curiously enough realised that the sections of lightning about her hands were failing to fully reform.

"Okay, then. Maybe we should try something else." Robin huffed, kicking a boot out against the doors in an act that was less successful at opening them than any other. He briefly joined Kjelle in looking for an opening mechanism, but quickly came to the same realisation that no such contraption existed.

"Alright, time for a different something else." he said, this time bringing up his right hand and having it glow with yellow thunder magic. "I'm not going to let a jammed door stop me from meeting Naga." he said, then looked over to Kjelle and tilted his head toward the space between him and the doorway. "You may want to get in front of me for this. Just in case."

"In case of what?" Kjelle asked skeptically, eyeing the magic slowly charging in his grip warily. Her gaze then narrowed to a point. "Are you going to try to use me as a human shield against your recoil?"

"No, I'm hoping to use my cloak as a shield." Robin corrected her. "You're wearing it right now, so you would have to… uh, yeah, more or less act like a shield. Having the cloak means you're safe, though; even I could never hope to get past the enchantments on that beautiful thing."

Kjelle's gaze somehow managed to narrow further. "Why not cast a little less intense of a spell, then? Surely you know how to not blow up a temple?"

Robin frowned at her. "Of course I do! It would just make things way easier to not have to worry about those kinds of things."

Kjelle crossed her arms protectively over the cloak, erasing any hopes Robin had of using it as protection from his magic. He sighed and turned back to the door, angling his right hand upward in order to meet them at centre mass, being uncertain of where any potential blockage may be occurring. After a few more seconds of charging, he fired a beam of thoron magic directly toward the doors.

His spell ricocheted before it could contact the marble entryway, flying backward and missing his outstretched arm by an incredibly thin margin. The magic crashed into the ground before he or Kjelle had time to process that the cast had gone awry, spraying chunks of stone from the crater it tore in the floor behind him.

Robin's expression grew tight as he slowly lowered his arm and turned back to Kjelle. The time traveller had raised her eyebrows, knowing easily that he had failed but being uncertain as to how he had done so in such a spectacular fashion.

"Naga is definitely in there." Robin said. "I can't think of any power source that could be so great as to do something like that," he waved his hand out at the large crater his spell had created, "to my own magic, if not Naga herself. I'm not even sure what kind of a counter that was…"

"So what do we do now?" Kjelle asked tersely. "I'm not keen on waiting around much, but if it's for an audience with Naga, then maybe we should. She may need time to… I don't know, prepare for us?"

Robin shrugged, still examining the crater he had unintentionally caused and the doors that had been his undoing. "I've got no idea what to do. I'm down for waiting if you are, though." In another shrugging motion he removed his bag from his shoulder and tossed it aside, giving him more room to examine the door.

Kjelle sat herself down on one of the larger pieces of rubble Robin had launched in her direction, one sizable enough to support her as she waited. She too lowered her bags to the ground. Over the next few minutes, Kjelle found herself excruciatingly bored, eventually resorting to studying the cracks Robin's magic had caused. One arm lay flat across her legs and the other supported her head to minimise the amount of effort she had to give. Robin continued to study the doors and crater relentlessly all the while.

"How would it have…? What…?" Robin murmured to himself, running a hand over the doors as if doing so would reveal a secret. His face was constantly contorting into differing displays of lacking understanding.

"Unlike repel, and like attract. Those are your principles of magic, right?" Kjelle spoke up, as searching desperately for a distraction from her boredom.

"I'm kind of surprised you remember that." Robin said, paying next to no attention to her beyond his recognition. He continued to run his hand over the doors, searching for a cleft or indentation that would reveal something greater.

"You made that lesson pretty memorable, all things considered." Kjelle said. "Anyway, doesn't that mean that there's magic other than thunder that's keeping yours out? If Naga's a Manakete, she might have fire magic around her, or maybe there's some kind of pool that all of these torches come from. Why not try shooting some fire magic of your own?"

"You have my fire tome, remember?" Robin said. "I can cast without it, sure, but I don't really want to risk anything. What if I somehow fail the spell?"

Kjelle furrowed her brow. "How would you fail the spell? You've been casting magic without tomes since we've met - hell, you've practically been flexing it over me this entire time. There's no reason you'd start to fail now, unless…" a small grin worked its way onto her features, "are you getting stage fright about having to face Naga? Second guessing wanting to kill her?"

"No, it's not that, it's… it's nothing, really." Robin said, shaking his head as he backed away from the doors, coming to a stop a short distance from his crater. He raised his right hand toward the door again and started slowly charging a fire spell. "I'll try this once before going back to searching. The only thing I'm concerned about right now is if it fails. That would mean some pretty bad things, to say the least."

"What kind of bad things?" Kjelle asked, becoming more aware of Robin's actions now that he was planning to do something.

"It would mean that she's not using conventional magic, or at least not anima. That means it's dark magic, or maybe light if what little I know about that isn't accurate, or something else. An enchantment may be able to do this. Since she's godlike she may also have made something I could never anticipate."

"So what's the point of not trying?" Kjelle asked. "You aren't actually afraid of what may happen, or of Naga, are you?" That thought was almost impossible for her to consider. Robin simply seemed in control of his fear, regardless of whatever he was experiencing with the grey. At least in contrast to how she saw her own fears.

"I'm afraid of what Naga may wish to do with me." Robin said, failing to put Kjelle's mind at ease. "Think about it: I want to kill her as a proof of who I am and my own strength. What if she wants to do the same? Why would her thought process be any different? If I've thought about doing anything bad toward her, why wouldn't she think the same and want to kill me?"

His explanation did nothing for Kjelle other than make her more confused. "What? Naga is Naga, a benevolent god that wants nothing but to help the world. She isn't going to bother thinking about killing you, even if you have the chance to become her archenemy."

"What if she doesn't want to, but still does it anyway?" Robin asked, furthering Kjelle's confusion. "What if she randomly thinks 'hey, I could smite this guy right now because I can, or eat him, or push him off this roof, or stab him with lightning' and she follows through with it without any real reason or cause? What then?"

Kjelle blinked. "I don't think anyone thinks like that, let alone someone like Naga. That's a lot of irrational 'what if' questions that don't make sense in any way."

"Right. Of course, you're right. No one would think like that." Robin agreed with her easily. "There's no reason to be concerned for anything that may happen, because nobody would want to spontaneously kill someone. Of course."

Robin focused his attention again on the doors as he controlled his flow of magic. He kept it at a level of power purposefully lower than his thoron spell in case his suspicions about blowback were to be correct. "Let's get on with this, then. There's no use waiting around and talking nonsense."

He shot a stream of fire at the door, one that was more easily contained than his previous thunder cast. As he had expected and partially feared, the spell darted back at him and flattened itself against the ground a short distance from his crater, burning itself out in a matter of moments. For several long seconds, Robin contented himself with the knowledge that his concerns about failing his spells were unfounded, and successfully convinced himself that he was experiencing no issues.

He stared at the door for a short time longer, and without bothering to check where his spell had landed, turned toward Kjelle. "Out of curiosity, what will you do if I end up killing Naga?"

Kjelle blinked, surprised that he had ignored the results of his cast. "You won't. She's a divine dragon, and you aren't one of her descendants. Not only that but, like I've been telling you constantly, she's godlike at worst. I doubt you'll be able to kill her even if you try."

"That almost sounds like a challenge." Robin grinned, though Kjelle could tell that it was uneasy.

"Take it however you want, it won't matter either way." Kjelle said, largely dismissing his hubris and causing his weak grin to disappear. She angled her head down to the faint scorch marks lining the ground next to the crater. "What does the fire magic say about the door?"

Robin looked to the marks and then back at the door, his expression unchanging. "Good question. Why don't you tell me?"

Kjelle snapped her head up away from her hand, her eyes widening on him as she realised that she was suddenly being tested. "Wait, what? Why?"

"Don't act like it's going to kill you, Kjelle." Robin turned back toward her only to roll his eyes. "The purpose of practically everything we've been doing since we met was to have you become stronger, and part of that is understanding magic. So, use what you know about magic theory, and tell me: what does it mean when both thunder and fire magic are repelled by the same source, and what can we do now?"

Kjelle levelled her gaze on him, gradually narrowing her eyes into a sharp glare. "Just so you know, I hate you for this. Godsdamn test questions, bane of my existence…"

"Hey, it's important stuff to know." Robin said, smiling through his words. "If you're stuck, you can admit that you don't know and concede that I'm still a far better mage and fighter than you could ever hope to be."

"Ha! You wish!" Kjelle laughed, knowingly falling for his goad. "Alright, so… if thunder magic failed, that means that the door has fire, wind, or dark magic keeping your attacks out. Fire magic also failed, so that means it has to be wind or dark magic - or something else entirely, like an enchantment or unheard of spell, like you said. It's probably wind magic."

Robin smiled at her, seemingly satisfied with her answer. The smile took on a new meaning when he raised his right hand lazily back toward the door and fired off weak spells of wind and dark magic, all without looking away from her. Both spells were redirected onto the floor near his feet.

"Well?" Robin asked, his smile now nothing but aggravating.

"It would have to be an enchantment, right?" Kjelle answered, thrown by the fact that Robin's smile didn't fade. He had been expecting such an answer.

"Exactly." Robin said, easing her concern that she had somehow failed the question. "There's something else we can know from this, though. Something significant, at least from a tactical standpoint. Any guesses as to what that may be?"

Kjelle silently cursed that his questioning hadn't yet ended, and that she was being subjected to more non-physical testing. "Uh… we know that light magic can't have been used, since everything was repelled?"

"Technically no, since light magic can't be discerned without seeing the casting process or tomes used." Robin said. "There may be multiple magics at play here, even if an enchantment is the most likely explanation for everything, so we can't rule out light magic as a factor. It's something to do with the floor."

"This is going to be something stupid, isn't it?" Kjelle sighed, easing back into a more relaxed position and waiting for him to begin explaining whatever reasoning he held.

"It's that there are no magical traps waiting for us underneath the floor of the temple!" Robin announced happily, as though it should have been obvious. "If there were, each magic type would've been pulled in a specific direction, but instead each was reflected away at an angle identical to that at which it was incident. That means that whatever magic is being used is on, in, or possibly beyond the doorway."

Kjelle nodded throughout his explanation, waiting for him to finish before she spoke. "Okay, yeah. So it was something stupid. Why would there be mines in Naga's temple, of all places?"

"Fifty-fifty chance." Robin said, giving as arrogant a smile as he could and causing Kjelle to roll her eyes. "There's a lot of nonsense you have to consider when you're strategising. Most of it doesn't matter, since it'll never happen, but it's always good to go the extra distance and be prepared for everything."

"Even something as idiotic as magical mines in a temple… right." Kjelle said dryly. "You stick to your strategy crap and I'll stick to fighting. I'm not about to slow myself down by clouding my mind with nonsense like nonexistent traps."

"When I die, someone is going to have to take up strategy to get the Shepherds through Valm and whatever else they may face. It'll probably be Cordelia or Frederick, but if not, I'd like to pretend that I've helped someone get to a point where they can take over."

"Right, 'when' you die." Kjelle sighed. "At the rate we're going, we won't be having that duel until way after Valm. Hell, I don't know if we'll have it at all." she groaned. Kjelle knew that thought should have been disheartening, that she should have valued the progress she made and the duel she would one day have to prove herself, yet she found avoiding a fight to the death more comforting than the contrary. Part of her cursed that they had actually become friends while the happier part of her sang.

Robin stiffened slightly, having failed to catch his own wording before he had spoken. Kjelle failed to notice, and under her lack of suspicion he was quickly able to calm himself. He walked beside the crater in order to approach her.

"Why don't we work on magic a little bit?" he suggested. "If you could give me my cloak back, you can try to attack me again. We apparently have nothing but time on our hands."

"Don't you know how to counter the magic on the door?" Kjelle asked, protectively shielding the cloak in memory of her collapse. "Why not take it down and go die to Naga, like you were planning?"

Robin rolled his eyes and held his hand out for the cloak. "That's not going to happen. Also, for the door, I don't know how to get through it without destroying the enchantment fully. If Naga isn't already pissed at me, she would definitely get mad that I ruined such a powerful enchantment. Seriously, I can already tell that this is so well done having not seen it that I don't doubt Naga put it up herself."

Kjelle stared at his outstretched hand warily for a moment before angling her gaze down toward her hands, where she saw that the magic webs Robin had been maintaining still had yet to properly reform. She sighed and pulled the cloak free of her shoulders. An expected shock of nausea and weakness never arrived.

"I think I'm actually alright now." Kjelle said, allowing her body to relax. Robin accepted his cloak and slid it over his shoulders a split second after she had voiced her confidence.

"You're sure you don't need more magic around you?" he asked, his expression marked with concern despite the evident relief he wore at having reclaimed his overly special cloak. "It's not a problem for me, really. We should probably be going for guaranteed safety over potential risks here."

"No, I'll be fine." Kjelle said. She raised her hands for him to see his failed web. "See? They've been like this since I touched the door, and I can't feel anything like before."

Robin's eyes widened at the error in his magic, and though he felt no pain or numbness he began to passively clench his right hand. "That's… odd. It shouldn't be… hm. You're sure you don't feel worse in any way? Your collapse before was pretty sudden…"

"I'll be fine." Kjelle said, dismissing his concern with a wave of her hand and finding herself oddly comforted by his insistence on aiding her, if a little annoyed. "Let's get started on the training. Maybe a little sparring, too?"

"If we've got time." Robin sighed, giving up on his webs of magic and allowing those he had constructed to fade out of existence. He stepped over to the other side of the crater, giving Kjelle room to charge and cast her spells without worry about any possible recoil.

Kjelle waited for a nod from Robin before she began casting her spells. Starting with large, slowly charged yet powerful attacks, she soon turned to lighter streams of fireballs and a combination of the two when both proved ineffective in bypassing Robin's resistances. Regardless of what she tried, every hit was met with a shake of the head and indication that she had failed.

"You've come a long way, you know." Robin said as another fireball crashed into his chest, not having to say anything for Kjelle to know that she had failed again. "There was a time where you couldn't cast magic without using the enchanted lance, and a time where you couldn't use that properly, and when we first met you couldn't even read a tome… you've got an aptitude for developing skills like this."

"Don't go and get sentimental on me yet." Kjelle huffed, preparing another attack that she hoped would be his undoing. "I still can't do anything to hurt you. I've got so much more progress to make. It's kind of disheartening."

"If you feel bad, look at all the progress you've already made, and look at how much better you can be when you've reached your goal." Robin said, brushing off her next attack as though it had been less than nothing. "You may not see it as much right now, but I can assure you, you've done a lot. There's not much I can say aside from well done."

Kjelle rolled her eyes and shot another fireball at Robin. "It's not like I can't see that for myself, I just… I get frustrated when I get stuck, and I can't see how much better I'm doing against you, or if I've made any progress. Damaging you is the goal, and right now, that goal seems almost impossible. Don't worry, though, I'm not about to give up on it. Impossible goals can be the best kind."

"It's not impossible. You're probably close to it right now, if you could only push a little further." Robin said before abruptly giving a short laugh. "You know, if I had a kid, they'd probably hate me way more than you or any of your friends. I'd shove so much more onto them than I've been teaching you that they would hate me. I can see that now, but even knowing that, I'd probably do it anyway."

"Who knows? Maybe you would get a kid who's as excited and irrational about tactics and magic as you are." Kjelle shrugged, almost accidentally disrupting another insufficiently strong spell. "It's kind of weird to think about you having a kid, though. Actually, it's kind of weird to think about you coming from my time at all; you seem so much like someone who… I don't know, exists only now? I can't see you as someone from the original Shepherds, only as Robin."

"Is that a good or a bad thing?" Robin asked curiously. He brushed off another of her spells, his stance unchanging despite how powerfully she had charged the attack.

"I don't really know." Kjelle answered honestly. "At the least, it means I can't see you as Grima, so there's that. You're not evil, you're just Robin. You're a friend."

Robin blinked, his chest warming at her words before his mind was able to shoot that feeling down. He ran a hand through his hair, completely unconcerned with the next attack she sent his way, and sighed. "You know, stuff like this is going to make it hard to kill each other…"

Kjelle tensed at the mention of the final duel, causing a hiccup in her magic that she soon corrected with a sigh. "Yeah. I suppose it will. Honestly, though, I think I prefer it like that. I'd rather have it be difficult to kill a friend than easy."

"Yeah. I get that." Robin said. He sustained yet another weak attack from Kjelle and shook his head in exasperation, using it as an excuse to change his focus. "Come on, you've got to step this up a bit. You've already hit me with harder attacks than this. Progress has to be made."

"I'm trying, alright?" Kjelle said, subduing her frustration as she charged another spell. "This is harder for me than you probably know. I need to practice."

"I'm hoping to be done with this entirely within the next few days." Robin said in a perfectly neutral tone that left Kjelle no room to doubt him.

"Wh-What?" Kjelle stammered, uncertain of how to respond. "That's… how could I possibly do that? There's so much more progress I have to make before I'll be anywhere near that point!"

"There's probably about three days left before we reach Laurent." Robin continued, unfazed. "By the time we meet him, I'd like for us to be in the position to have our final duel, so that I… so I won't have to worry about Valm."

"It's not like I would try to kill you in the middle of a war. There's so much you could help the Shepherds through, and if they were to lose you…" Kjelle sighed and shook her head, allowing her magic to dissipate. "I don't want to kill you before the war, Robin. I don't want to fight you before then, because I know that one of us would have to die, and I want us both to be there to see everyone through what's coming. So many people died, Robin. I don't want that to be repeated."

Robin levelled his gaze on her. He had to close his eyes in order to subdue the powerful sympathy he knew was welling up within them, and when he opened them again, he had forced them to grow as cold and fierce as he knew would be necessary to push Kjelle further. Such provocations were despicable, he knew that. At least the fallout would only last for a few more days.

"Wow. You really do know how to be pathetic at times, don't you?" he asked with as much scorn as he could muster.

"What?" Kjelle recoiled, almost making him shatter his facade and do the same. She looked genuinely insulted, and Robin had to close his eyes again before he found the will to continue.

"You're pretending that you can change the future, but you're not really going to do anything." he said. "All the chances you've had up to this point, all the opportunities to kill me and save the world, and you've backed out of every single one. You've proven incapable of doing what has to be done. Cut the shit and stop pretending to be strong, Kjelle. Deep down, you're nothing more than a coward, an even worse one than all the rest of us."

"Shut up!" Kjelle shouted, taken aback at the venom in his words. Robin's speech not only clearly fulfilled its desired effect, but succeeded so greatly that he considered he may have gone too far. Kjelle launched more flames, but he brushed them off without any part of him being so much as singed.

"Exactly as weak I should have expected." Robin scoffed, causing her to shift from wounded shock to aggravation. "You know, when I first met you, I saw how much you hated me. I saw a fire burning in your eyes at the very sight of me… I thought that was a guarantee that you would stop at nothing to become strong and kill me. Clearly, I was wrong. Accept how weak you are, Kjelle. How pathetic your goals will have to be for someone like you to attain them. Only then can you accept that you'll always be weak."

"I said to shut up!" Kjelle yelled again, preparing more magic alongside her shout. She charged her spell further than ever before in far less time and shot it off in Robin's direction, her flames obscuring the small smile that began to form on his face.

Her fire spell crashed into Robin's head, coating his smug grin in magical heat. The tongues of flame curled around his head, blasting his upper body back a few centimetres and causing him to instinctively bring his hands up defensively.

After a few moments, the last traces of the flames cleared, and Robin was left to do nothing but blink. He had felt no heat, and no sensation beyond the force behind the spell that had moved his head, the movement of his hands having been completely unnecessary. Kjelle's spell had failed yet again, despite his best efforts to incite a strong reaction from her. He now only felt beyond terrible.

"Damn…" Robin cursed, the emotions he had been subduing returning to the forefront of his mind. "I'm sorry, Kjelle, I really thought doing that would work. It was stupid, I know, and knew it was manipulative, but this really does have to end soon. Know that I truly am sorry, but also that no matter what, I don't-"

"I told you to shut up!" Kjelle continued to shout, startling him with the intensity of her voice and the genuine tears beginning to form in the corners of her eyes. She did her best to sustain her rage despite knowing that Robin was being untruthful. She began to charge another spell, this time aiming it for the ground in an instant of hopefulness - an instant in which she truly wished to hurt Robin. To do so would prove her strength, as much to him as herself.

The flames of her spell manifested rapidly on the floor of the temple before Robin's feet, between him and the crater. Before the spell could increase in size, Kjelle forced it with all of her control to condense into a tiny, unsustainable shape. The compressed magic exploded immediately, sending shards of rubble flying toward Robin.

Several chunks of stone bounced harmlessly off of his cloak, most having been rocketed too high to damage anywhere on him that was unprotected. His hands swiftly found their way to his upper face and protected his eyes from the dusting of crushed stone that made their way up high.

A jagged splinter of stone launched fast and hard into the underside of Robin's chin. The grandmaster jerked his head away from where the fragment had rocketed into him, bringing his hands down to the large cut it had gouged, his sleeves muffling the wordless scream of pain that followed soon after.

Kjelle's eyes widened as she gawked at he damage she had caused, her intended purpose a success. She was left no more content than when she had been failing constantly. Her mind slowly began to process what Robin had been saying and the apology he had failed to properly form, and she herself failed to form a response for what she had done. Her fury slowly began to fade with her shock. It was replaced by a far more indignant resentment aimed at both Robin and herself.

Robin's wordless scream was soon snuffed out entirely, and was replaced with an exuberance that disturbed Kjelle as much as his shouts of pain. "That's it! That's what I'm talking about! There's the hatred and tactical prowess you need!"

Kjelle blinked and began to walk around the crater separating them, her mouth never fully closing. "What are you saying? You wanted this!?"

"Of course!" Robin laughed, fuelling Kjelle's resentment further. "Don't get me wrong, I feel awful about what I did and I really am sorry for it all… but you've done it! You've actually done it!"

He removed his hands from his chin, exposing the thick horizontal gash that had already begun to ooze blood. "This is the proof that you've learned to hurt me with magic! You've actually done it! Now we can have our magicless duel, and then our final one!"

Now within an arm's length of Robin, Kjelle brought up one of her hands and slapped him hard across the face. Her palm was as open as when she had done the same to Nah.

Robin staggered from the hit, having to blink multiple times as he righted his posture. "Alright, okay, I kind of deserved that. At the same time, though, godsdamn! You realise you're still wearing your armour, right? Meaning your gauntlets!?"

"Don't dare to pull something like that again!" Kjelle warned, jabbing a finger into Robin's chest as though doing so would emphasise the point better than her slap. "That was way too low of a blow!" she said, though she could tell that her voice was beginning to waver. Everything Robin had said was true. He may not have intended as such when he was speaking, but that truth cut her deeper than she could ever have expected.

"Again, I'm truly sorry." Robin said, and this time Kjelle could see the authenticity of his words without error. "I crossed a line that I shouldn't have. I should have let you go at your own pace. You would have reached this point anyway, sooner or later, and I shouldn't have rushed it."

As he spoke, Kjelle could determine that the trace of excitement he had expressed at her progress was still present, countering his claims somewhat but making them sound no less genuine. She sighed deeply and brought a hand up to the bridge of her nose. "I really should have hit you with the enchanted lance when we started this and been done with it all from the beginning."

"That isn't tactical, though." Robin said, almost as though he were actively willing a headache upon her. "Anyone who knows about magic in the slightest would be able to tell that you have an enchanted weapon, and would be able to respond accordingly. To catch them with their guard down is different. If you were to hit them with launched rocks when they were expecting a spell, then you would have the upper hand. It's not about sheer power all the time; you need to know when to think outside the box, too. That's why I'm considering what you've done here today to be successfully harming me with magic."

"I don't know how to feel about that." Kjelle admitted, lowering her hand from her face and wincing when she again saw the damage she had caused. Robin seemingly paid it no mind. "I've hurt you, sure, but with an underhanded attack. I don't think it should count."

"Nonsense! Of course this counts!" Robin said emphatically. "If not, you'll probably be trying for years to hurt me, and I really do want to get through our arrangement before Valm. You've proved that you can damage me! You should be proud! You've come a long way already, and I'm sure you'll be able to do far more in due time."

"Unless I die in the duel." Kjelle reminded him. She reached a hand out to examine his cut, but hesitated when he shied away from her.

"Right. I suppose that would put a damper on things, huh?" Robin said, his voice flat. "Best not to think like that, though, right? Like you said, you can't consider losing. It's best to not bother thinking about it."

"I don't think I can think about either of the outcomes to that fight right now." Kjelle said, and reached for his face once again. He shied away once more in turn. "Let me see the wound, Robin. I wasn't thinking straight, and I overreacted… even if you did have it coming. Let me see, maybe I can fix it."

She reached over to Robin's bag on the temple floor and pulled from it the smaller pouch that contained his kit of suturing equipment and other assorted supplies. When she brought it up with one hand, she moved the other toward Robin's chin again, and this time the grandmaster begrudgingly complied with her silent request. She leaned in toward him to examine the wound as closely as she could before beginning any formal repair, taking a clean cloth from the multitude he had stored in his pouch to wipe away the blood surrounding the wound.

The cut was lighter than she had expected, reminding her yet again of the weakness of her magic. Robin didn't seem to be in any pain aside from his first few moments of reacting to the hit, and she began to question whether or not he would require stitches as she had first planned.

"It doesn't actually seem that bad." Kjelle said aloud, narrating her process for Robin in case he had any objections. "I'd feel bad about not trying to heal it as much as I can, though. I'll try to stitch it closed."

"Do you know how to stitch something?" Robin asked, his gaze warily tracing where Kjelle was rummaging through his supplies.

Kjelle shrugged, causing his eyes to widen considerably. "It isn't anything hard, right? Just stab the needle through and pull the thread along with it."

Robin's eyes grew wider. "No, it's not at all like that! You aren't going to learn to sew with my face, Kjelle!"

"Don't be a baby about this. Let me try." Kjelle said, finally locating the needle and thread and pulling it from the kit, brandishing it more as a weapon than a tool.

"Nope." Robin said in a heartbeat, equipment out of Kjelle's grip before she could begin. "I can do this myself - it's not like I haven't done it before. I get the sentiment, but you would probably end up doing more harm than good."

Kjelle frowned deeply in an intensely visible discontent. "Fine then, do it yourself." she said, turning away from him in order to return to her own bags. She knew she didn't have much reason to be frustrated about not being able to undo the damage on her own, but she was angered nonetheless.

Robin set about patching up his wound, feeling it extensively with his gloved hands to ensure that he had a good read on its size and location. Then, he tentatively began to prod at the skin with the hand that didn't carry the needle and thread, gauging how well he would be able to handle his operation.

Kjelle watched him as he slowly and methodically went about fixing himself, her frustration and the last of her resentment eventually giving way to disinterest. Her thoughts gradually drifted back toward the duel that was now set to take place within a few days, what would have once been happiness at finally having her next duel be without magic being overshadowed by the unease of what was to come afterward.

"Hey, Robin?" She began, seeing that he wouldn't be able to answer her without pausing and possibly resetting the progress he had already made with the needle and thread. "You know that you're already insanely strong, right? Probably more than most of everyone in existence? You don't need a duel against me to prove that."

Robin waited until he was threading one of his needles before he spoke. "I'm not that strong. It's not like I could take on much of any organised force without the Shepherds or people like you at my side. As a matter of fact, I've been pushed further than usual by our escapades - maybe a little too far…"

Kjelle ignored his ominous tone in order to continue her own line of thought. "No, you're definitely strong, more than you give yourself credit for. Possibly more than you remember." she steadied her breathing, her stomach and chest growing tight as she reconsidered whether or not she should be sharing so much. She soon regained control of her nerves and decided what she was doing would be for the best.

"I think I might know something about what happened before you woke up without memories, Robin." Kjelle continued. "Before I reveal anything, though, I want you to know that I'm only saying this because I trust you. I trust that you'll be able to overcome whatever happens next, I trust that you'll do what's best, and I trust that you won't overreact, or ever try to hurt me."

Robin paused for a moment before he began stitching. "What is it?"

"There's a high chance that you're the Robin from my time - the one who destroyed the world." Kjelle said, steeling herself for a reaction that didn't come. Robin merely stopped his suturing for a second before continuing on as though nothing had happened.

"You would have come back in time, using your power as Grima's vessel to open a portal like mine." Kjelle explained. Robin stopped for another moment. "You enchanted your own cloak and wrote yourself that journal before you somehow removed your own memories. I think you wanted to undo what you had done, to try to save everyone and atone for what happened in my time."

Robin frowned and finished stitching the gash on his chin as he considered her words. He set his equipment down, wrapped it all in a sterile cloth and placed the bundle away in a specific compartment of his kit. He maneuvered his face around, testing his work before he hid it entirely with some quickly applied makeup and gave a reply. "There were parts of the journal that were written prospectively, about ongoing events in Valm especially that wouldn't make sense unless I was working overseas."

"Maybe they're referring to something you set in motion before you wiped your memories?" Kjelle suggested, managing to remain as collected as Robin. "I've read the part you're talking about - all of it, actually - and I don't think you would have to be in Valm to mess with Walhart or his military. You seem like you're clever enough to have some kind of absurd plan that works out despite all odds."

Robin frowned, but accepted her answer and moved on. "Your time turned out far better in the Plegian war than mine has. I've lost Emmeryn, Phila, countless civilians, supposedly Gangrel. Practically all of those losses could have been avoided if my strategies had been better, if the book had told me more. Why would I want someone like Emm to die?"

"I don't really know." Kjelle admitted honestly. "It's possible that her not dying qsomehow led to the Valmese war worsening, or maybe caused the deaths of more people in ways I can't see. Maybe there was some other reason entirely. I don't know. All I know right now is that there was a reason. I don't think you would go to all this trouble only to plan a full war half-assed."

"Hm… alright…" Robin muttered, partially causing Kjelle to grow concerned over the lack of an emotional response as she had anticipated from such a large revelation. "One last thing: the person who wrote the journal was a woman. I'm pretty sure I'm not."

Kjelle blinked. "What? How can you be so sure? Do you know who wrote it?"

"Remember everything about the final duel, and having some answers I don't want to give until then?" Robin asked, not waiting for a response before continuing. "This is one of those things. I don't know who specifically wrote it, but I'm almost one hundred percent certain they're a she."

Kjelle stared at Robin, as stupefied by how nonchalant he was acting as she was by the fact that he was withholding so much information. She tried to form words several times, but her mouth and mind failed her at every attempt.

"Don't worry about it too much, at least for now." Robin smiled disarmingly, though the action came off as much more disconcerting than he had intended. "That duel is only a few days away, and with it, your answers. I'll share everything I know, but only then."

"Because one if us will die, so the outcome won't matter - you'll either be dead and won't care, or you'll still be the only person who knows your secrets." Kjelle said. Her expression fell considerably, and as much as she wished to be angered by the circumstances of their final duel, she only felt saddened.

Robin turned back toward the door to Naga, examining it in under a new lens now that Kjelle showed no signs of wanting to continue combat practice. "I may actually be the Robin from your time. I don't know. It's possible that someone else wrote the journal but that I still travelled through time. Again, I simply don't know. I feel like I'm not, but that isn't a good indicator." his gaze narrowed and he turned back to Kjelle. "You've suspected this for awhile, haven't you? And… you've still trusted me, and don't completely hate me, and wanted to be friends knowing that?"

"I wanted to believe in the good in you. I still do." Kjelle said. "I know the Robin I've fought against and alongside these past days, and I refuse to believe that you're anything less than what I've come to know. So… yes. I do trust you, even knowing that you may have been directly responsible for everything that happened in my time."

Robin stared at Kjelle blankly for a moment before turning back toward the doors. Her account was heartwarming, but other than that descriptor Robin was confused as to what he should be feeling. How could she, someone who was supposed to hate him above anything else, come to trust him so greatly? Also, why couldn't he find it in himself to give her a proper response of any sort?

"I think there's something more about these doors." he said instead of offering her any kind of heartfelt reply. "They seem… off, somehow. Or at least their magic does."

"How so?" Kjelle asked, leaping on the opportunity to change subjects as quickly as he had.

"I should've seen this before, but I'm afraid I know what's happened here." Robin said, walking up to the doors and placing his hand on one of them. He glanced back toward the magical torches lining the hall, and when he did Kjelle could see that he was frowning deeply. "The torches are magic, and all of your attacks… none of them were or are being repelled by the magic on the doors. That means it has to be an enchantment - a ley line that's been placed on them, not a power source further in that's radiating repelling."

"Didn't we already know that?" Kjelle asked, having returned to her long lost position of moderate interest.

"Now we know for sure." Robin said as he turned back to the door, his gaze intense. "The issue is why. I don't think this is meant to keep us out - if it were, why not silence the entire temple, rather than set up an enchantment dedicated to repulsion? No, this isn't meant to keep us out, but to keep Naga in."

He bent his head toward the door, his eyes closing in thought. "Naga and Grima are so similar… and if Grima is… then Naga…" his eyes snapped open and focused on the door. "She's done this. She knows what I'm looking for, what I want to prove… she's planned all of this out. She read me and predicted my course of action. She's the one who set this up, forcing Naga to remain here, knowing that I would come and seek this proof. She planned all of this."

"I'm going to overload the enchantment and break down the door." he announced to Kjelle, who had merely raised her eyebrows at his muddled mutterings. His tone left no room for doubt, and before Kjelle could bother forming a response he was channeling magic into the door.

With his hand pressed firmly against the stonework of the door, its enchantments were unable to redirect his magic, and he suspected that fact was by design. Very little magic was required to overload the enchantments, something else he realised was undoubtedly intentional. Each of his moves had been plotted out in advance on a stage he could do nothing but respect. It had been orchestrated remarkably well so far.

Light sprayed away from the door as its magic was undone. Once it had reached the edges of the frame, the doors crumpled in on themselves, wafting an obscene amount of dust out toward Robin and Kjelle. Robin waved some of it away with one hand, glancing to where Kjelle was rising from her seat to approach him.

"Looks like I was right. This has all been-" he stopped prematurely as more of the dust settled and revealed the true contents of the room, causing his mouth to drop open and eyes widen in a combination of amazement and horror.

Kjelle pressed through the cloud of dust next to where Robin was standing, coughing lightly from the particles of stone floating in the air. She froze when she was met with the same sight as him, her mouth falling open and eyes widening in the same manner.

The ley lines of the enchantments traced their way along the floor of the large, circular, domed room, ending only when they each contacted a semicircular arc of lightning magic. The entire room was illuminated in the yellow of these arcs and the two spears of lightning that were situated on opposite ends of each, outshining the blue light provided by a few scarce wall torches by a large margin. Several of the torches had been knocked to the ground and scattered about the room by means unknown.

Each of the semicircular lightning loops ensnared a different part of an elegant woman's body. Each was fed by different lines of the enchantments, covering her. She wore white robes along the entirety of her body, ones that rivaled her own beauty despite their massive amount of tearing. She was lying on her stomach, her long green hair trailing down onto the floor and covering her face. Her arms and legs were elongated and splayed out at unnatural angles from her body.

Each of her limbs and her torso had been stretched and warped in such a way that pulled her remaining damaged clothing tight. The sickening yellow light of the magic in the room lit up a caked pool of off-colour blood that had amassed beneath the woman's body.

As Kjelle stumbled into the room with Robin close behind, the light of the ley lines from the doors' enchantments raced along their paths into the arcs of lightning. They each set their respective arc's dual spears into motion, all at the same time despite their variant distances. Each of the spears slowly began to gravitate toward their opposite along their tracks of lightning. All were setting themselves up to meet in the exact middle of their arc.

"Those look… exactly like mine…" Robin breathed, walking into the room after Kjelle and pacing his way up to the woman's side. "Of course they do; whoever she is, she's the one who set this up. She's how I've learned so much, and now she's set constructed for me a way to test what she's claimed, by placing Naga… on… a timer…?"

His eyes widened and he sucked in a sharp breath as he came to a new realisation. "Oh, gods, she's going to kill Naga. She's letting me see that I can't kill her, and then she's going to have her magic… gods… oh gods, that means Naga's still…!"

"This… this is Naga?" Kjelle questioned with a held breath. She fearfully approached the woman on the ground, her hands unintentionally shaking. "What is this? How did this happen?"

She knelt next to Naga's head to brush aside the goddess' long strands of hair, revealing a once-angelic face that had since been plagued by a variety of small wounds. Naga's eyes were half-lidded and glazed over, and Kjelle brushed more of her hair aside in order to get a better read of the sunken face.

The eye nearer where she was examining suddenly snapped open, widening dramatically before focusing solely on her. Kjelle shouted and jumped back, falling and backpedaling away from the body. Naga's other eye remained glazed and unfocused.

Her gaze flitted about the room, taking it in as though it were unfamiliar ground. Robin rushed to Kjelle's side, and once he appeared within Naga's line of sight, the fallen divine dragon fixated solely on him.

Naga attempted to raise her head, her hair trailing across the ground as she succeeded in elevating it a few degrees. She then screamed an unholy scream as trails of lightning shot forth from the arcs of lightning surrounding her body and forced her back to the ground. Her breathing grew ragged as she watched Robin and Kjelle with a near lifeless stare.

"You've arrived…" she heaved, her voice sounding divine and rhythmic while awful and grating. What should have been a calming tone was now accompanied by an echo that was always too high or too low and too fast or too slow, and never synchronised with her regular speech.

Kjelle recoiled further once Naga spoke. "Oh, gods… how are you like this? Who did this?"

"I do not know…" Naga said. "I saw her, but I never… understood her. Comprehended her. She didn't want me to understand…"

Robin swallowed dryly, growing wary of how intensely Naga was focusing on him. "Do you you know why she's done this to you?"

"She said I was evidence… proof of some hidden claim." Naga said, causing Kjelle to give a long glance to Robin in fleeting disbelief. Naga herself was corroborating his absurd claims. The divine dragon took in an unsteady breath and continued. "I tried to fight her. She was quite the mage… she did this to me before I could begin to fight."

Naga slightly tilted her head, avoiding the activation of whatever magic had been placed over her body while managing to indicate the distortions of her limbs. "If a shapeshifter is stopped mid-transformation… their bodies are cemented improperly. It should only happen at death… but she doesn't want me to die. She wants me as proof."

"Naga, you… you're actually a manakete?" Kjelle asked, struggling but succeeding at standing despite the unsteadiness of her legs. "You're a divine dragon, but not a true god?"

"Yes. The title of god was bestowed upon me by humanity. My domain is of life and order… I do not possess powers of creation or destruction." Naga said. "Grima, my counterpart, is much the same."

"How long have you been like this? Waiting for us - for Robin?" Kjelle asked, finally taking note of the stagnant blood pool lining the floor.

"I am not certain." Naga said. "I've been unable to count the days. Many months ago, it was many months… now, I do not know…"

"Over a year and a half." Robin offered as an answer. "That's the earliest it could have happened. It's when she would have first arrived."

"That… sounds accurate." Naga agreed breathlessly. "People have visited here many times since… they sought blessings and advice, or to present offerings, and fulfill the obligations of their pilgrimages… none managed to open the sealed door. Even she, the creator of the magic, refused to bypass her own creation."

Robin furrowed his brow and began to look around the room. "She didn't use the door? Then how did she-?" his gaze settled on a hole in the roof, one large enough only to allow at best a single person through that was obscured so greatly by artificial light that nothing natural was permitted to enter. "She… flew? Of course she flew, why would I think that I was the first person to try that?"

"Is she going to be able to kill you, Naga?" Kjelle asked. "Divine dragons can only die to their kin, or so I've heard. That means you're safe, right? You won't die here?"

"I hold no doubts in my mind… that I will soon perish." Naga said. "I know not if my assailant is my kin, but she is undoubtedly powerful enough… to overcome the magic accords of ages past. I have no doubts… that she will rewrite the world to succeed in her ambitions. I… do not wish to see the world she will create…"

"You… you can't-!" Kjelle began, only to find that she had no idea of how to continue.

"My goal has always been to aid humanity… to protect the weak, and spare them from horrors." Naga continued. "This person… she embraces the darkness in their hearts. She has lost her morality… in the pursuit of her ambition. She will devastate the world to save those she deems worthy. That is what she told me. She is aware of her own flaws… but embraces them in full."

"Please, Naga, can you tell us anything about her?" Kjelle asked with a hint of desperation. "Something we can use to identify her, or track her down. We need to stop her. She can't be allowed to do this!"

Naga's eye continued to track Robin as the grandmaster shifted about uneasily. "She looked so much like you, but her eyes… were so grey…" she murmured. Her eye slowly began to narrow on Robin, millions of thoughts racing through her mind as she slowly began to see what lay behind the unknown woman's ambition.

"There's something I need to do, Naga." Robin said, and he pulled the glove off of his left hand to show her the stagnant Mark of Grima. Naga's eye narrowed further in momentary confusion. "I need to see if that woman has been telling me the truth. I'm going to try to kill you."

Naga's eye widened, but not with the smallest trace of fear. Rather, she had begun to smile. "I see." she said quietly. "Do as you please."

"Naga…?" Kjelle asked, perturbed by the resignation in the not-god's voice.

"Come, Robin. Strike me down. Witness your true reality." Naga smiled, a bold light having ignited in her eye. "I was blind, but there is more than what I have now seen. I urge you to discover the power of fate that commands the gods themselves - the power she has defied."

Robin allowed her words to wash over him as he charged a spell, ensuring that it would be powerful enough to strike anyone down. He didn't have the mind to question his abilities and fear his possible failure.

As powerful a cast of thoron as Robin could form shot directly into Naga's head. Kjelle stood in complete numbness a short distance from Robin, uncertain of how to respond to any of the recent developments to which she had borne witness. She and Robin both fearfully squeezed their eyes shut as his spell connected.

Robin opened his eyes to see Naga lying completely still. He blinked, fearful that he was mistaken, but slowly began to accept that his spell had succeeded - he had killed Naga. His expression broke into one of sheer relief, his breathing wavering in the early stages of laughter as his mind rejoiced.

Before he could begin his celebration, the temple walls began to glow a vibrant green. All of the green filtered toward Naga, more wafting in through the impromptu skylight above them and the door he had blasted open, causing his expression to immediately contort back into horror. Kjelle wordlessly collapsed next to him.

"No… no, no, no…" Robin chanted, his hands finding their way to his head as his breathing and heart rate spiked. He cleared his mind and rushed to Kjelle's side before his panic could overwhelm him, falling to his knees next to her. She had gone as still as Naga and gave no signs of waking.

Robin hurriedly covered her entire body with a mesh of lightning as he had done before, only to find that it was dissipating instantaneously. He redoubled his efforts, and with great help from his tome soon managed to construct a mesh strong enough to be sustained, with Kjelle's eyes opening a few breathless moments later.

He turned back to Naga and saw that her head had raised from where it had fallen to the ground, lightning continuing to spark at her wounds but doing nothing to stop her movements. Robin attempted to stand to confront her, but found that he could no longer move his legs.

"You've failed to kill me." Naga stated plainly, her voice echoing Robin's shock. "Was I wrong, then…? No… no, this is her doing. Not only has she rewritten the world, she has rewritten you. All of us have changed. We have all strayed from our paths…"

"When a being the world wishes to be immortal perishes, it drains the life of its surroundings to further its own existence." Naga continued. "I did not know I was draining your friend's… and I did not know that I could drain yours." she shifted her head around in order to look at the arcs of lightning encircling her own body. The two spears on each arc were nearing their meeting points. "As of now, I have no use for propagating my life. I apologise for the pain I have caused you."

She closed her eyes in concentration, and after a few quick seconds the movement of the green energy flow stopped. Robin's strength returned to him, allowing him to stand again. Kjelle soon did the same.

"I have no purpose that would preserve me longer in this world." Naga said, her voice stronger and her echo synchronised. "However, I do have one wish I would like to leave with you both."

"Please, for the sake of all that you know and all that you don't, kill she who doomed the world."

Robin and Kjelle both gaped at the intensity of the request, though Robin's movement was muted by the vigorous shaking of his entire body. Naga gave a musical laugh.

"To think, that I would begin to understand the motivations of Grima…" she stopped herself in order to smile again. "No, that's not it… Grima could never have forseen this. After all, they've been scripted for death all along." her laughter returned again, and began to wash melodically throughout the temple.

Naga brought one of her arms up toward the arcs of lightning around her, yet again ignoring the sparks that strained to hold her in place. A light shot forth from her hand and covered each spike of every arc, and when she brought her hand down her magic pushed the spikes together.

Once each spear of lightning had connected with its counterpart, they combined and shot down mercilessly into Naga's body. Each spike pinned her to the ground, passing through her flesh and bone from their intense speed. Naga stiffened in place without ever making a noise. Then, each arc and its respective spike faded from existence, leaving behind only the gruesome remains of what had once been a godlike dragon.

Robin continued to shake as he stumbled away from Naga's lifeless body and out of the room completely. Kjelle stared at the corpse in utter shock before she too made her way out of the room, Robin's magic around her fading once he had exited.

When she entered the hall, Kjelle found Robin with his back pressed against the segment of wall beside the doorway as he tried and visibly failed to calm himself. He had brought his hands up to cover his face, his breathing growing less steady with every passing moment. Kjelle stood herself next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and gripped his arm in her hand purely for the sake of some form of human contact. She knew that she currently required it as much as him.

For reasons Kjelle thought were the same as her own, Robin began to weep.

* * *

 **Whenever I try to do things on time now, I end up being late. I really have to get better at that.**

 **The meeting with Naga changed a lot between draft and final version, which I think was for the best since she's way more calm now. She and this chapter also have a few less run-on sentences. There's also a little more info on one of the main antagonists, which I always enjoy, because antagonists are fun.**

 **Status: As of 18-02-19, I'm still on chapter 34. Things are slow, but progress is being made. I also realised that I forgot to say 'thanks for reading' last chapter, so consider this one to be doubled.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	24. Chapter 24

Kjelle stood resolutely outside the doors of Naga's temple, waiting for Robin before the two were to make their departure. They had no way of burying Naga, and so had resolved to continue on their way immediately, despite the fact that night was falling. Kjelle had left Robin alone in the temple for a short time, deciding that they both needed time for themselves in the wake of all that had transpired.

Before Kjelle, stretching out further than she could see in the dying light of dusk, the lush plains and vibrant forests lining Mount Prism had been sapped of their energy, leaving lifeless husks that possessed not even the means to rot. Naga had drained the greenery in her final moments, using it as the source of energy through which she could recover from Robin's failed act of deicide.

The temple and its surroundings otherwise remained much the same. Faint blue light emanated out of the the doors behind Kjelle and illuminated the newly dark browns of the mountaintop.

Kjelle brought a hand to her face and wiped what little moisture remained on her cheeks away. She hadn't desired to cry, even at the death of one so benevolent as Naga, but once Robin had begun his sobbing she had followed suit. Kjelle had waited until both she and Robin had calmed before making her exit. As of now she wasn't certain of why Robin was taking so long, but wasn't about to rush him for any reason, as she would never wish for the same.

Robin emerged from the temple a short time later, his bag over his shoulder and his breath still hitching. Kjelle knew that the reasons for his tears were vastly different from hers and likely muddled in mysteries she was growing wary of with every passing hour.

"You ready to go?" Robin asked, steadying his voice as he spoke.

"Yeah. Yeah, I am." Kjelle replied, humouring his faltering security in the interest of preserving her own. "We probably won't make it far tonight, but we should go."

Robin nodded silently, and after Kjelle had grabbed her bags from the steps leading to the temple, they departed. Both remained wholly silent until long after they had begun descending the mountain.

* * *

Robin and Kjelle trekked through the decay of Mount Prism's once-lush fields and forests until the sun began to rise. At that point, Kjelle resolved they could continue no further, her weariness getting the better of her despite her and Robin's shared desire to progress further away from the temple.

"We… need to rest…" Kjelle yawned, using the action as an excuse to stop Robin. The grandmaster showed little signs of tiring.

"We'll likely reach Laurent by midday tomorrow if we keep going." Robin argued, his voice perfectly composed. "If we rest now, that'll slow us down. I want to end this as soon as we can."

Kjelle winced through another yawn at the reminder of their final duel. She was growing to hate any mention of it, or at least Robin's insistence on its nearness. "It doesn't matter, we need to sleep. If not, we'll collapse, and seem like fools. Let's stop here."

Robin paused only to stare at her for a moment, his gaze oddly intense. Eventually, he relented, and shrugged his bag to the lifeless ground at his feet. "Fine. We'll have to go far tomorrow, though. This all really does have to come to an end soon."

"Yeah. I'm kind of getting that feeling." Kjelle said, lowering her own bags to the ground as she set about rummaging for her tent. She hesitated for a long moment before glancing over to Robin. "Are you okay to sleep without a tent again? I should, ah, still have some room in mine if you want, or we can swap and I can sleep out here for a night."

Robin stared at Kjelle until his facade broke and he was forced to bring a hand to the bridge of his nose. "I'll be fine. I… thanks for caring, Kjelle. I don't know what to say other than that and, as much as I do look forward to the duel, I'm going to miss you."

"Ha! You almost made that sound like a threat." Kjelle laughed weakly. Nothing could have been further from the truth. She pulled free her tent from her bag, and after shooting a covert glance in Robin's direction she shook her head and began setting the shelter up. "We'll be having that duel without magic soon, won't we? Maybe once I win that, you'll rethink wanting to have our final fight."

"Unlikely." Robin scoffed, crushing the little hope Kjelle had dared to hold. "We should only have two days left before we reach Laurent, and I want to have our final duel after we get him. That way, we and the Shepherds will have found everyone in all three nations - Plegia, Ferox, and Ylisse. Our mission will finally be over and the winner will be able to focus solely on Valm."

"What about the woman who killed Naga?" Kjelle asked as she set up her tent. "She's still at large, isn't she? I'm not certain of what happened back there, or what Naga was talking about, but I'm assuming you know more than me. Whoever that woman is, she managed to subdue a divine dragon. She may be more of a threat than Valm."

"She won't be a threat." Robin dismissed Kjelle's remarks passively. "She loves me - loves the Shepherds. She wouldn't do anything to hurt any of us. She loves us…"

Kjelle raised an eyebrow as Robin's voice trailed off. "Even though you were calling her a traitor? Is that love one of the things she wrote for you in your- er, her journal? Gods, I can't believe someone other than you may have written that; I was so sure…"

"More or less." Robin said vaguely, Kjelle finding his answer unsatisfactory. "She loves everyone. Everything she does is for the best, for the Shepherds and for the world as a whole. Sure, she has answers to so many things, but I don't think she would misuse any of that information. The traitor stuff was a poor, misguided reaction on my part, but I have no doubts that she would be the kind to forgive me should we have ever met. I trust her."

"Do you trust me?" Kjelle asked, her heart skipping a beat when she realised that she wasn't certain of the answer he would give.

Robin regarded her coldly before turning his inspection inward. "Not as much as her. At least, not anymore. Yesterday proved how reliable of a source she can be. She did state that I would be unable to kill Naga, and she was right. I don't want to doubt her anymore."

"Have you met her directly? Are you sure she's only interacted with you through the journal?" Kjelle asked. "Naga herself didn't see her… or, at least I think that's what she meant."

Robin opened his mouth to say something, but then stopped himself and shut it again, repeating that process several times before shaking his head. "Sorry. Final duel."

Kjelle groaned in frustration, allowing one of the spikes she should have been driving into the ground for her tent to fall. "That's getting really annoying, you know. It always has been, but to use 'final duel' as an excuse to ignore what's happening and keep me in the dark… it's a low blow."

"Ah, sorry, I should be able to talk about this, but…" Robin winced, genuine emotion showing through on his expression before he managed to keep it concealed. "I really am a coward, Kjelle. I can't face this stuff until I know that an ending will be near. I'm sorry I couldn't be braver and tell you what's happening, but I don't mind being a coward. I'll embrace it as much as I desire, and I feel as though it's what's kept me here for so long. Well, in a sense."

Kjelle stared at Robin for a moment before sighing and returning to the building of her tent. "I'll never understand cowardice, or why you would willingly choose it over anything else. Regardless of my own actions…" she sighed again, hanging her head low before bringing it back up and focusing on her tent. "There's a lot happening here that I don't understand or know about, and what I do I'm not liking. I hope your answers will reveal something - and for your sake, I hope they won't be a waste of my time."

"That's for you to decide." Robin said. "I'll tell you everything I can, but in the end, it's what you do with it that'll matter. I know that you'll be strong enough to see this through to the end. I can't say the same for myself."

"Yet today marks the first instance of me being able to hurt you with magic, and only with underhanded means at that. You would kill me in a true fight with a single spell." Kjelle sighed, and then grew silent, running through what Naga had said despite her better judgement. "Robin, I think there's something more to this whole thing. Something I can offer you, rather than the other way around."

She ignored her tent in order to rummage through one of her bags, and from its depths pulled out Flavia's stack of dossiers. Each one was crumpled from their disorderly placement but remained intact. Robin raised an eyebrow at the promise of further information, and Kjelle grinned at his curiosity.

"These papers hold a secret about the identity of the woman." Kjelle said, waving them in the air as Robin's eyebrow climbed higher. "I'll share it with you, if you promise to answer one question of mine in full, leaving out nothing at all."

Robin's eyebrow lowered as his face became stone. He had been intrigued by the prospect of knowing the woman's identity, but as he thought further on the matter, he realised that whatever information Kjelle would be able to share would ultimately be insignificant.

"The woman's identity is of no significance to me." he said, ensuring that his voice sounded as cold as he could force it to be.

Kjelle faltered for a second but continued on as though nothing had happened. "Show me everything that was burned in the journal, then. Show me the secrets she's hiding. Then I'll believe you. Prove to me you aren't trying to protect her."

"Those secrets are mine, not hers." Robin said. "She was merely courteous enough to reveal them. I don't have any need to show you the journal's missing pages, or reveal anything, or seek any answers for myself. When our last duel comes, I'll allow you to do as you please with all of my resources, but until then I'll conceal and reveal as I please."

Kjelle faltered further what she had assumed would be valuable to Robin instead proving to be of no use. "Er… fine. This stuff is still worth it, though, so how about I get to ask a question that doesn't relate to her?"

Robin narrowed his gaze on Kjelle carefully, incredibly wary of the game she was playing. "Ask your question, and I'll see if I can answer. I really do want to help, Kjelle, and I do trust you a lot more than you think, but I'm in a difficult situation here."

"One that you've imposed upon yourself." Kjelle reminded Robin, causing him to frown. "There's nothing preventing you from spilling everything aside from your own desire. And, apparently, your cowardice. You'll need to overcome that eventually, you know."

"What's the question, Kjelle?" Robin asked impatiently, unwilling to undergo any more of her lecturing. He knew he was running from the issues he faced, but he had long since accepted that fact.

"What'll you do if you win the duel?"

Robin blinked. Kjelle's question was the only one to which he had never considered an answer. He stammered to form a response quickly and play off his hesitation, but failed to find anything suitable.

"Remember, I don't want you to leave anything out." Kjelle said when he failed to speak. "I don't have much to enforce that, but yeah. I'll show you the thing about the dossiers once I'm satisfied."

Robin failed to form words for a short time longer. Regardless of what answer he gave he knew it would be a lie, and so he decided to make it a pleasant one. "I'll see everyone in the Shepherds through Valm, and whatever happens after. I'll find the rest of your friends and hope that they don't hate me too much for everything. I'll make sure to become stronger than ever before to protect everyone and prove myself… and I'll kill Grima."

"...I see. I suppose that's as good of an answer as I could hope for." Kjelle sighed, then flashed the dossiers for him again.

"Were you expecting something more?" Robin asked before she could launch into her explanation.

"Something about the woman, at the least." Kjelle shrugged. "There's also your amnesia, and that weird grey crap you've gone on about, the failed portal, that day you passed out… you don't think those all could be connected to the woman, do you?"

Robin blinked again, surprised that he had missed so much that Kjelle was able to recall. "I suppose I still have a lot to think over, huh? Ah well, I'll have the time for it soon, or once Valm is out of the way."

Kjelle could easily tell that Robin was trying to project a determined arrogance; it was an expression she had long since mastered. His words nonetheless sounded hollow. "Right. Anyway, my promise for the dossiers. If I could also get your journal for this?"

Robin pulled the small book from his bag and handed it to Kjelle, at which point she stepped to be at his side and held the open journal next to the first of the pages provided by Flavia. She pointed to several common words and letters on each, allowing Robin to form his own understanding of what Nah had revealed.

"These were written by the same person." Kjelle clarified, ignoring Robin's lacking reaction to her news. "I don't have much ground to doubt your claims about the woman anymore, so if she did write these, that means a lot. The woman knew Naga's plans from my time. She knew the strategies that would bring about what she wanted. That means she likely came from my time - the Naga of this time didn't even recognise me yesterday, and I don't think she knew about what her future self did for us. That means that the woman and her past version are probably roaming around somewhere, and Flavia may be the only person who knows who they are."

"Flavia could possibly have met with her to get the dossiers, and then lied to cover the woman's tracks." Robin followed along, rationalising Kjelle's claims to himself. "That means there was a time when I was close to her, and I missed it… if only I had been more observant."

"No use beating yourself up over it now. You couldn't have realised this until after Flavia had left for Plegia, anyway." Kjelle reassured him, then continued. "If this woman really is as powerful as Naga claimed, then I'm not entirely sure what we can do against her. But, regardless of where we go from here, Flavia is our next lead."

What are you planning to do if you find this woman?" Robin asked, regarding Kjelle carefully in anticipation of her response.

"I don't really know." Kjelle admitted honestly. "We'll have to try to stop her, of course. I don't know how to go about that until I can get a read on her, but I won't allow her to harm or destroy the world. I'll never allow something like that to happen again."

"Hm… I see." Robin murmured, masking his expression. "Mind if I see those dossiers for a moment?"

Kjelle hesitated to let the papers go, but swiftly chastised herself for doing so. She passed them to Robin's opened hand, allowing the grandmaster to leaf through them as he pleased as Kjelle continued to mentally scold herself for doubting their trust.

"These were so important for finding the woman." Robin said, his distant tone instantly reinvigorating the spark of doubt in Kjelle's mind. "They've revealed so much. Who knows how many more secrets they may be hiding?"

Robin crumpled the papers within his fist and ignited them in a burst of fire magic. Then, he opened his hand and waved it through the air, ensuring that no residue had been left behind on his glove. Kjelle's mouth fell open in a silent display of shock, though she had somewhat expected his actions.

"This isn't meant to be an act against you. I don't want to prevent you from doing anything." Robin reassured Kjelle, his tone shifting from distant to unnaturally calming. "All I want is to help her. I don't know what she's doing, but I know that it'll be good. She doesn't need my help, but I want to help her so badly…"

"I don't blame you for this, Robin." Kjelle said, surprising even herself. "This woman… she's controlling everything. Distorting it to her will. She hurt and killed Naga, she's written the journal to influence you, she's found my friends and set everything we've been doing so far into motion… somehow, I know she's the one behind everything bad that's happened. She'll hold the key to saving my time, and this world. She's controlling you in part."

Robin laughed, eliciting nothing more than pity from Kjelle. "Don't bother thinking like that; I can tell you right now that you're wrong. I'm in full control. That's how your time ended up in so horrible a state, because the Robin who was in your time had full control of themselves. The woman is in no way at fault."

"You saw how powerful she was, as did I." Kjelle reminded him. "There's no way you can reasonably doubt that she'd be able to influence Grima and my time travelling. Hell, she's probably the one who sent Flavia and Basilio to Plegia to handle the Grimleal - she probably has more control over the events leading to my future than anyone else. We have to find her. If not to stop her, then to set things right."

Robin ended his brief levity in order to more acutely stare at Kjelle, his gaze conveying a myriad of emotions from dejection to excitement. "I can't wait to tell you everything I know, Kjelle. Once I do, you'll see things the same as me. For now, we need to rest. There's only so much time left before our final duel. We'd best not squander what little we have remaining with restless arguing."

As much as Kjelle wished to press further, she allowed the topics and their conversation to drop. She knew she wouldn't be getting any answers until their final duel, given how stubborn Robin was acting about withholding his information. His arrogance astounded her.

When Kjelle had finished constructing her tent and had collapsed onto her cot for the night, she began to understand the sense of fear she felt in relation to their final duel, and the notion that one of them would soon be dead. That fear didn't cause her to resent herself as any other had - instead, it caused her to grow less willing to hold their eventual fight.

Outside, Robin lay awake on the ruined ground of the mountain for a short while longer, watching absentmindedly as the sun rose into the sky. He couldn't accept that the woman would manipulate anyone. She had willingly revealed so much,. While she undoubtedly knew more than Robin or anyone else regarding the oddities of the world and its future, he knew the only reason she hadn't shared everything was because such hadn't been requested.

Robin enjoyed the sense of comfort trusting the woman gave him. He didn't want to believe that he had been manipulated. In that trust Robin found a loving warmth he had felt lacking far too often.

Part of Robin was afraid to die at the final duel, but that loving, comforting warmth held that disquiet down and refused to give way. He would do what was best for the world, what was best for the woman. What was best for Kjelle, and Chrom, and himself, and everyone.

Robin removed the glove from his right hand and held his palm to the sky in order to examine the Mark of Grima. He had at first feared that the mark was what caused the actions he would inevitably despise and used it accordingly as a scapegoat, and then later accepted it as proof of his newfound clarity. He smiled at the motionless lines of the mark before slipping his glove back into place.

Naga's death had been legitimately disturbing to him, as much as it had been for Kjelle. For him, the most unsettling aspect of the dragon's passing had been the words in her final moments, in which she had uncovered some kind of revelation that Robin hoped to never understand. More so than that was the fact that her body had dissipated and absorbed in a manner similar to that of the unknown woman's risen, which he had uncovered when he had sought to drain the divine dragon's power for himself. It wasn't as though Kjelle would need to know all of that story, though. Not as long as he could somehow aid the woman.

As he drifted into sleep, Robin was contented with the thought that his death would finally be able to right all of the wrongs committed by both his future and present selves. It didn't matter if they were the same person or not. Robin had never been able to tell the difference.

* * *

For what he believed to be the first time since they had met, Robin awoke before Kjelle. He opened his eyes to a cloudless blue sky and the bright warmth of the sun bearing down on him, a light autumn wind offering some respite from the day's heat. Robin rose from the blackened earth he had called a bed and set about preparing for the day.

He readied for himself a basic meal from the rations he had brought with him from Ferox. His supply of water was running low, and he sighed knowing that he would have to devote time toward purifying a source of freshwater with his magic. He doubted that Kjelle would do the same, but didn't necessarily blame her for it; as far as he knew, there were incredibly few people in the entirety of the Shepherds who would bother to do so thoroughly - and perhaps unnecessarily - sterilise everything. There was also the fact that Kjelle had only recently learned the needed magic.

Ultimately, Robin was satisfied with the progress Kjelle had made since beginning spellcasting. Of course, he had long wanted for her to do far more, especially by the time she was to kill him, but was happy with her progress all the same.

For a moment, he considered how morbid anyone else may consider his plan. Kjelle likely wouldn't approve - he was practically cheating her out of a proper duel. Chrom and anyone in the Shepherds would never fully accept what was to come. Robin sincerely believed that the unknown woman would take his plan horribly too, considering her insistence on his safety and that of everyone around him. He knew that his death would harm the people he cared about, but he found a clarity in knowing that his doubts could soon be silenced.

Robin would soon be free of having to worry ever again. There would be no fear that he would hurt his friends, or that he would relish any death. He wouldn't crave the power to fight and kill as he had for so long. His clarity was doing wonders toward silencing those cravings as well. It was in this clarity that he knew he would finally be able to face the grey, or at least enough to reveal its inner machinations to Kjelle.

He would miss his friends and the voice of the woman, and even the people from the future he had yet to meet. In the end, Robin resigned himself to hoping that everything would work out without him. The alternative would be more grim than his plan.

Somehow, the woman had predicted everything in Robin's waking memory, from the war with Plegia to the fantastical wonder that was the arrival of time travellers. She had been the one to reveal his ties to Grima and their ruined future. Though Robin had at first done everything he could to deny her, he now found that his clarity allowed him to face the truth. He knew that his situation remained grim, but still managed to latch on to shreds of misdirected happiness whenever they appeared.

Robin finished his meager meal and set about waking Kjelle, a genuine happiness born from clarity written on his face. He continued to wear that happiness as they finished their preparations, and all throughout the day as the two distanced themselves from Mount Prism. Though his expression would eventually fade, the clarity wouldn't, and he rejoiced at the fact that he may retain it up to the moment of his demise.

* * *

"Son of a bitch, there's more water!?" Kjelle groaned, stopping her near ceaseless walking as she cut through forestry. The coastline south of Mount Prism had entered her line of sight. The environment had shifted into one far more green than the mountain within their last hour of movement, with Naga's reach having not extended beyond the rough borders of her domain.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about that part." Robin said next to Kjelle, his breathing heavier than hers. "I mean, not really. I am a master tactician, after all; something as important as world geography would never slip past me. Our plans have changed recently, though, and I had to take a few actions to ensure that we wouldn't be hindered by any changes."

Kjelle sighed and brought a hand to her head before lowering it emphatically. "Actually, you know what? I think a roadblock will do us some good right now. It's probably best to put off one of us dying so we can try to work through things in a better way."

"Aw, don't tell me the idea of the duel is scaring you?" Robin taunted. He loathed the use of Kjelle's insecurities as an attempt to manipulate her into anger, but that feeling was quickly snuffed out by his clarity.

"I'm growing less fond of it by the day." Kjelle admitted, causing Robin's regret to resurface before it could be silenced again. "There has to be a better way to do all of this, to prove ourselves and settle the fate of the world. If there's a chance we can continue without one of us dying, then I wouldn't hesitate to take it."

Robin hesitated as his heart was warmed by her sentiment, only for his clarity to silence that feeling as well. "This really is the best way, Kjelle. You'll understand that once I'm able to tell you everything."

"Aren't you always going on about how I should share my problems and work through them, or some sappy crap like that?" Kjelle asked, causing Robin's clarity to falter once more. "Why aren't you listening to your own advice? Why can't you tell me what's happening and try to work through it with me? When we met, I wanted to have the chance to kill you above anything else, but now I only want answers. I want to protect my family and friends, and that includes you. I don't want to kill you, or for you to kill me."

Robin's calmness faded entirely, giving way to an insecurity he hadn't realised he was harbouring. He forced the calmness to return. "That's nice as a thought, Kjelle, but in practice It'll only fall apart. Sometimes, people need to die so that others can be safe, and this time it so happens that one of those people will be one of us."

"Then… I refuse." Kjelle said, placing as much determination behind the words as she could muster. "If you're so convinced that one of us has to die, then I won't fight you at all."

"All that means is you won't get your answers, or the chance to prove yourself." Robin replied instantly, hoping that doing so would hide the dread building within him. Kjelle didn't seem to be bluffing, and although he still had some cards to pull if she didn't want to kill him, he was perturbed by her unwillingness to fight.

Kjelle closed her eyes and sighed, pausing for several seconds before responding. "I don't have to kill you to win the duel. I'll strip away your cloak, your magic, every trick you have to get the better of me… I'll win, and I'll win by pacifying you, not through death. Once you have no way to win, then I'll get my answers, and you won't have any choice but to give them."

Robin's smile returned to his face at the sound of her determination. Her line of thinking still wasn't exactly as he wanted, but it would certainly suffice, at least when compared to her avoiding the duel outright. "That's a good enough way of thinking about it, I suppose. Mind you, I'm not going to hold back at all, so you'll absolutely have a hard time of it, but it's good that you have morals as high as that."

He looked out to the distant shoreline instead of at Kjelle before continuing. "Anyway, if my plan works out, we'll be able to reach the far shore soon. Within a manner of minutes of reaching the nearer shore, actually."

Kjelle blinked, looking out the same as him. "Um… no. I don't think that's physically possible. Even if you had a boat prepared and used your magic on it, we barely have any sunlight left. The far shore isn't even visible from here."

"Ah, but with magic, anything is possible!" Robin exclaimed, clapping his hands together to give his eagerness form. "Once we reach the shore, I'll be able to fly us to the desert Laurent is in - or, well, at least the other shoreline. Hopefully. I haven't tested flight on this great of a distance, but it should work."

"You were barely managing to carry me across an island a few days ago." Kjelle reminded Robin with a cautious burst of laughter. "I trust you a bit, but not enough to let you carry me over that great of a distance. How large is the gap, a couple of kilometres, at the least? I don't know if you'll be able to clear that alone, let alone with me."

"It's a little over fifteen kilometres, actually… well, if I'm remembering my largely useless geographical facts correctly. It's been a while." Robin said, doing next to nothing to reassure Kjelle. "Also, I've powered up a lot since the island of poor naming convention. Naga was holding on to a lot of power when she died. I'm pretty sure I have more than enough for us to reach the shore in a manner of minutes… er, well, in at least less than half an hour. An hour?"

"Did you drain Naga's power once I had left you in the temple?" Kjelle asked in disbelief.

"Obviously. I would never let something like that go to waste." Robin said, smiling disarmingly.

"How pragmatic of you… and insanely messed up." Kjelle said, then sighed again. "Gods, I can still barely believe that she's dead. It feels impossible. She was so powerful, and now she's gone."

"Technically, she isn't entirely gone." Robin said, holding a hand up to his chest. "She'll live on in here for a little while longer."

Kjelle couldn't help but smile at his attempt to comfort her. "I suppose you're right. As long as we remember-" she cut herself off as her face fell. "You meant that she'll live on as part of your spells, didn't you?"

"Yep!" Robin laughed easily, glad that Kjelle had taken the bait.

"Not the time, asshole." Kjelle grimaced, though she couldn't hide the smallest traces of a smile. Robin's attempt at humour was simultaneously hated and appreciated, though she didn't bother trying to interpret her feelings on the matter.

"Alright, it's obvious that you don't believe in my amazing abilities yet." Robin said, stepping forward while pulling out his wind tome. "How about I prove myself, then? Will you believe me if I, say, fly all the way to the closer shore, uninterrupted and without messing anything up?"

"I'll believe you if you manage to fly the full distance over the ocean while carrying another person - hell, do it twice for good measure." Kjelle said, her words failing to cause Robin's smile to disappear.

Robin glanced back to the nearer shore, shrugged, and created barriers of wind around him in a massive series of spheres. "I'll take that as a maybe. See you in a bit!" he spoke through the barriers, shouting to ensure that he would be faintly heard. Then, he created one final barrier between his wind spheres and Kjelle. That shield protected her from the massive amount of concentrated magic he then immediately shot off to propel his structure of wind to the shore.

As he flew, Robin activated more magic within each sphere, ensuring that he could move at speed while remaining at equilibrium in his position in the central ball of wind. Each sphere shifted within a larger counterpart, manipulating in response to their movement of the external world and Robin's own precautionary cushioning. He soon gently crashed into the shore for which he had aimed. The entire journey had taken less than a minute at the intense speed of launching and flight.

The spheres of wind Robin had constructed broke apart as he reached the ground, causing him to dumbly fall on his back despite his best attempts toward remaining upright. Still, Kjelle was a significant distance from him.

Robin didn't bother to rise from the soft sands of the shore until he had let out a short burst of laughter. He had succeeded at masterful flying, with speed, complexity, and distance that he had never before attempted. It took him several moments of revelling in his success before he was resoundingly satisfied with his accomplishment.

Briefly he wondered how well the woman would be able to fly, given her apparent superiority to him in so many fields, but allowed that query to slip away with time. Hell, the woman had Naga's energy, something Robin had lied about taking because of how wonderful it would be to have. He was confident in his abilities, but was more confident in those of the unknown woman.

* * *

Kjelle gasped for breath as she ground to a halt near where Robin had landed. The grandmaster stood a short distance from her, his arms crossed over his chest and his face contorted into a cheeky grin. Kjelle had run the entire distance to the shore after his sudden takeoff, having been surprised with his methods and their success if not convinced that flying would be the safest move to make.

"Ready to try it out?" Robin asked, his smile refusing to fade.

"Are you… sure you didn't die… and that I'm not hallucinating right now?" Kjelle asked jokingly, buying herself a little more time to recover her broken breathing pattern.

"Aw, I'm so glad that I'm the one you hallucinate about." Robin continued to smile effortlessly. "Seriously, though, are you ready? It's practically night already, and if we don't do this we'll have to find a port town fast." he said and glanced toward the position of the sun gracing the horizon. He found himself staring directly at the ball of light for a moment before it seared his retinas and reminded him to turn away, his sense of self preservation having ebbed with the growing sense of calm clarity.

Kjelle waited for a moment to consider her options, her desire to win their final duel and find the last of her nearby friends weighing against her fear for what could go wrong. Ultimately, she sighed and shook her head. She cursed colourfully before nodding once. "Okay, fine. Let's do this. If you mess up, though, I swear that I'll kill you. Even if I drown first."

"I'll try to make any emergency failures as graceful as possible." Robin attempted to reassure her before immediately catching his own mistake. "Wait, no… what I meant to say was that there won't be any failures! Yeah, that!"

"Wow, thanks. I feel so safe now." Kjelle said dryly. "If you do make some kind of landing at sea, try to make it soft, okay? I can't swim very well, and I'd rather not have to deal with a hard landing."

"I'll do my best." Robin promised, taken aback by the sheer authenticity of her words. She genuinely trusted him to do this, and that fact caused his overbearing sense of clarity to waver once more. It was becoming harder to force back into place. He succeeded in doing so nonetheless, and forced his smile to return as well before continuing.

"We can start whenever you're ready." Robin said, turning to look out over the sea to the far shore. "If you think about it, this is more like a giant lagoon, or inlet or something, not a true part of the sea. It's more reassuring to think of it like that."

"Do me a favour and don't try to reassure yourself while you're flying us over, alright? It doesn't help." Kjelle said, stepping closer to Robin so that he would be able to perform his magic on the both of them. "I'm ready whenever."

Robin drew his tome and casted his magic, taking Kjelle's advice to heart and offering no further quips of his own. He constructed the necessary spheres of magic to be larger and more numerous than before, accounting for Kjelle's presence as well as his own. He also initiated the cushioning segment of his wind magic before taking off, ensuring that he and Kjelle both would be securely in place prior to flight.

"Our biggest concern will be making sure we have enough air for this long of a trip." Robin warned Kjelle, raising his voice in an unnecessary assurance that he would be heard. "To that end, I'll wait until we've lost most of our initial momentum from launching, then slow us down to a complete stop so that I can open up my magic and let more air in. I'll then launch us again from mid air until we have to stop again. We'll probably need to do that… a few times? I'm not sure on the exact number; I haven't tried any of this before."

"The most reassuring thing you can do right now is to stop talking completely." Kjelle said, resisting the urge of her face to pale at his lack of experience.

"Noted, I'll- wait, sorry." Robin said, then pantomimed sealing his mouth with one hand. His vow of silence was immediately broken when he began talking again instantly. "Okay, we'll be going in three, two, one…"

Robin waved his hand and launched the two of them away from the shore. He took care to move at a slower speed than when he had launched alone to ensure there would be time to deal with any complications. Kjelle wobbled about unsteadily in their wind cocoon, defying Robin's attempts to hold them both in place. Each of Robin's spheres shifted as they accounted for their change in momentum, the degree of their movement lessening until they reached the innermost layers, which Robin managed to hold practically motionless.

They flew uninterrupted and without issue for several long minutes. Kjelle eventually found it easier to bear their movement when she closed her eyes, entrusting to Robin that she wouldn't come to harm, though the incessant twisting of her stomach refused to fade. Robin formed a grin that grew wider the longer his feat of magic proved successful.

As their motion slowly dragged to a stop, Robin set about the next phase of his plan. He used more wind magic outside of his structure to stop moving completely, and then opened the tops of each of his spheres to allow more air to enter them. The resupply had not been necessary quite yet, but Robin hadn't desired to push his luck. The restocking of air went perfectly, and Robin's smile intensified at his continued success. He reformed the spheres of magic and launched again toward the far shoreline.

Robin relaunched and restocked eight times without issue. He was nowhere near being exhausted of his magical abilities. Then, when Robin slowed to a halt and replenished their supply of air for the ninth and final time, his right hand began to ache.

At first, the pain was minimal. Robin was able to ignore it and finish his restocking without issue. However, the ache only intensified from there, building up from dullness, to an overbearing senseless numbness, and soon the pronounced inability of control as the whole limb trembled. Robin still strove to ignore the presence of the ache, even as the outer shells of wind he had constructed began to dissipate.

A sharp pain shot through Robin's arm as his symptoms worsened, forcing him to acknowledge their existence in the form of a poorly concealed gasp. Kjelle heard the noise and shot her eyes open, and after half a second she realised that the spheres of wind surrounding her and Robin were disappearing. She failed to realise that Robin was struggling to control the movements of his own arm.

"Hey, Robin!? What's happening!?" Kjelle shouted, her voice shaking against the now erratic shifting of Robin's internal magic.

Robin looked at her, his wind tome flapping beside him in the air as he moved to clutch his right hand with his left. "I-It's nothing! We'll be fine, I… give me a second, it'll be okay! I promise!"

Every fibre of Kjelle's being tensed, and she couldn't help but look down toward where dark water raced beneath them as they soared toward land. She swiftly regretted doing so, and squeezed her eyes shut to reclaim some sense of her composure. "Okay, okay. Okay. You can do this, Robin. We aren't far from shore now, so you can… you can ease us down toward the water, and we can try to swim. We can still get out of this okay."

Robin continued to look at Kjelle, the pain in his arm growing distant as he examined her in a new light. Her eyes were shut again, and he could tell simply by looking at her that she was afraid - insecure about her assumption of safety but nevertheless trusting that he would see them both through whatever happened next. Robin's stomach twisted at the idea that so much trust was being placed in him.

His gaze fell toward the sea below, and the twisting was replaced with a frigid chill that swept over the entirety of his body. There had been so many times where he had pushed Kjelle underwater or had been put in a situation where he had to actively save her from drowning. Never once had he thought of utilising his opportunities to kill her.

Until now.

Somehow, he had avoided considering killing Kjelle for so long, he had almost thought that he never would. That she would prove impervious to the fateful wanderings of his mind. But, now, he had thought about it, and in doing so wondered how he had avoided it for so long. Perhaps because she had always seemed so strong, as if she would be able to resist anything Robin did. She could repel any of his attacks or manipulations despite how he had already proven that his strength in magic dwarfed anything she could offer.

Looking at Kjelle now, Robin could tell that the flame of hatred he had seen in her had been extinguished, and in its place was a trust he despised above all else. She was shying away from her distaste for him, and in doing so had begun to place her confidence in him. That was beyond terrifying. All of Robin's fears and insecurities crashed through the barrier of clarity he had constructed, and in that instant his mind drifted far.

He could envision himself cutting off his spells, allowing them both to plummet to the waters below. He saw how he could save himself and leave Kjelle to drown, and how he could have done the same so many times. In that moment, he could think of nothing else.

Robin's magic faded completely, the last few shells of wind he had constructed dissipating with his lack of focus. Both he and Kjelle began to fall toward the sea.

Kjelle's eyes snapped open again as her sensation of weightlessness was replaced with one of falling. She attempted to unleash a scream in response to her rapid plummet, but had all of the air she tried to force out of her lungs ripped away by her rush downward.

Robin remained frozen in thought as his body fell, the iciness that was gripping his mind refusing to fade. His heart rocketed in his chest as the aching shakes of his right arm spread throughout his body. No matter what he did, he couldn't force the images of killing Kjelle from his mind.

After a few short yet incredibly desperate moments of falling, the clarity returned. Robin managed to regain control of his thoughts. He couldn't expel the memory of what he had considered, but he successfully began to move his limbs without fear of freezing up again. With his right arm continuing to resist commands albeit without sharp pains, Robin knew that he wouldn't be able to reform his spheres of wind to save Kjelle, and so settled for doing the next best thing - summoning a raw force of wind so powerful that she would be redirected as close to shore as possible.

A massive gale manifested in the space behind and below both falling figures, pushing up at an angle as they fell. The wind was by no means strong or concentrated enough to halt their descent despite Robin feeding all that he could into the spell, but it instead slowed them considerably and allowed them to be propelled sideways without possibility of whiplash.

The spell caught Kjelle, then Robin himself, and slowed their fall before sending them in the direction of the shore. Robin wanted to think that him being caught was a side effect of making his spell so powerful, and that he had wished only to save Kjelle, but knew that such a sentiment was nothing more than a pretty lie.

Kjelle skimmed the surface of the waters near the shore for a moment before sloshing down into the shallows. She was able to stand with her head above the small waves her crash had generated with a small amount of difficulty, her armour having more gouges than ever before torn into its surface from the water and Robin's magic. The cloak on Robin's shoulders kept him and the wind tome he hurriedly put away from any harm throughout the process.

As Kjelle awkwardly walked herself out of the water, she began to gasp for the air she had been deprived of while falling. Her heart was racing from the adrenaline pumped through her body, but she swiftly calmed herself with the feeling of relief that swept through her after their landing. She began to smile as she reached shore.

"Well, that was almost catastrophic." Kjelle joked as she heard Robin exiting the sea behind her. She surprised herself with the amount of playfulness in her voice. Her armour and clothing leaked water where she stood, generating pools of damp sand on the shoreline. "Ugh, I guess I'm drenched again, though… still, that went a little better than what I was thinking. Don't get me wrong, Robin, I'm pissed that you didn't- Robin?"

The grandmaster had moved away from her and was showing no signs of hearing what she said. Kjelle turned to look for him and grew confused when he seemed to be distancing himself from her, with that feeling only growing when he sat himself down on the ground and buried his head in his hands.

"Uh… Robin?" Kjelle called out to him again, fearing that approaching him may lead to a worse outcome than remaining in place. "It wasn't that bad of a landing. It definitely could have gone better, but I'm okay. There's no reason to stress over it. Seriously, it… it was moderately impressive that you managed to do so much. I sure as hell couldn't've done the same." she said, hoping to somehow bolster his spirits.

"I… I didn't fail." Robin said weakly, muffling his voice with his hands and refusing to look at Kjelle.

"Alright, that's a little too generous." Kjelle rolled her eyes. "You did good, though. Mostly."

"I chose to stop the magic." Robin said, forcing his voice to not shake as he ignored the confusion that spread over Kjelle's expression. "I… I wanted you to…" he choked on his words, silencing himself before he could continue. "I wanted us to fall. There was no error, or any shortcomings… I actively sought failure."

His right arm throbbed again as if to defy what he was saying, but he paid it no mind. He kept his head buried in his hands, waiting for Kjelle's response, uncertain of how he was to continue without revealing far too much and forcing their final duel on the spot.

"You what?" Kjelle questioned in confusion, trying and failing to rationalise what was being said. She began walking toward Robin, hoping that getting nearer to him would somehow aid her comprehension. "You were doing so well, though. Why would you want to fail?"

"I-I can't explain it…" Robin said. He heard Kjelle's quiet footsteps over the sounds of his own unsteady breathing and looked up from his hands to see that she had walked up to his sitting form. "Stop!" he ordered, pushing up against the beach in order to quickly stand.

Kjelle raised an eyebrow at his erratic actions, but listened to his request and stopped in place, crossing her arms. "You're absolutely certain that you don't fear me, right? Because that's kind of hard to believe if you keep backpedaling away whenever I try to get close."

"It's… it's not you. I…" Robin sighed, bringing himself under control and chastising everything he had done. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be acting like this. Let's get to Laurent as soon as we can - there's a lot I want to tell you when the time comes for the final duel."

Kjelle's uncertain curiosity was replaced with a hard frown. "Right, of course. Because that fight will somehow be the answer to everything."

Robin shrugged, trying his best to come off as casual and forget all that had happened moments ago. "It's an answer I've been seeking out for a long time. Maybe you'll see it that way too, when the time comes."

"It won't be an answer. It'll only be the proof that I'm stronger than you, and that you'll have to tell me whatever you're hiding." Kjelle said confidently, successfully causing Robin to give a genuine smile.

"We'll see about that in time." he said, continuing to smile as he began to move away from the shore. "Come on, we've got some wandering to do before we'll be able to find any landmarks and form our route. Hopefully our equipment will dry out by then."

Kjelle smiled and followed after Robin. She was thankful that he didn't attempt to flee when she neared and began to walk in tempo with him. More than anything, she used her smile to hide the dread that continued to mount in the back of her mind. It refused to fade when she told herself that their duel could end amicably.

* * *

Robin pointed out arbitrary landmark after arbitrary landmark as he and Kjelle progressed further into the desert that supposedly held Laurent. Each time a flare of magic would race out and illuminate an area Robin would be certain to detail every aspect of the land shown. Be they the occasional increasingly common sand dune or the increasingly rare groves of trees, every spot apparently had a name. None bore any direct relation to the oasis that Flavia's dossier - or rather that of the painstakingly unidentified woman - had indicated for their search.

As Robin has hoped, their waterlogged equipment had quickly dried in the arid heat of the growing desert terrain. By the time they had resolved to stop for the night, there was next to no moisture remaining on their clothing or supplies. Night air in the desert kept them cold nonetheless.

"We've got way more progress to make in the morning if we're to reach Laurent by tomorrow, but it's definitely possible." Robin announced as he and Kjelle came to a rest at one of the last clusters of vegetation they could see in Robin's guiding fire light. "The good news is that having horses would have slowed us down from this point onward, so it's kind of good that Anna and Noire took them."

"Until we get out of the desert, and then… have to walk all the way back to Port Ferox. Oh, gods." Kjelle groaned. "We should've tried harder to keep some horses."

"Yeah, that's kind of on me." Robin said. "Don't worry, though, I'm sure things'll be fine. There's probably stables or something closer to Ylisstol, so you could always buy a new horse once you leave the desert."

"I have practically no money, and I don't think you're doing too well on that front anymore, either." Kjelle reminded him as she suppressed another groan.

"Fair point." Robin conceded easily, then shrugged. "Oh well, it's a problem for another time. For now, though, what do you say to having our duel without magic?"

Kjelle nodded to herself and dropped her bags to the soft ground at her feet. "Right… if we're getting to Laurent tomorrow, that means that this is our last chance to have that duel, isn't it? Well, at least for as long as you're keeping that arbitrary date active. Sure, though. I'm game. I'll take the chance to prove my superiority to you, and give you a general idea of how the duel is going to go."

Robin smiled and leisurely began to remove his tomes from his person, setting them one at a time on the ground near where Kjelle had thrown her bags. "That's what I like to hear. I can't believe how much progress we've made; to think that only a week or so ago you were whining about- huh." he stopped for a moment, losing himself to his thoughts. "We managed to navigate an entire continent in a matter of days. Is that possible?"

"I think we've proved as much." Kjelle said dismissively. She brought out her silver lance from its resting place on her back, tossing her enchanted variant against her bags as she went.

"There should've been mountain ranges to cross, rivers, blizzards, snowfields we would undoubtedly get stuck and nearly freeze to death in… do you remember anything like that at all?"

"We didn't have to cross any mountains or rivers, and the weather was amicable all the way." Kjelle reminded him, retaining her air of passive dismissal. "Is your memory is slipping, old man? We kept a pretty tight schedule the entire time we were moving."

"I'm the same age as you." Robin said, deadly serious before returning to his confusion. "I can remember the schedule, too, and it made sense to me then, but… there were definitely mountains we would have had to cross to reach Noire, no matter how well we tried to avoid them. Wintery mountains would cause a lot of rivers, but I can't remember crossing anything like those."

Robin closed his eyes and hummed in discontent as he struggled to reason away his lapse in memory. He then snapped his eyes open and shrugged in an instant of clarity. "Ah well, it's not like it matters all that much. Maybe I really have lost my memories again, in some weird super-amnesia case or something. It doesn't matter. All that matters now is our duel!"

"Glad you've come to see that." Kjelle flashed a predatory grin, her silver lance at the ready and pointed directly toward her foe. "Come on, Robin. Get the cloak off and we can start."

"Hey, give me some time. This is a new concept to me." Robin smiled in turn, though his was far less sinister than Kjelle's. He paused for a moment once he had pulled his levin sword from his cloak and then the cloak from his shoulders, ensuring that Kjelle would be able to see that he wasn't concealing any weapons to seal an undeserved victory. "I, uh… don't have a weapon. I think I lost my other sword when I was fighting you and Noire. Since my levin one is magical and therefore superior, I didn't exactly care to replace it."

"Sounds like you're out of luck." Kjelle continued with her same smile, though she betrayed her words by throwing him her spare iron sword, keeping her silver lance and iron axe for herself. "Alright, no more lollygagging. Let's do this!"

Robin failed to catch the sword, keeping his hands neutral as he watched Kjelle in a confusion similar to his earlier perplexity. "You've been carrying those iron weapons around since… what, the arena, right? That means you've been carrying four weapons, your bags, and all of your armour this entire way… why doesn't that make sense to me? Have you actually been carrying them?" he blinked and his thoughts disappeared, and he bent down to pick up the sword thrown his way. "Sorry, I'm rambling again. I'm ready when you are."

"You sure you don't want to delay this until you're not having a stroke?" Kjelle asked pointedly, though she made no move to lower her lance.

"It's nothing like that." Robin shook his head. "My heads feeling really clear right now. I suppose I'm letting it wander more than usual. It won't be a problem anymore, so let's go."

Kjelle assessed him for a moment before shrugging. "Alright. Let's see if you can actually fight!"

She lunged toward him, holding the inevitable strike of her lance at bay until she had drawn close enough to guarantee a hit. Robin brought his sword up in defense, barely managing to correct his stance in time to catch her natural feint and redirect his blade toward where he had failed to protect himself. They locked one another in a brief stalemate before Robin pushed himself deftly away from her. Each of their footsteps generated small clouds of sand that wafted through the air. Robin wished he could dispel the sand with his wind magic more than anything in the world.

"Have you fought against me when I've used only a sword?" Robin asked, feigning total disinterest. "Obviously, I would've used magic with it too, but I don't think you have. You shouldn't underestimate me."

He smiled and opened his mouth to say something more, but Kjelle cut him off with another charge. She jabbed her lance out at his chest, holding back by the smallest of amounts in case Robin forgot his current lack of enchantments and allowed himself to come to harm. Robin proved her concern unnecessary as he deftly backed away from the attack.

Once he had retreated out of Kjelle's range, Robin swapped his sword to his left hand and raised his right before stopping himself and cursing. He lowered his hand and brought his sword over to a shared grip between his two hands, his unnatural lack of magic causing him to curse again from within the silent confines of his mind.

"You really aren't used to having a real fight, huh?" Kjelle taunted him, taking a quick moment to reevaluate her position and plan of attack. She was now confident that Robin would be able to avoid her actions.

"There's some conflicting muscle memory." Robin replied simply. He set himself back into a more defensive position, sweeping a foot out half a pace behind him to lock himself in place the best he could on unstable sand.

He smiled at his borrowed sword, then turned his gaze back toward Kjelle, the unmistakable glint of anticipation shining in his eyes. "It's starting to come back to me, though. Just so you know."

Kjelle grinned in return, accepting Robin's goad. She approached him at a measured pace for several steps. Then, she darted forward again, stabbing her lance toward his stomach - this time without the doubt in her mind that she could possibly harm him.

Robin met Kjelle's strike with one of his own, directing her lance's head down to the sand at his feet despite her best efforts to have the weapon stay its course. Kjelle utilised her momentum to the greatest extent that she could manage, bashing her shoulder into Robin's chest. Robin was knocked to the ground in a puff of sand and a grunt.

"Hah! Is this the best you can do!?" Kjelle shouted, swiftly recovering and charging at him again.

Robin didn't bother to respond. Instead, he dropped his sword to the ground and grabbed clumps of sand with both hands, then quickly threw the handfuls directly at Kjelle's face. She wasn't slowed by the attack, merely shutting her eyes as she charged directly through the spray with her lance readied to run Robin through. Robin rapidly grabbed his sword by its blade and threw it directly at Kjelle's exposed head.

Kjelle opened her eyes an instant before the pommel of the sword collided with her forehead. She was barely able to release a small shout in surprise before the weapon hit and grounded her advance to a temporary halt as she clutched at her forehead with one hand. Not being one to pass on any opportunity, Robin darted next to Kjelle, curled one of his legs up and then brought it down on the side of her nearest knee.

His attack forced Kjelle to a kneel. Robin rushed past her in order to avoid the reactionary lance swings that followed the path of his movements. One wayward swing from Kjelle successfully connected with his lower back as he moved, giving him reason to wince in pain. Robin kept himself in Kjelle's range a moment longer in order to forcefully pry the axe she had yet to use from her back, damaging the loops she used to hold it in place in the process.

"It's not exactly fair that you gave me a disadvantage like that - you know, sword versus lance." Robin said casually, swinging the axe in his grip experimentally and shrugging in satisfaction as Kjelle spun to face him. "If I use this, it's pretty much evening things out, right?"

"Use whatever excuses you want; you'll lose all the same." Kjelle snarled. She grabbed the thrown sword and rose to her full height, placing her lance on her back on what she believed would be undamaged loops. Robin's shoulders sagged at her change in weapon. Even then his relaxed and unassuming posture radiated a capable malice that Kjelle knew could propel him to victory.

This time, Robin engaged their set of blows, swinging his axe toward Kjelle in an arc she knew was too wide for his level of expertise in battle. Sure enough, the attack proved to be a feint into another that sliced upward at a sharp angle once it had neared her. Her ability to read the move allowed Kjelle to easily counter the strike by pushing against the axe with the tip of her sword. Robin staggered back as the axe was forced out of his range of control.

Kjelle wasted no time in following up with a swing of her own, almost catching Robin as he regained his footing. She attacked again with the sword only for him to evade yet again without damage, and she cursed softly before switching back to her more practiced lance.

"Can you still not use that properly?" Robin asked, raising an eyebrow and angling his head in the direction of her sword. "I kind of thought you'd be further along with swords and axes by now. I suppose most of your time has been going to magic, but still, you always made it sound like you knew about this stuff already."

Though his words were in no way patronising and were born entirely of curiosity, Kjelle couldn't help but be angered by them. "What, do you think I can't use a sword as well as you? Alright, after this, we'll have a duel with only swords! How does that sound!?"

Robin shrugged nonchalantly. "Sure, I'm game. It's not like I'm trying to withhold duels without magic anymore."

Kjelle narrowed her gaze on him despite her elation at knowing she could rechallenge him endlessly, evaluating his stance and positioning carefully once more. Taking a page from his book, she again brought out her sword. With both sword and lance in hand, Kjelle hoped that Robin would fall for the trap enough to open him up to a greater attack.

Robin failed to change his stance in the slightest, remaining in the same relatively relaxed yet focused state as before. Kjelle chose to believe that he had grown more tense. She broke her stance in order to whip the sword at Robin's head, angling it in the same manner as he had done for her, although she put far more force than him behind the throw.

The sword spun in Robin's direction at a speed intense enough that Kjelle truly believed harm him. Robin managed to interpret her attack a fraction of a second early and deftly sidestepped out of the weapon's arc. Kjelle, silently relieved, charged him anew as he moved, holding her lance in a tight grip with both hands and aiming its head for the grandmaster's core. Robin retaliated by swinging his axe toward her horizontally, as much defensive force being behind the swing as he could muster.

Their weapons split through the air and failed to meet one another. Robin's axe connected hard with Kjelle's collar and deflected upward with as much force at it had arrived, hitting her temple with the flat of its metal head. Kjelle's lance glanced against the space above Robin's hip, tearing through his shirt and slicing open the skin of his abdomen. The sheer force behind Robin's attack floored Kjelle, dazing her and causing her to miss when he dropped the axe and placed his hands over the wound she had inflicted.

Kjelle coughed once and blinked several times as her head swam in pain. She soon managed to reel her senses in, and rose to her feet as the taste of blood faded from her mouth. "Ugh… is… is that the end? Did I…?"

She blinked again as she saw Robin holding his hands against his stomach, a thin trail of blood slipping through his fingers in small but obvious amounts. "Wait, you… holy shit!" she shouted in as much surprised elation as concern, taking half a second to relish in her victory before moving to his side.

"Can you… grab the makeup kit?" Robin requested shakily. "It has some… some bandages inside, and I might have to stitch this…"

"Uh… yeah, yeah, sure." Kjelle said, the uncertain wavering in his voice giving her reason to hesitate. She rushed over to his bag and rummaged through it until she grabbed hold of the kit, growing painfully aware of how long every action was taking when she could hear Robin take in occasional sharp breaths of pain.

Kjelle opened the kit at Robin's side and found the needle and thread he had previously used at Naga's temple. She closely examined then raised the tool up to Robin, only to find that he had clamped his hands securely over his wound and was regarding her with a look of intense scrutiny.

"I don't think you've learned to stitch wounds in the day since we left the temple." Robin said dryly. He kept his hands in place when Kjelle gave a half hearted attempt at pulling them away.

"Come on, I'm trying to help. Suck it up and let me do what I can." Kjelle replied.

"I don't handle pain well." Robin said, keeping his hands in place and forcing his voice to be steady. "I'm used to barely ever taking hits, and when I do they're mitigated. Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to be brought down by a scratch, but I'm still going to go down faster than someone like Frederick, or Chrom, or you."

Kjelle didn't register his voice as she winced. "Is the wound really that bad? I swear, I didn't mean to… er, I didn't want to…"

"It's not bad." Robin reassured her, flashing a pale smile to aid the effort. "Really, I shouldn't be responding to it this poorly. I may not even need stitches; it was more of a glance than a cut. I… I really shouldn't be freaking out this much…"

"You rely too much on your cloak." Kjelle concluded, casting a glance to where the fabric in question lay neatly on the ground a short distance from them.

"Possibly. It's not like it's failed me yet, though." Robin said. "C'mon, give me the needle - and some disinfectant, just in case. I'll patch myself up and be fine in no time. We can keep sparring, if you'd like."

Kjelle furrowed her brow, glancing to where his wound continued to slowly leak blood and then back up to meet his gaze. "Are you sure about that? You seem kind of messed up. Fighting more probably won't be good for you."

"I'll be fine. The wound's already feeling better." Robin reassured her with a smile. "Seriously, I overreacted. Give me a minute to make sure this doesn't get any worse and I'll be able to fight as well as before."

Kjelle narrowed her gaze on Robin, inspecting him thoroughly before sighing and handing him the needle and thread. She reached for the disinfectant located somewhere in the depths of the kit. "Fine. Make sure you don't get hurt again, yeah? There's no point in having a spar against someone who can't fight passably."

Robin smiled to Kjelle after accepting the supplies offered, though she turned away from him and toward his discarded items before she could see the action. He set about cleaning and repairing his cut. Sure enough, he swiftly found that he would in no way require stitches for a cut that had damaged only skin.

His smile turned into a small frown as he worked to heal himself. There was no reason he should have been hurt so badly by such an insignificant attack, nor for his nerves to have gone into overdrive as they had done upon sustaining the hit. His frown only deepened as he bandaged the wound and patted it to test for pain. He felt none.

 _It's because you're afraid_. part of him whispered - a weirdly grey part that his clarity unsuccessfully shouted down. _You can pretend all you like, lie about everything you want, but you still can't handle what's about to happen. You aren't ready to die. You're more afraid than ever, and you're struggling to hide that fact_.

 _Why can't I face reality? Wouldn't I be happier that way?_ Robin questioned himself, uncertain of why he was hosting such a dialogue in his own mind. _No… I wouldn't be. When it comes down to it, I am afraid. I won't be ready to die. I won't want to die. I'm afraid. I don't want to be afraid. Why do I have to be afraid? Please… I want to be happy…_

 _You know what will make you happy_. the discourse continued. Robin was now fully aware that he was engaging the grey directly, in some impossible to understand form. _That's why you're afraid. That's why you're so scared, why I'm running from everything. I'm afraid because you can't accept how we'll be happy. You're afraid of running from it, and so we hide from them both. All you're doing is hiding and running. Face it: we need to accept that Grima is already dead, and how that means that you're responsi-_

Robin shot up to his feet, silencing his internal discussion through the might of his resurgent false clarity. He felt no pain whatsoever from the wound Kjelle had inflicted.

Kjelle rose at the same time as him, his cloak bundled in one hand from where she had shifted it away from the rest of his supplies. "Are you good?" she asked, not wholly interested or disinterested.

"Yeah, yeah. Completely fine!" Robin lied through a confident smile. "That scratch you gave me doesn't hurt anymore. I'm ready to fight again when you are."

"Good, then put this on." Kjelle said and threw Robin his cloak, causing him to blink uncomprehendingly. "I admittedly don't know how to hold back as well as you. I go all out, and if that has the chance to hurt you, it's better to use the added protection."

"It wasn't that bad of a hit…" Robin grumbled, but slipped the cloak on all the same. "I totally could have won that if we had kept going."

"Ha! Are you kidding me? It was a tie in my favour, at the absolute best." Kjelle laughed brazenly. "I recovered way faster than you could have hoped to."

Robin rolled his eyes but grinned at her. "I guess you'll have to prove that, then. It's not like you weren't completely dazed yourself toward the end of that."

Kjelle mimicked his actions while placing herself in a readied combat stance. "Please, as if I'd allow myself to be beaten by the likes of you. I was merely biding my time."

"Sure you were." Robin snorted, backtracking a ways to pick up the sword Kjelle had thrown at him and prepare for their next round of their fighting. "I'll yield if you get too much of an upper hand. I expect you to do the same. These have to be completely fair, self-regulated fights." he said, and Kjelle nodded to accept the changes.

"Oh, and one more thing." Robin added, his voice falling into a more serious, personal tone. "I'm afraid of what the future will hold if I live through the next few days, but… I think I'm also terrified of dying. So, if it comes down to it, can you please make sure everything goes quickly?"

Kjelle shook her head. "I told you, I'm not going to kill you. There's no reason to fear a death that will never come. Also, once I win, I think you'll see that we're strong enough to change the future. Hell, maybe you'll finally see how I'll be able to do it on my own."

Robin shook his head and sighed. "Kjelle, that isn't…" he sighed again, closing his eyes and suppressing the warmth in his chest that threatened to blossom at the confidence behind her promise. "I… okay. Let's see what happens next, but please keep what I've said in mind. You might change your opinion after hearing what I have to say."

"I traveled through time to save the past." Kjelle said. "As of now, that includes you, so you're not about to die. We can change our fates. Regardless of what you may have done or are capable of doing, I can tell that you have the power to determine what happens next. You're simply that strong of a person. Same as me. If I'm the one who has to force you to see that, then so be it."

Robin smiled at Kjelle's words, though part of him deep down refuted all that she said. They soon launched into another round of fighting, and then another after that, and far more beyond those.

In the end, Kjelle won fifteen duels to Robin's twelve, disregarding the numerous ties they begrudgingly agreed upon. Both Robin and Kjelle were pleased beyond words by her results.

* * *

 **This was supposed to be on time, as were many things this past week. RIP to all of them.**

 **Next chapter is one of the few that actually has to be written well (AKA better than the blocks of text I've apparently made in these chapters) to be pulled off properly. I like to think that my writing style is getting better, so hopefully I can do it well.**

 **Status: As of 17-03-19, I'm on chapter 34. Still. It's not a long chapter or anything, I've just slowed down way more than I should have.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	25. Chapter 25

"Have I ever mentioned hating sand? Because if I haven't, know that I do. Also, if I have, know that I do again. It's so… eugh." Robin shuddered from merely imagining the adverse effects so many particles could have.

"Have I ever told you that it's best to shut up and keep walking?" Kjelle asked rhetorically. "I'm pretty sure that I have. A lot."

Robin rolled his eyes and progressed on in silence for a matter of seconds. "Seriously, though. There has to be some way to get rid of deserts entirely, like some kind of super irrigation system. Or maybe simply having a friend that doesn't decide to live in a desert."

"Hey, if you want to complain to Laurent when we meet up with him, be my guest." Kjelle said. "It's not like I'm enjoying this, either. I'm wearing actual armour. Not to mention that your cloak probably has some kind of weird enchantment to help that only you would think to place on it."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Robin said flatly. "It does, by the way. Also, I wasn't the one who enchanted this thing. It was like this when I woke up with no memories, and there are some enchantments I haven't been able to replicate. My theory is that the woman made it like this."

"Meaning that the woman met with you before you lost-slash-erased your memories?" Kjelle asked, putting her limited knowledge of enchantments to the test. "After all, you need to be present to form the ley lines, right?"

"Typically." Robin shrugged. "This woman has proved that she's way stronger than any of us could have thought, so keep that in mind, too. If anyone could've done a ranged enchantment, it'd've been her."

"Huh…" Kjelle muttered, her face contorting in thought. "Why don't you want to prove your strength against her, and not me? And why do you suppose she hasn't killed anyone in the Shepherds yet? They seem like they'd be the first to oppose her…" she trailed off, not wanting to think about what could happen to those she sought to protect over all else.

"Because she loves us, and I love her." Robin answered both questions with a disturbingly pleasant smile. "She would never want to hurt us, and I would never want to hurt her. The same will go for anyone in the Shepherds who may meet her, regardless of if you believe something contrary."

"You love her?" Kjelle asked incredulously. "You haven't met her! How could say that about someone who murdered Naga?"

"It's surprisingly easy. You should give it a try!" Robin encouraged with the same smile on his face.

Kjelle shook her head, her mind fuming at how resoundingly enraptured Robin appeared to be. "I'll pass. Let's keep going. I want to pacify you as soon as possible, and get my answers." Her stomach fluttered with a mounting uneasiness at her mention of the duel.

"Suit yourself." Robin shrugged, his smile remaining on his face a few seconds longer before fading away. "Ugh, sand… why does it have to be sand?"

* * *

The waters of the oasis that lent its name to the desert of eastern Ylisse were always bountiful. A large man with mismatched furs splashed a portion of the oasis into his canteen, his exposed shoulders bathing in the desert's hot light Supposedly, the oasis held some form of incredible staff, and though the man couldn't use such a thing he was more than content with selling it to the highest bidder. He rose from the bank of the oasis and turned to the hero at his side.

"Where the hell is that village? And where's the godsdamn recon team? They should be back by now!" he barked at the hired hand, though the hero failed to flinch as his usual underlings would do.

"Patience, 'captain' Nombry." the man said, sending an infuriating smirk at the larger bandit. "My men will not fail. Give them time, and they may very well return to you with the staff in hand."

"They'd better. Otherwise, it'll be all your heads on the chopping block." Nombry growled.

The hero laughed faintly. "Of course. What else should I expect from you, 'captain'? It's not like you've fallen through on payment before, or dedicated years of your life to finding a ridiculous weapon of yore."

"Shut your trap!" Nombry shouted, again failing to disturb the other man. "I know it's here. I can feel it. Smell it. Taste it!"

The hero merely shrugged. "As long as my men and I get paid, there won't be any issues. If we don't, though… well, let me say that recon isn't our only strength."

Nombry narrowed his gaze. "Was that supposed to be a threat, you little-!?" he stopped himself and blinked, then pushed past the mercenary. He brought a hand up to shade his eyes from the sun and cast his gaze far to the south. "Wait a minute… was that village always there?"

The hero turned to follow his commander's gaze, narrowing his eyes to better see through the haze of heat radiating away from the desert sands. "Huh. Don't think so, but it had to have been. We came from the north, and my boys were spanning out east and west before converging south. You wanna check it out?" he nudged Nombry with his elbow. The bandit leader shot him a sharp glare, only to be berated by a smile.

"Tell you what: we find the staff, we split the money two ways. No need for anyone else to get involved." Nombry said.

"Hm… I don't know about abandoning my guys out here, but let's do it." the hero grinned in turn, his expression easily conveying how little he truly cared about the matter. "Honestly, I'm kind of disappointed with them, too. They're usually so punctual. I guess a grueling mission without pay will be punishment enough for them."

Nombry laughed heartily, clapping a hand on the other man's back and pushing him into stride. The two began to make their way to the new village without delay.

They came to a stop after under a minute of walking. The hero placed a hand in front of Nombry's chest, drawing his sword and stepping to the side of the bandit in slow, careful movements.

A strange man was crouched in the sand of the desert before them. He was hidden in part by the spray of sand being constantly sent skyward with deliberate acts of magic. Nombry caught sight of the mage a moment after the hero, and he too began to silently circle their unattentive figure.

The hero's foot slipped across something soft yet hard, and he stopped immediately, holding his legs in place. Far from him, the man in mage's robes and an absurdly characteristic pointed hat stopped casting his magic for a split second.

"Be still." he ordered through a harsh whisper, his voice barely carrying across the sands. After another second of waiting, he resumed casting magic into the desert at his feet, not caring for the men he knew were attempting to approach.

For a moment, the hero obeyed the mage, the authoritative tone of his voice leaving no room for doubt. He then caught sight of Nombry advancing on the man again, and resumed his own movements.

He was attacked the instant he elevated the foot that had slid. Grotesque claws shot up from the sands beneath him, aiming skyward and shearing cleanly through the armour plating on both of his legs. He yelped and jumped back, only for his newfound opponent to latch their claws into the upper reaches his thigh, pulling him to the ground with a dull thud. The assailant pulled themselves free of the desert covering their body by straining against the man's armour, spraying sand into the air as they scrambled upward.

More figures exploded forth from the sand surrounding the first. More followed them. The hero brought his sword into the first body's chest as it freed its claws from his armour. The attack failed to so much as slow the monster. An instant before it could jab its claws into the hero's head, the assailant was sliced to ashes by a powerful burst of wind magic. The hero scrambled to his feet to handle the others that had appeared in sequence, only for them to swiftly meet a fate similar to the first.

"I told you to be still." the mage said matter-of-factly. He then returned to his work in the sand at his feet, again not caring for the approach of the other bandit behind him nor the further actions of the hero.

Another burst of wind later, a risen emerged from the ground he had carted upon. It roared out of its sand coating, only for the man to immediately kill it in a wind spell. He sagged his shoulders and sighed before returning to his previous callous, uncaring stance.

"What the hell was that!?" the hero shouted at the mage, refusing to step anywhere so as to avoid another attack.

The mage took several careful, deliberate steps through the sand until he paused on a single foot, at which point he smiled and eased himself into place atop another hidden foe. "The risen have adapted as of late. I was uncertain as to the purpose of their behaviour when I witnessed them behaving oddly several days ago. I had at that time decided that the safety of the mirage villages was of greater concern than them burying themselves in sand. That was, until they attacked a party of mercenaries travelling about here today, revealing their incredibly intriguing purpose."

Nombry's eyes lit up at mention of the mirage villages, though the mage failed to see as such. He was already refocused on his efforts into gently excavating another risen. The bandit captain renewed his approach of the mage, managing to avoid the risen beneath his feet from luck rather than caution or skill.

"They - the risen - set up a trap?" the hero asked incredulously, casting cautious glances over the desert near him. "Those undead things that've roamed around for so long? They've never been smart. What happened?"

"That is what I strive to investigate." the mage said. "If I could find a stable sample to examine, then perhaps I could determine the source of their peculiar actions. My name is Laurent, by the way. It would have been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, had you not disturbed my research."

Nombry approached Laurent so closely that he was able to clasp a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "It's still a pleasure, I'm sure. Now, Laurent… where are these mirage villages of yours? My friend and I have some business to attend to in them."

"My research takes significant precedence over the actions of bandits." Laurent said, his voice nothing short of uncaring. He shrugged Nombry's hand off of his shoulder and returned to his examination. "If your search is for the legendary staff said to heal any ailment and save those on the brink of death, then I will have you know that such legends are paltry lies. The staff is nothing more than a barren husk; a lifeless stick with no energy to speak of."

"Now, listen here, boy." Nombry growled, reaching for his axe in an unsuccessful attempt to threaten Laurent. "We're all reasonable people here. Don't lie to me - I know the staff exists! Tell me where the villages are, or maybe we won't be quite so reasonable anymore."

Laurent blew Nombry away with a blast of wind magic, not bothering to turn to face the bandit to cast his spell. He returned to his examination of the hidden risen without another word.

"You little brat! I'll skin you- agh!" Nombry began to shout and charge at Laurent, only to be stopped when a risen launched out of the ground and sank its claws into the flesh of his legs. He collapsed to his knees as the risen pulled at him. Nombry managed to strike and kill his undead assailant before it could deal any serious damage, though more risen followed the actions of the first when they became aware of his movement.

Once again, Laurent destroyed the risen that had been raised from the sands with an absentmindedly casted spell. "Do not impede my research. If you desire to halt the advancement of science, then I shall consider you an enemy and respond accordingly. As of now, I've no desire to kill when unnecessary. If you impair any of my experimentation or analyses, then I will not hesitate to eradicate you."

Nombry snarled at Laurent, but held his ground in fear of signaling more hidden risen. "Rrgh… come on, merc. Let's check out the village we saw. If the staff isn't there, then we'll have to pay another little visit to our friend Laurent here." he said, and began to slowly back away from Laurent. Every step he took was careful enough to ensure his safety.

The hero slowly began to follow, constantly scuffing his feet across the ground in order to avoid stepping on more risen. Occasionally, he would contact one of them, though he made sure to drive his sword into their general location several times before daring to advance.

He stopped momentarily next to Laurent. "Did all of my men get killed by these things?" he asked tentatively.

"Yes. It was quite frightful, truly." Laurent said, never diverting any of his attention away from his work.

"Huh. I… I see." the hero said. He then resumed advancing.

Laurent paid him no mind, continuing his excavation of the risen to the best of his ability. He had managed to unveil much of the risen's torso this time around, having stepped on their upper leg. Each risen was buried shallow enough to sense any pressure applied to them and respond to the removal of said pressure, having spent days perfecting their placements and behaviour. Their ashen skin was caked with sand from the time they had spent under the surface of the desert.

The risen twitched as Laurent attempted to examine it, having noticed its newfound lack of cover despite the mage's best efforts to keep his subject calm. Laurent annihilated the risen with magic as it attempted to stand. He sighed again before setting out to find yet another risen from which he could glean knowledge.

* * *

"Holy, that's a lot of dead bodies." Robin whistled, raising his eyebrows at the sight of dozens of corpses lining a stretch of desert before himself and Kjelle. They had been piled together in a single locale, bordering the edge of the sand dunes that enclosed the oasis area.

"Were they put there deliberately?" Kjelle asked. "They look like they were piled up."

"No, they got there naturally." Robin said with a mocking smile, then shrugged and began walking toward the corpses. "We won't find out what happened if we don't investigate. Come on, let's go!"

Kjelle blinked, remaining in place for a moment before following. "Seriously? There's at least twenty dead bodies sitting there, and you want to investigate? I say we find and kill what killed them first."

"Hey, maybe we'll find out-" Robin began, being cut off when the sand at his feet exploded and knocked him to his back. A risen emerged from within the sand and made to attack him, only to be hit simultaneously with a flame lance and a shot of thunder magic.

More risen erupted out of the ground around the first, all moving to attack Robin. He shot most of them down before they could make ground. Kjelle swept through the rest with accurate shots from her lance. In short order, each of the risen that emerged had been eliminated, leaving Robin no more than surprised from their appearances.

"Huh." he said aloud, using the respite of the word to calm himself. Kjelle approached him and offered her hand. Robin didn't think twice about the offer before using it to pull himself to a stand. "Thanks for the help. That was… interesting."

"Those risen were likely changed by Flavia slaying the Grimleal leaders, too. At least I've never seen them act like that." Kjelle observed. "All of the risen in the world have probably changed, if this is anything to go by. It's strange, though; aside form hiding under the sand, these ones were easy to kill. The first ones I fought were stronger."

"Maybe they can't handle the desert for too long, like a normal person?" Robin suggested, advancing again toward the gathering of silent bodies. "They've probably set up their trap knowing we would be passing through here. They may have been waiting for a long time."

"They shouldn't know that we'd be here, though." Kjelle said.

"The woman knows, since she'd have access to the same information as Flavia." Robin responded. "She also has some ties to the risen, or at the least is able to interact with them through magic. She was controlling some of them back on the Island of Lost Souls."

"So she set a trap for us. My, how loving of her."

"Obviously she wouldn't want to hurt us." Robin scoffed. "The risen are risen. They're feral. The woman can take control of them sometimes, and has used that power to help me out. She isn't a danger."

"Of course not, all she did was kill a god. Nothing big." Kjelle said, then shrugged. "Well, divine dragon, but still."

"You're jealous that you're not that strong, aren't you?" Robin jeered. "That you can't kill gods, or control risen, or anything of sort?"

"I'll admit, it'd be nice to have that kind of power. That's not to say I won't have it one day, but for now, to deal with the risen and Valm… it'd be nice. An enemy having that, though? That'd be a nightmare."

"How many times do I have to tell you that she isn't an enemy? Simply because she outclasses you doesn't mean she's evil, regardless of what your pride might say." Robin frowned, then returned his attention to the bodies. "You'll see as such in time. Now, what we can learn from here…?"

He knelt next to the closest of the corpses, examining it closely without daring to touch its recently deceased skin. His best efforts toward analysing the body only yielded that their demise had been recent, and that their attire suggested they weren't native to the desert. The corpses all wore moderate armour that would be an unnatural sight for hot climates. Some had lost all of their protection to the claws of the risen.

"These look like they were inflicted by risen. Claws are their signature, after all." Kjelle observed, nudging one of the bodies tactlessly with her foot. "They probably met the same risen we did, or another group like them."

"They don't resemble any kind of military unit I know of." Robin remarked, then rose from his knees and dusted off his legs. "So bandits came in, got sidelined by risen by risen that likely knew about you and I, and… I don't know where that leaves us."

"You don't think they're targeting Laurent, do you? He'd be pretty high on their list of priorities." Kjelle said. "Damn, if he gets himself killed before we all get to save the world…"

"Don't worry, he'll be fine. He's a mage, after all." Robin assured Kjelle with a moderately aggravating grin.

"That doesn't mean he knows how to take a hit. He sure as hell couldn't back in our time." Kjelle remarked.

"Eh, so be it. We'll have to make sure to find him as soon as we can. There's probably a village near the oasis, wherever that is. We can check there." Robin said, then focused his sight on the furthest point he could discern, his face soon breaking out into a smile. "What do you know, I think I found it! I'm amazing."

Kjelle clapped him hard on the back, inflicting no gratification. "Come on, let's go find him. The earlier we reach him, the less likely he is to be dead."

"A 'thank you' would've been nice." Robin grumbled, struggling to rub the spot on his back Kjelle had hit as he followed after her.

"I don't always play nice - not even with my friends." Kjelle said. "Nice gets boring fast. A little hotheadedness and taking action moves things along. Weaker people wouldn't know how to do that, and probably would've idled around for too long, like you."

"It sounds like you're making excuses for being an asshole." Robin remarked. "Didn't you resolve to get over that whole elitism thing you had going on? That'd probably keep your assholery in check, too."

"I don't need to keep anything in check, and I'm not at fault if others can't keep up with me." Kjelle said. "That isn't elitism; it's common sense."

"You haven't caught up to me in magic, and regardless of how many duels you won yesterday they were all without a single spell." Robin countered. "You'd've been dead a few times over had I used magic. It's the same as before: you're weak, just not in the way you think."

Kjelle winced, but didn't allow the action to stall her stride. "Maybe I have a ways to go before I'm in the position to judge things like that, but so are you. I suppose we'll have to work on it together. Also, yeah, maybe the elitism thing is a little harder to drop than I thought. I just… I can't get over the fact that there are people who won't be willing to do everything they can to save the world, or to better themselves. It's idiotic."

"That's fair, but you don't have to fight to better yourself." Robin said. "Maybe someone wants to be an artist, or a farmer, or sailor. It's our job as Shepherds to help them in that pursuit, indirect though it may be. In the end, our aim is to protect everyone's ability to live happily as best we can, and not everyone has to be strong for that to happen. Not even in the Shepherds."

"Everyone in the Shepherds is strong, though. They have to be in order to protect people." Kjelle countered. "At the very least, no one weak deserves a place in their ranks, regardless of what you think about elitism."

Robin shook his head. "Olivia can barely walk without getting embarrassed and faltering. Lon'qu goes catatonic if he touches a woman. Sumia falls on her face so much that she's as likely to die walking as in battle. Frederick would die if doing so would remove a nonexistent pebble from Chrom's or Lissa's path. Even someone as flawless as Cordelia would fall in battle if she didn't have other people to rely on. They have flaws, or a need to rely on others, but those weaknesses don't make them any less of a Shepherd."

Kjelle regarded Robin in a strange manner. Robin thought for a moment that he could see contempt festering in her gaze before it faded. "Alright, maybe they're like that now, but they're still incredible people." Kjelle said. "Eventually they'll all be amazing. They'll stand up to Walhart, to Grima, to the woman, to every obstacle in their way, and they'll crush them all."

"And what then? What happens after they've crushed everything?" Robin replied without missing a beat. "Their goal isn't to destroy. They want to build, to prosper. Killing people will never help attain that. Though a drive for power may aid them to a degree - which is what I'm hoping you'll do - it isn't an absolute solution. I need you to see that."

"That's fair, I suppose. I wouldn't expect anything else from people like the Shepherds." Kjelle agreed. "But, you do at least concede that a drive for strength will help. It isn't as if that drive makes me an elitist asshole, as you were putting it."

"No, your influence makes it into that of an elitist asshole." Robin said intensely. "What will you do when the wars end, Kjelle? What happens when you can't get any stronger, or when getting stronger will only mean hurting people? What about when the Shepherds stop fighting?"

"As long as there's conflict in the world, there'll be a need to fight. The Shepherds will see that, as I already have." Kjelle answered. "Constant fighting means constantly getting stronger. That goes to the day I die."

Robin stopped walking entirely, which compelled Kjelle to do the same. "That isn't the point of what's happening here, or what the Shepherds have been doing for so long. All of the fighting has to stop. The Shepherds are to be that end."

"They aren't about to do that without power. If they want to be weak - which they won't - then they can go ahead, but I'll be strong." Kjelle said. "There's nothing that will stop me from wanting to be more powerful, without end."

"No." Robin said sternly, his face breaking into a forced smile. "That… that isn't the point. That isn't why we're here. That… that's not… how this is going to play out. You need to keep everyone alive through whatever comes next, and then… and then join them in the peace that follows. That's how this is supposed to end."

Kjelle shook her head. "No. That's not how I'm going to end this. I'm not going to die a pathetic death. You know what? Everyone else can be as weak as they want, but if they can't bother to stand up to me, then they won't be worth my time."

She turned her back to him and resumed walking toward the village. "Come on, let's go look for Laurent. Boring talk about ideology and crap is… well, boring. I'm not about to change my views so suddenly, even if I have made a lot of progress already, and clearly neither are you."

Robin's smile grew strained as he watched Kjelle move. His expression soon began to crack. Every semblance of the clarity he had recently prized evaporated entirely. He rapidly shot up a barrier of wind in front of Kjelle to keep her from advancing away. She blinked at the newly constructed blockade, then quickly spun around to face Robin.

"That won't be how this ends." Robin reiterated, his entire being forced to be exceedingly calm and collected. "I won't allow it. When you hear what I have to say, when you meet the rest of the Shepherds, and when you go to Valm and meet the woman… you'll see how weak, how fragile everyone truly is. Even yourself. Especially me. If you don't stop trying to get eternally stronger, that ambition will kill everybody in one way or another. Trust me, I know."

"How could you possibly know?" Kjelle questioned, her tone growing vitriolic. "You don't remember what you've done. You don't know how weak people can be, how they'll sacrifice others in the face of danger or allow everything they love to be destroyed out of cowardice. You don't know how badly this world needs a firm hand to guide it into the right future. It won't need weaknesses of any sort, and if you can't see that, then maybe you are weak underneath all of that magic."

"I am weak." Robin agreed easily. "You'll see that when it comes time to fight, when you get to see all that's hidden. Before that happens, though, I need you to promise me something: whatever happens in the war that's coming, you'll keep everyone in your power alive, and that once that's over you won't go too far. Please, Kjelle. You need to know when to stop. It's… it's important."

Kjelle narrowed her gaze in scrutiny, only to find a fearful authenticity underlying Robin's words. Even so, she refused to surrender to him so easily. "How far is that, then? How far could too far possibly be?"

Robin's expression shifted, losing all traces of forced pleasantness. In its place he developed an intensely somber gravity. "When you start killing Shepherds."

Kjelle refrained from laughing, though a short burst of air managed to propel its way out of her lungs. "Seriously? Please, I would never-"

"There'll come a time when the Shepherds are indisputably the most powerful people imaginable." Robin cut her off, his grave tone demanding silence. "Once the wars are won, once Walhart and whoever else are defeated, that's when this all needs to stop. If you keep going, you'll ruin everything. You'll kill Shepherds. You'll use their deaths to prove your power over them. You'll thrive in that environment until you, too, die. That's how your ambition will end. It'll destroy the world."

"I won't kill Shepherds." Kjelle stated firmly, hoping that she left no room for Robin to doubt her. "I would never do something so antithetical to everything else I've done. Saving them is my goal, and I'll never change in that respect."

"You think that now, but…" Robin sighed, trailing off and refusing to finish his statement. He paused for a long moment before beginning again. "I won't tell you everything until tomorrow, when we fight, but that ambition is what destroyed your time."

Kjelle narrowed her gaze again. "That ambition? Are you trying to say that I'm the same as Grima? If you are, then let me tell you how horribly wrong you are. Grima is a force of destruction. I'm going to be the one that saves everyone from them."

"Sure you are." Robin agreed softly as he dismantled the spell he had casted to block her from the village. "There's a lot of things you're going to have to understand, and fast. You'll come to know most of what I've warned you about in time, but for now, you need to keep a limit in mind."

Kjelle watched Robin closely before nodding her head. Her tone had grown infinitely softer when she spoke again. "I'll keep it in mind, even if I need not adhere to your advice. Also, I promise that I'll never go too far. Happy?"

Robin blinked. "Um… yeah. Are you actually going to follow through after all of that resistance?"

"You stood up to me. You're powerful enough to at least try to change my mind, and I know that you're strong enough to back up what you say. So… yeah." Kjelle said. "My apologies for calling you weak. Though, I did win the majority of our duels yesterday."

"Don't get cocky." Robin scoffed. He was already returning to a more regular version of himself, a fact that elated Kjelle. "Our final duel is tomorrow, and that's going to be a magic-riddled all-out deathmatch. At least on my part."

Kjelle subdued a twitch at the reminder that their duel would be excessively grueling, but never allowed her complexion to waver. She knew she would be strong enough to subdue Robin without ending his life. All she needed to do was have faith in the strength that she had for so long cultivated.

"Tomorrow's gonna be fun." Kjelle said plainly, with neither sarcasm nor delight lining her voice. She herself was uncertain of how to interpret the statement. Robin paid it no mind.

They neared the village together in short order. No more hidden risen challenges their advance. The heat of the desert was proving to be their greatest threat, wearing away at their supplies of water and their rationales.

The village exterior was nothing spectacular; hard stone and copious amounts of wood had been weathered down over years of sandstorms and desert air, giving the village walls a uniform shade of degenerated golden brown. Within the village would hopefully be a different matter, as neither traveler had any hope of sleeping in the desert overnight.

The gates to the village flew open once Robin and Kjelle had reached them. Two men stepped forth from the entryway, one visibly a bandit dressed poorly in furs, and the other an equally unusually dressed hero - though, compared to Kjelle's partial armour and Robin's specialised cloak, neither seemed out of place. The bandit had a small amount of blood splashed against his torso.

"You didn't need to kill anyone. It was clear the staff wasn't here from the moment we entered." The hero said to his companion, failing to notice Robin and Kjelle. "Now that Laurent guy has probably run off somewhere…"

"An example needed to be set. Besides, one body isn't going to get anyone like the Shepherds involved." the bandit replied. "Once we find that mage, we'll have to- aw, godsdamnit!" he stopped when he caught sight of the two newcomers, an instant after the hero had done the same.

"Hello there." Robin greeted casually. He furrowed his brow immediately afterward. Something about the bandit was setting off a silent alarm within his mind, though he couldn't place why. The man didn't appear to be threatening, even with a bloodied silver axe held in on hand.

"Grandmaster Robin." the bandit greeted in turn, struggling to subdue his audibly shaken nerves. "You've finally decided to confront the legendary treasure seeker Nombry… you are a bold one. Kill him, merc!" Nombry shouted, pushing the hero forward before darting out into the desert.

"Wait, what!?" the hero paled, clutching his sword tightly as he stumbled in the direction of the grandmaster. Their fear was swiftly alleviated when Robin propelled himself in the direction of Nombry with wind magic. The hero was left alone with Kjelle, and though he didn't know who the woman before him was, he was glad she wasn't one of the more well known Shepherds.

"You met Laurent?" Kjelle asked, sustaining the casual atmosphere Robin had set. Her more amicable nature and lack of tension were offset by the drawing of her weapon.

"That mage freak?" the hero asked, raising his free hand in the rough direction Nombry had fled. "He was out in the desert between here and the oasis, rummaging around in the sand looking for corpses. Technically, he saved my ass, but he was also weird as hell about it, so…" he, too, was keeping his sword at the ready, though he refrained from attacking Kjelle outright.

"Huh. Thanks for the info." Kjelle said, then levelled her lance at him. "You're a bandit, right? We should be fighting."

"Yeah, I guess so." the hero shrugged. "Listen, though, I'm not one to beat up on poor defenseless damsels, so if you want to go catch up with the grandmast-"

He was cut off when a flame effigy of a lance slammed into his chest, knocking him back and to the ground. Kjelle fired another lance replica his way as he was scrambling to a stand, hitting his shoulder. The hero had failed to notice any hint of the fierce animosity that had appeared within Kjelle.

"'Damsel', huh?" she asked with as much scorn as she could gather. "Come on! I'll show you what strength is like!"

Rather than be intimidated by Kjelle's challenge, the hero broke into a faint smile. "Ha, alright then. Let's see if you can prove me wrong!"

He darted forward rapidly enough to surprise Kjelle, though he was nowhere near catching her off guard. Robin had been going at a faster pace for practically all of their duels.

His sword was met with the hilt of her steel lance. Kjelle pushed against the hero until he was forced to relent. He jumped back a pace to reform his attack, now knowing that a direct assault would be problematic. Kjelle could bring herself to appreciate the man's quick analysis of his situation - not that she hadn't been able to read everything far faster and with greater accuracy.

Kjelle shot off another flame lance, forcing the hero into movement. He evaded the shot by ducking to one side, then speedily followed up with another charge. This time, he held his sword low as he charged, aiming for what Kjelle knew to be her partially unarmoured leg.

Rather than attempt to predictively block or dodge the hero's attack, Kjelle jumped forward. The hero proved faster in reaction than in assault, successfully slicing upward with his sword against Kjelle's armoured arms and staggering her before she could do the same to him. However, Kjelle's efforts proved more lasting, the force of her forward leap causing the hero to stumble and leave himself open to a counter. Kjelle immediately capitalised on this by bringing her arms down in a swift arc. She hit the hero's sword with her gauntlets, the force behind her blow forcing the weapon from the man's grip and to the ground.

The hero wasted no time in scrambling for his weapon. Again, Kjelle followed up with her strikes, charging flames around her lance and then bearing the weapon down before it could fire off a replica. The hero barely managed to grab his weapon and roll clear of the strike before the lance would have run him through, with the weapon's sheath of flame shooting into the desert's sands.

Blinded by her own missed attack, Kjelle couldn't see the horizontal slash made by the hero through the resulting spray of sand. She flipped up her lance lengthwise as apprehensive protection and deflected the attack by a tiny margin, avoiding all damage beyond a small scratch on her cheek. She levelled her lance again as the dust cloud began to settle.

"You really aren't half bad." the hero remarked between heavy breaths. "I could've used someone of your skills."

"It's a shame you had be a bandit." Kjelle said coldly, her breathing far better controlled than his. "Though, in a weird way, I'm glad that you are. Your poor choices allowed us to fight."

"If only you were the one to have hired me." the hero said distantly, almost causing Kjelle to falter. She shook her head clear as the hero shrugged. "Ah well. No use complaining over it now. Let's end this!"

He rushed toward Kjelle again, initiating a flurry of attacks that neither harmed nor disoriented her. The hero broke away from Kjelle for a split second to follow up in a different direction, and so he whipped his sword toward her lower leg, striking with the intent to disable her.

Kjelle struck her lance downward at the same time. She caught his sword before it could connect with her leg, planting her lance as a barrier between herself and the weapon. When the hero stumbled through his recovery from the failed swing she brought her lance up again. Coating it anew in flames, she swung its head into his chest before he could reorient, her flames exploding over his torso. The hero was launched backward. Her own grip on the weapon never wavered.

Kjelle walked over to the hero with her weapon still in hand, and stood over him as his breathing turned ragged. The armour of his chest had been shred away by her magic, leaving only a few magical embers to shield the gaping wound left behind.

"You know, a few weeks ago, I think you may have been a serious challenge for me." Kjelle noted.

"Not anymore, though. Clearly." the hero wheezed, and then his expression broke into a small smile. "Congrats…"

Kjelle drove her lance down into the man's head, killing him. She averted her gaze from the sight of removing the weapon, her stomach as much as her mind compelling her to find anything else upon which she could focus. She kept her gaze wandering about the desert until her weapon was freely in hand again. There should have been no adverse feelings over having killed the hero; Kjelle had proven her superiority over him through proper combat and had no reason to experience anything but pride in her achievement. She felt an inexorable guilt all the same.

With the hero dead and no new appearances from the village, Kjelle set out in the direction of Laurent. She had already resolved that Robin would need no help vanquishing Nombry. A small part of her did wish to be present at that moment, if only to be absolutely certain of Robin's safety.

* * *

Robin skimmed across the surface of the desert at a significantly faster pace than anyone could run. He ground to a halt in order to confront Nombry peacefully, only for the bandit to swerve away and continue his desperate sprint. Robin frowned and launched after him again.

He ground to halt again, this time placing himself directly in the bandit's path. "Hey, can you stop running? I want to… talk for a minute…" Robin paused as a wave of uncertain familiarity overtook him, allowing Nombry to dart past him and continue running the remaining distance to the desert's central oasis.

Robin blinked and shook his head clear. He found Nombry again after his bout of confusion had passed, and launched himself again in the bandit's direction.

Nombry was as exasperated as he was intimidated by Robin's repeated reappearances. "What the hell do you want, grandmaster!? I'm just tryin' to get by here, and find a little treasure while I'm at it!"

"I've met you somewhere before, haven't I?" Robin asked curiously, circling the bandit continuously. His eyes then shot open in realisation. "Wait a minute, I've killed you before!"

"Naw, I'm pretty sure you haven't." Nombry said, watching the grandmaster with equal parts confusion and wariness. His grip tightened on his axe, and then he swung the weapon toward Robin. The attack was so choreographed as to be effortlessly avoided.

Robin stepped blew the axe out of his foe's grip with a burst of wind magic. He then stepped forward and continued his examination. "No, we've definitely fought before. Garrick, right? You waged an artificial bandit attack in southern Ylisse, but were actually a soldier carrying out Gangrel's orders to incite a war between Ylisse and Plegia. I… I remember liking when I killed you. I'm sorry."

Nombry eyed his distant axe carefully, with the more immediate threat of the mage before him proving enough to keep him rooted in place. "I've lived in Ylisse all my life - never been to Plegia, let alone met the mad king. You and I have sure as hell never fought before."

Robin blinked, but couldn't shake the perception that the two separate bandits were one and the same. "Huh. Are you sure? I did kill you and everything, did you have a twin? Someone who looked exactly like you do, down to the clothes you wear…? Huh. The two of you look freakishly similar."

"What the hell are you playing at here? Is this some kind of mind trick?" Nombry questioned frightfully, all too aware of the distance between him and his weapon.

"No, you really do look like the guy. It's kind of disturbing, honestly." Robin said, then backed away from his examination as his head lowered in thought. "I suppose it's impossible for you to be him, but you look so similar…"

Nombry leapt on the opportunity granted by Robin, diving toward where his axe had been cast into the sands bordering the oasis. He seized the weapon before Robin was able to react, only for a risen to erupt forth from where he had landed. The risen clawed him toward the ground as Robin fired off a bolt of thunder magic directly into Nombry's chest.

The bandit leader fell face first to the ground, his already lifeless body sinking a few centimetres into the sand. The risen continued to claw at his corpse. Robin fired off another bolt of magic to end its existence. No new risen emerged from the desert.

The risen didn't die. Robin blinked and fired another shot, mentally verifying that the first had connected with lethal force, only for the second spell to also fail. He stepped toward the risen and fired another spell, and yet again the hit failed to register.

Robin took another step toward the risen. It suddenly jolted to a full stand and charged at him, with another two spells meeting its chest and proving as ineffective as their counterparts.

The risen slammed into Robin at more than full force, sending them both sprawling toward the edge of the oasis' waters. Robin scrambled to draw his levin sword, but the risen moved much too quickly, slipping its claws into place over Robin's shoulders and sliding him toward the oasis centre.

It lifted Robin into the air and then silently dove with him into the waters of the oasis. Robin attempted to shout briefly, only for his mouth to fill with lukewarm water that felt beyond alien to his skin. The risen held him beneath the surface with unequalled strength, beating out all manner of opponents he had come to know. As much as Robin could flail, he could do nothing to destroy the risen or alleviate the pressure on his shoulders.

Then the risen disappeared. It wasn't as though it had let him go and had floated to the surface, or had been ripped away by anything other than its own volition. It had merely disappeared. Robin struggled for a moment longer against nothing as he processed the change, then frantically swam toward the water's surface.

He broke into air and immediately gasped for breath. Every second he spent treading water caused him to cough more and strain his lungs ever further. The world had been enveloped in a haze as he had been underwater, as though a sandstorm backlit by the setting sun had enveloped the skies. He could no longer smell the arid heat of the desert burning into his senses, and instead found that everything had a coolness about it that was foreign to his environment.

Two people were sat at the edge of the oasis, their legs submerged up to their shins and lazily tracing aimless arcs through the water. Each was exactly the same as the other, from the complexion of their skin, to the partial furs they wore as clothes, to the easy smiles on their faces.

Robin blinked as he continued to tread water. "Garrick? And, what was it again, Nombry?"

"You should cool off, Robin. The desert heat's gettin' to ya'." Garrick or Nombry said - Robin couldn't tell the difference. Neither had broken their easy smile.

"What the hell…?" Robin asked openly, his gaze widening on the two bandits.

"We ain't real, idiot. Obviously." the other one said. "We're memories. Or maybe hallucinations. You don't know, and so neither do we."

"We're us, but only how you see us." the first one picked up. "That's why we're here - because of you.."

"You're still afraid." the second said. "You want us to help, to show you the path you want to take, but we can't do that. Even if you do still feel like hell for killing us, it won't be some bandits from nowhere that compel you to act. Especially not now, since you've started to see what we are."

"And what are you, exactly?" Robin asked as he continued to float in the oasis. "The two of you really are exactly the same. How is that possible?"

"It isn't." the first bandit answered simply. "That's what's keeping you so afraid. In order to accept what happens next, you're gonna have to face that impossibility."

The bandits never ceased their carefree movements. The superhuman risen reappeared in order to drag Robin back underneath the surface of the oasis. It manifested beneath him and began to pull at his legs, and Robin could barely release a short shout of surprise at suddenly being pulled down again. His lungs filled with water, but he knew that the sensation was entirely false. That fact disturbed him less than he had thought it would.

Once the risen had disappeared once more, Robin resurfaced. He saw that the two identical bandits remained at the edge of the oasis, and that beyond them was a horde of all too familiar faces. Robin knew in that moment that he was incredibly afraid.

He saw copies of the Shepherds relaxing around the oasis. Some moved to sit with their feet in the water as the bandits before them had done. Beyond them, there were hundreds more people, the desert having filled with more bodies than had previously hidden in its sands.

Robin could feel fear coursing through every fibre of his being. More than that, he could feel a strange peace welling up within him, and he accepted that he was preparing to die.

One of the Shepherds waded into the waters of the oasis toward Robin. The water never reached above the characteristically blue armour of their waistline. Robin blinked, the last of his fear being replaced with serenity. He refused to believe it to be in any way foreboding.

An apparition of Chrom held his hand out for Robin to take Robin held the hand in his grip graciously, no longer needing to swim in place. The bed of the oasis rose up to meet his feet and allowed him to stand in the same waist height water as Chrom.

"There are better places to a take a nap than on the ground, you know." Chrom smiled. Robin felt his serenity intensify further. That feeling was met with a calming dread that he felt in no way perturbed by.

Chrom chuckled. Robin deeply enjoyed the sound. "Ha, to think that you once got so angry about me using that line, and at so much more… you can remember that, can't you? How you stabbed me through the heart with your magic?"

Robin felt no ill will in the words Chrom had spoken, and felt so at ease that he couldn't restrain his smile. "No, Chrom. I'm sorry, I can't remember that. All I can remember was being your friend, and being so scared that I would kill you. I never wanted to hurt you, but thoughts like those, they… they won't go away, no matter what I do."

"That's okay." Chrom continued to smile, and clasped his free hand warmly on Robin's shoulder. "I'm here to help with that. We all are."

"Who are you?" Robin asked, still feeling overly serene.

"I'm Chrom. A pleasure to to meet you!" Chrom joked, his own laughter causing Robin to laugh softly in turn. "Seriously, though, you know who we are. I'm the Chrom another you killed in the future."

"I… killed you?" Robin asked slowly, uncertain of how to react to a fact he had known but suppressed for so long. "Oh… I'm sorry."

Chrom laughed and tightened his warm grip. "You know that I'm not one to hold grudges against friends, Robin. Or at least, that's how you remember me." he said as he began to lead Robin out of the oasis. Some the Shepherds lining its shores shuffled aside to give them room to pass onto land.

"We're the memories you've hidden - the ones you've repressed under the grey." Chrom continued. "Can you accept that much for me, Robin? For you to properly face what's coming, you'll need to come to terms with a lot of things, so can we start here?"

Robin nodded. He came to a stop in order to speak. "Yeah… I've hidden memories under the grey. They're the memories of the people I've killed. I… I don't want to remember things like that. Not anymore."

"You have to remember, Robin. That's how you'll come to accept that you need to die, so that something like this won't happen again. Now, are you certain that you're the one to have killed all of us?"

Robin nodded again, his smile never wavering. "I killed so many of the Shepherds. I placed them in unwinnable fights, and killed so many more with my own hands. I'm responsible for all of their deaths."

"That's right." Chrom continued to smile effortlessly. "Who isn't here?"

"Sumia." Robin replied, not having to check the faces around him in order to know. The depths of his concealed memories were slowly opening anew. "She was killed before the Valmese war, before any of the Shepherds, and I wasn't the one who did it… I was so surprised when she died."

"You wanted to kill her, though." Chrom said. "Someone beat you to the punch, but you leapt on the opportunity and used her death to launch a war against Valm. Did you enjoy that war?"

"I loved it." Robin answered honestly. "I killed so many people, proved my power over them… I conquered them. I loved that feeling more than anything. I still do. When we were there, I started turning on Shepherds. I was scared, but I enjoyed it so much more."

"What happened once the war ended?"

"Once we killed Walhart… I was so happy." Robin said. "Then… then we went home. I didn't know what to do anymore, so I sought a war with Plegia. There was no reason to fight them… Grima was… was…"

"You can do this, Robin. Remember a little bit harder!" Chrom encouraged, though the peacefulness he radiated toward Robin wavered. "What happened to Grima? What happened in Plegia? What did you do?"

"I… I killed you…" Robin choked out, his aura of happiness wavering further. "Before that, I was… I was so happy. Why did I do that? Why did I kill you?"

"Because you wanted to. Only you." Chrom answered simply, and his voice dropped into a waving rumble, as though he were speaking through a thin sheet of metal. "You wanted to kill me. Not Grima, or anyone else. Only you. Can't you remember that?"

Robin slowly nodded. "I remember. I enjoyed killing you, like everyone else, even though I should have hated it. Everything was going to come to an end. I wanted to bring it all to its end."

"What happened next?" Chrom asked, his voice having grown stable in quality once again. "What did you do when you returned to Ylisstol?" his voice immediately returned to being tinny. "Frederick found out about what had happened, but how? We were the only ones on the mission; that was how you knew it would be safe to kill me. Something went wrong, though, didn't it? Do you remember how?"

Chrom's voice lowered further in quality as he continued speaking, with Robin barely being able to comprehend his new tone. "Do you remember her, Robin? Do you remember Mor-?"

"Stop!" Robin shouted as he buried his face in his hands, hiding Chrom from his sight. "I can't… I-I don't want to remember!"

"You do, Robin. That's why you want me here. You can remember now that Grima is dead; that isn't the issue." Chrom said. "Remember how you were too weak to kill the only person who mattered."

"No!" Robin shouted, his hands pressing harder against his face. "I can't do this! I don't want to do this! I don't want to die!"

"Shhh, Robin. Everything will be okay." a new voice said, one that was far more calming than the grainy atrocity that had become Chrom's. Robin removed his hands from his face to see the beautiful form of Naga before him, her figure entirely humanoid and incredibly graceful compared to the horror he and Kjelle had witnessed on Mount Prism.

"You know that everything will be better once you've passed. That everyone will be safe." Naga smiled with as much beauty as was inhumanly possible, and Robin found it impossible to doubt her. "Perhaps you've yet to accept that fact, but that's why we are here. Even if it takes hours to convince you, convince you we shall, for that is what you wish to happen."

"I… I'll never not be afraid to die." Robin realised slowly.

"No one is truly unafraid." Naga said, her smile never wavering. "I felt more fear in my final moments than ever before, but the freedom that occurs afterward… it is a feeling unparalleled."

Robin blinked as his own serenity began to reform. With came an overwhelming sense of dread. "Naga, why are you here? I didn't kill you."

"Another you did, in another time." Naga explained calmly. "Your thoughts have merged with theirs… or rather, they've always been one and the same. That is how you are able to recall all that you have. We must still show you the path you wish to follow, but for now let's proceed at your pace, shall we? Do you know why Chrom appeared before you?"

"Because… I told him everything." Robin said. "The other me explained what they had done, everyone they had killed. Chrom still trusted them. They… I then killed Chrom, too, even though everything was going be okay… even though he trusted me."

"And so why am I here now, instead of him?"

"A version of you saw through the grey. A version of you knows roughly what comes next. You can guide me." Robin said. "Is… is that why he - I - killed, even after he had talked to Chrom? Because of what comes next?"

Naga shook her head in a slow arc. "You know the answer to that as well as I do, Robin."

"He simply wished to continue killing. To continue conquering." Robin answered for himself. "Am I trying to see through the grey? Is that why I'm here?"

A deep part of him began to feel utterly terrified.

"That is your wish." Naga answered. "To do that, we need to uncover less peaceful memories - ones more disturbing than the murders of those you love. So, tell me, Robin: how do you know that it was another you who killed me?"

Robin turned his back to Naga, though the apparition of the divine dragon didn't fade from his mind. He gazed out over the dark waters of the oasis as he replied. "I saw myself. The other me found me. They were knelt over me, and they were crying."

He knelt at the edge of the oasis and stared into its waters. A woman cloaked entirely in grey stared back up at him.

"That's right." Naga confirmed. "There was more to that day, Robin. Why was the other you there? Do you recall? Do you remember why it is that you truly wish to die?"

Robin stared silently into the waters of the oasis. The woman stared at him.

"Do you remember me?" the woman spoke silently from beneath the surface of the spring. "All I ever wanted was for you to smile again."

"Listen to yourself, Robin. To all of us." Naga advised calmly. "You must die, Robin. That is the only way everyone will be safe. It's the only way anyone will be happy again."

The woman reached her hands upward, to the extent that her grey fingertips were gracing the underside of the water's surface. "Please, Robin, please smile. I want you to be happy. I want to be happy."

"Everyone will perish if you fail to die." Naga said. "They will suffer. You will be the one to harm them. Is that truly what you wish? Your desire is to save them - that is why you're here."

"They're right. I'm right." Robin said, tracing his own fingertips over the woman's but refusing to touch her hands. "I have to try to save them. If they're to be saved, I can't be around anymore. Kjelle will be able to take care of the Shepherds. That's what I've trained her for, after all."

He rose and turned his back to the woman in the water, facing again toward the shades who surrounded the oasis. The woman frowned deeply and, though Robin couldn't see it, her expression began to twitch. Her frown turned into a snarl when Robin smiled at Naga.

"I'm saving you! Why can't you see that!?" she shouted, her voice slicing through any and all trace of serenity that remained in the feigned desert. She erupted forth from the pool and grabbed the rear of Robin's cloak, then pulled him back toward the surface of the oasis with stunning might. Robin couldn't react before they had submerged entirely. The woman manipulated his face to be directly in front of her own.

"I will save everyone." she said. "No one will stand in my way. Not even you."

She disappeared. The waters of the oasis returned to their normal hues, as did the skies and lands around them, and as Robin opened his eyes he found that he was perfectly dry. He stood and watched dumbly as the ashes of the risen he had killed dissipated over the corpse of Nombry.

What the hell did I…? Robin silently questioned himself, fully remembering but having no idea what to make of the past few minutes. A sense of dread mixed with peacefulness welled up within him. _I… I'm still not ready to die. I-I can't…_

Robin took in a deep breath and calmed himself, forcing a familiar alien serenity to wash over his entire being. _No. I can do this. If I die, no one will suffer again. I'll save everyone_. A smile overtook his expression as he moved to sit by the edge of the oasis. He quickly downed an entire canteen of water to be certain that he wouldn't have any more hallucinations.

All he had left to do was find Laurent, and then the final duel could be undertaken without issue. Kjelle was already strong enough to make up for any potential losses his death would cause in combat. Robin knew that she and the Shepherds, as well as the remainder of the time travellers, would be more than capable of addressing military strategy. It wasn't as though he had ever contributed anything of any real value. He had simply mimicked passages from a book, and had failed to save anyone despite his attempted deviations.

Robin sighed and closed his eyes, struggling despite every lie he wanted to tell himself. He would always be afraid, and he would never truly be ready to pass. He didn't have the will or stomach to do anything himself and so was relying yet again on Kjelle to prove her strength. Part of him resented that he had grown so close to her. He thought for a moment that his death may be akin to losing a friend for her, but quickly drowned that thought. He wished to believe above all else that his death would be a solution to the problems he and those he cared for faced. He truly did care for the Shepherds despite his foul inclinations.

For far longer than he could have intended, Robin sat next to the oasis and gathered his thoughts, preparing for his inevitable death. He only stirred when the sounds of footsteps muffled by sand grew loud behind him.

"Are you the Ylissean grandmaster, Robin?" a level voice asked.

Robin turned to see a tall, thin man standing a few paces away. His short blonde hair was hidden beneath an absurdly wide-brimmed, pointed hat that matched the mage robes covering his body. The man was clutching both his sharp glasses and a wind tome so tightly that his knuckles had begun to whiten. He held his breath as he awaited Robin's response.

"Are you Laurent?" Robin asked. He was already confident of the response he would receive.

"I would prefer an answer to my question before any further queries are made." the mage said.

Robin nodded slowly and turned back toward the oasis. "I'm Robin, yes. I'm the grandmaster of Ylisse's Shepherds."

"I see." the man said, his grip on his tome growing stronger. "My name is indeed Laurent. May I ask how you came across such information?"

"Kjelle." Robin answered simply. "She was pretty against telling me at first, and it was a slip up on her part that let me first know your name, but she's since told me more about you. Ha, to think that was only a few weeks ago. Time really flies, y'know?"

Robin adopted an easy smile as he stared out aimlessly into the depths of desert. "She wanted to kill me so badly when we first met. I feel like that's died down considerably. I'll have ways to rekindle it, though." his eyes shot wide as his reminiscing brought him to a new realisation. "Wait, are you going to try to-!?"

A powerful blast of wind silenced Robin's words, as well as sent him tumbling into the oasis. Laurent wasted no time in preparing another spell, only for his next cast to be met with the shockingly strong resistance Robin offered through a volley of his own magic.

Robin shot waves of wind magic out of the oasis as he crawled out of its depths. Each cast silenced Laurent's spells entirely. Robin gave almost no effort toward blocking and deflecting the time traveller's attacks, while Laurent channeled everything he could into the casting of his magic.

Upon freeing himself from the waters of the oasis, Robin swapped to casting his preferred thunder magic. Doing so made Laurent's attempts at swiftly killing him effectively impossible. Even so, Laurent did his best to overpower Robin, though every attack he used was casually wiped away. Robin soon managed to knock Laurent's tome to the ground with a burst of wind magic, neutralising the mage. He then used another wind spell to bring Laurent's tome to his side.

"I was so glad that I hadn't gotten wet, then you had to come along and ruin that!" Robin groaned, bringing a hand to his face only for it to come back damp. "Ugh… I think that was less time than it took Nah to attack me. You and your friends really hate me, don't you?"

Laurent raised his hands high, attempting to signify his lack of a threat to Robin. "I will not be satisfied with any manner of toying in my death. Should you wish to kill me, I suggest that you do so now, otherwise I shall become your greatest undoing."

Robin rolled his eyes, picked up Laurent's tome in one hand, and casually tossed it into the oasis. "Sure you will. Come on, let's go find Kjelle. You're bound to listen to an explanation from her before anything I could offer."

"You shall never deceive me, fiend." Laurent spat. "I know not what you have done to the world in the time since my arrival, but if you have truly come across my fellows, then I know what comes next. I pray your death be half as swift as what you grant me, monster."

Robin rolled his eyes again. "Kjelle said you were smart, but you seem pretty hotheaded right now. Come on, let's go find her so that she can knock some sense into you."

"Fiend!" Laurent cursed again, causing Robin's exasperation to grow. The grandmaster approached Laurent and shooed him in the general direction of the village in the sands. Thankfully, Laurent was easily corralled toward what Robin could hope was still Kjelle's direction.

* * *

Laurent pushed his glasses further up his face with one hand, his other clutching tightly for a tome that no longer existed. He sat in a simple chair at a tavern table across from Kjelle, who had spent the past hour regaling him with tales of her circumstances with Robin. The townspeople of the village seemed shaken after the arrival of the bandits earlier in the day, and so made no attempts at interrupting their conversation, a matter for which Laurent and Kjelle were both thankful.

Robin had made himself scarce after finding Kjelle and handing Laurent off to her. She had been elated to meet with Laurent again, though the mage himself had been absolutely floored by the notion that Kjelle wasn't attempting to kill Robin at all times. Even so, he had followed Kjelle into one of the villages hidden in the desert, and had waited patiently for the full extent of her explanation.

Laurent had only voiced a single question, when he learned that the risen changing was a widespread phenomenon. Kjelle had quickly explained how Flavia had launched an unofficial campaign against the Grimleal leaders in Plegia, much to Laurent's surprise. Other than that, the only moment Laurent had expressed any emotional state was at the news of Naga's demise, which caused his mouth to fall open for several long seconds.

He managed to close his mouth by the end of Kjelle's monologue. "Are you truly intent on not only allowing Robin to live, but to also preserve his life?" he asked bluntly.

"Yep." Kjelle replied in kind, adopting a lax position in her seat. Their conversation held no tension. Kjelle's assertions on Robin's character and his necessity in the war to come appealed to Laurent insomuch that he had promised to no longer attempt to kill the grandmaster on sight.

"I see." Laurent replied tersely, his eyes closing behind his glasses for a long while. "Well then. Will you be requiring my aid in your coming duel, or…?" he trailed off, awaiting a single answer.

"Nope." Kjelle said. "I don't need any help. Not even against Robin."

"Are you sure about that?" Laurent asked, more with concern than derision. "He has the power to ruin the world. If your theory of him being of our time is accurate, then he already has. That is the basis off of which we should be basing his level of threat, not the information you have been able to gather from your limited observations in the past few days. He may very well kill you."

"I'll be fine, and so will he." Kjelle dismissed her friend's concerns with a wave of her hand. "This duel won't end with one of us dying. That's how strong I've become since we last met. I don't want you to interfere in the proof of my progress."

"This is ludicrously dangerous, Kjelle. You shouldn't be taking any chances whatsoever when it comes to this fight." Laurent advised. "Please, at least permit me to oversee the duel and intervene should such action become necessary. No one from our time would ever wish for you to pass."

"If I die, it means I was weak when Robin wasn't. I'm not about to complain about a result like that." Kjelle said, her voice then growing softer in an attempt to have it sound reassuring. "Trust me, Laurent, I have grown far stronger than you could possibly know. Not only the magic I've learned, but by constantly training against Robin. I might be stronger than Lucina by now."

"And yet your hubris remains constant." Laurent said plainly, causing Kjelle's gaze to narrow. He took a deep breath and sighed it away before continuing. "Kjelle, tell me that this desire to fight isn't born of a drive to prove your strength. Any who know you also know of your incredible prowess in battle, and fighting this duel will do nothing to prove anything more to anyone. So please, promise me that this duel is a last resort to attain our goal of saving the future, and that you won't be attempting to use it to foster your own desires."

"I'll be using the duel to attain our goal of saving the future and not my own desires. Happy?" Kjelle responded instantly, having partly tuned Laurent out.

Laurent focused intently on her for several seconds before sighing deeply. "I don't necessarily believe you, but I will have faith that you will do what is right when the time comes. You despise Robin as much as the rest of us, after all. Truth be told, I was anticipating meeting with my mother again after all this time, and this grants me the perfect opportunity to do so. It's been so long…"

"Wait, are you saying that you're leaving? As in before the duel itself?"

"It's not as though you'll need me present, true?" Laurent asked, and Kjelle tilted her head before nodding in acknowledgement of his claim's accuracy. "I understand that your duel will be occurring shortly, but I would prefer to return to the Shepherds as soon as possible. It's been so long that I can barely remember mother's face at this point. I don't want to forget her. Also, even if they aren't together in this time, I want to be able to finally meet my father."

"I get it. Mostly." Kjelle said, shrugging. "Don't feel bad. It's not like I'll need the help anyway, so do as you please."

"Thank you. Truly." Laurent gave a faint smile. "If you wish it, I may remain here until your duel has been waged, but I will have you know that I would prefer to leave immediately. All I have left to do is share a few words with Robin. I must verify your claims under an analytical lens, of course. I also know how to navigate my way out of the desert on my own. Naturally."

"Of course." Kjelle nodded. "I suppose this is it, then. The next time we meet will be after I've won the duel and have brought Robin back to the Shepherds. I hope you find your family well, Laurent."

"As do I." Laurent said. "Farewell, Kjelle. I trust that we will meet again."

Kjelle smiled to Laurent as he rose from his seat and exited the tavern, her expression then morphing into a frown. She hadn't expected Laurent of all people to hold his family in such a high regard; he had always seemed more distant than any of her other friends. Kjelle felt almost guilty that she was the only person from their future who hadn't gone to meet their parents, even if she had essentially forced Nah to do so through some highly unsavoury means.

She leaned back into her seat and brought a pensive hand to her chin. After several minutes of consideration, she still couldn't shake her guilt, and only grew more uncertain of her actions as a result. She knew that she would be reunited with her parents and could ensure their relationship turned out as intended shortly. That fact did little to assuage the knowledge that she had been the least prepared to visit them again. She resolved her feelings as not wishing to abandon her mission and having faith in her parents' abilities to survive, and managed to assuage a modicum of guilt by doing so.

Laurent didn't go far upon exiting the tavern before meeting with Robin. The grandmaster was poised in wait against one of the village buildings casually, a set of bags at his side and a multitude of books in his arms. He noticed Laurent emerge from the tavern immediately. The grandmaster snapped the book he was leafing through closed in order to approach his fellow mage.

"Hey, Laurent!" he greeted with much more cheer than the time traveller would have expected. "Is Kjelle still in there? Ah, that doesn't quite matter right now; can we have a quick word in private?"

"Certainly." Laurent agreed, and with a growing sense of apprehension he followed a grinning Robin a short distance along one of the village's many side roads. "I had intended to meet with you as well, to verify some of Kjelle's claims, but please, go ahead."

Robin continued to smile as he raised one of his books into the air, a black-covered edition of some text Laurent couldn't place. "Did she tell you about this? A journal containing a bunch of strategies and some secrets?"

Laurent nodded. "She mentioned that it had been damaged prior to her meeting you, and that some form of revelation awaited her within its pages."

"Awesome. You're a magic-oriented person, right? Do you know how to cast an enchantment that temporarily reverses the flow of time? Noire supposedly used it once on Henry while you were around."

Laurent winced at the memory and shook his head. "I witnessed Noire's attempt, but I have made no efforts to learn the enchantment on my own. What of it?"

"It's not a big deal, but the Shepherds haven't found Henry yet. No one aside from him, myself, and you time travellers know that such an enchantment exists." Robin explained. He pulled a slip of paper off the top of his stack of books and passed it to Laurent, who distinguished it as a manuscript of the enchantment in question.

"There may come a time when you need it, especially if you want to uncover the lost pages of the journal after my passing." Robin said. "I'm certain that you, your friends, and the Shepherds will be able to use it when that time comes."

Laurent read over the paper several times before resolving that it held no foul secret, and then glared over its top at Robin. "You speak as though Kjelle isn't at grave risk of perishing herself, and as though that book will be worth her potential sacrifice. Should you win your duel, will you not continue to hide the information in your journal as you have been doing all this time? How can I know that you won't distort or destroy it further? What manner of information does it even hold?"

"All good questions! I'm glad you've asked them!" Robin laughed easily. "For the first and second… here." he passed the book in his hand to Laurent, who upon inspecting it could determine that it matched Kjelle's description of the enigmatic journal. He opened it to find that its contents, both present and removed, also matched the information that had been given to him.

"For all of the progress Kjelle has made, she still isn't quite at the point where she would be able to use the time reversal enchantment." Robin explained as Laurent snapped the book shut. "I don't intend to allow her to see its secrets until after the duel. It's not as though she'll be able to uncover them without aid anyway, but giving it to you now will alleviate some of the bother that will be refusing to cast the enchantment."

"Also, to answer that final question… you'll have to find out on your own." Robin continued. "I won't give any of the specifics to you; that's something I owe Kjelle, but long story short it explains the horrible things that I'm capable of. It details the motivations of mine that weren't factors of what happened in your time."

Laurent furrowed his brow at the last stage of Robin's explanation. "Your motivations… that were not factors? Are you saying that the passages you removed somehow exonerate what you did in my time?"

Robin shook his head, struggling to retain his clarity in the face of so much resurgent grey. "No, the opposite, really. You'll understand when you read it, I'm sure."

Laurent's brow remained furrowed despite Robin's effort to explain. He ultimately placed the journal away within his robes and gave Robin a brief nod of thanks.

"On to the next item at hand!" Robin announced cheerily, again defying the expectation of a calm, collected person Laurent had held. "These next few books are ones I took from libraries in Ylisstol, as well as a few from Basilio's personal library that were obtained… let's say semi-legally. They were all for fun, or for information unlike that in the journal. I'm assuming you're going to be passing through Ylisstol as you leave, so I'd like for you to drop them off at the castle. Someone should be there to take care of them."

He passed several more of the books in his pile to Laurent, leaving him now with only two brightly bound texts that could be easily identified as magical tomes. Laurent accepted the books presented to him, and after a careful examination of their titles and some shuffling of the contents of his robes, found homes for each of them.

"The only stipulation for all of this is that you leave right now, before Kjelle and I duel." Robin said. "I don't know what your plans are, but knowing Kjelle she won't want you to interfere in the fight, so it shouldn't be a big deal if you leave immediately. If you want to dispute your leaving, then I'm going to need to get everything back."

"I did in fact plan to leave shortly." Laurent admitted, having again grown wary of how Robin would act.

"Good, that's good! My prediction was correct." Robin smiled. The action upset Laurent. "Now then, on to the last matter. Here." he passed the last two books he held, powerful tomes of thunder and wind magic respectively, over to Laurent. "Kjelle still has my fire tome, and I'm hoping she'll want to hold on to it. You'll be able to make better use of these than her for the time being."

Laurent blinked and accepted the tomes. As soon as he laid his hands on the books he could feel the immense power they held. "You're gifting me your personal tomes? Why?"

"Consider them reparations for destroying yours." Robin shrugged. "Sorry about that, by the way; I don't know if that tome was special, but I hope mine will make up for it. Besides, I won't be needing them anymore."

"Is your duel with Kjelle not imminent?" Laurent asked as he clutched both tomes tightly, consciously refusing to put them away in his robes. "You will require these to fight, no?"

"I've got blood magic. I assume Kjelle told you about that? It was a pretty big deal."

"Ah. So you are so certain you will decimate her in the duel that you consider tomes unnecessary. I see." Laurent said, his gaze hardening on Robin. "I pray that your hubris proves to be your downfall and that Kjelle successfully eliminates you. Her death would result in your vilification by all from my time, and therefore the Shepherds to whom we shall prove our ties."

"Yeah, I know." Robin said, his smile growing somber for a second before returning to its previous brightness. "That's all I have to say, Laurent. May you find yourself well in the conflict to come."

Laurent glared at Robin, but allowed the grandmaster to pass him by in the direction of the tavern containing Kjelle. His expression then shifted to one of incertitude, and he looked over his shoulder at Robin as the grandmaster made his exit. He was met only with more uncertainty. However, as Laurent resumed his own exit from the village and its desert - with part of him wondering why he hadn't done such a thing long ago - he found his confidence in Kjelle claiming victory inexplicably rising.

Robin whistled merrily as he made his way to the tavern containing Kjelle. He abruptly cut off his own noise and spun back toward Laurent, a faint aching threatening the clarity in his mind. "Hey, Laurent?" he called out, stopping the mage in place.

"What is it?" Laurent asked tersely, not wishing to dwell on the grandmaster.

"I… er, well, another me, the one from your time…" Robin began, struggling to form the words he wished to say. "They killed your mother."

Laurent's expression tightened. "I had my suspicions." He turned away from Robin, yet again perplexed by the grandmaster's actions, and made to exit the village.

Robin watched Laurent leave for a moment before he resumed his whistling and entered the village's tavern. Kjelle was still seated at the same table she had shared with her friend. She paid Robin's entrance little mind as she instead enraptured herself with unsettling thoughts of her family.

"Hey, Kjelle. What's on your mind?" Robin asked as he took the seat Laurent had left askew.

"Hey." Kjelle greeted him in turn in an inscrutable voice. "I'm thinking about some stuff."

"That's rare." Robin teased, his smile offsetting any bite his voice held. "Anything I can help with?"

"Go to hell, Robin." Kjelle replied, her own expression refusing to brighten at Robin's joke and almost causing his smile to waver. She sighed and continued. "I'm thinking about my family. Out of all of my friends, I'm the only one who hasn't gone back to check on anyone, and aside from Nah - who is absolutely a special case - I'm the only one who hasn't wanted to. My parents are strong, and I shouldn't have to worry about them, but they already died once. It's not wrong to have stayed on this journey and leave them alone for a little while longer, is it?"

"I don't think so." Robin said easily. "You've been getting strong in order to protect them all this time, haven't you? That's a noble enough reason to have kept going. Besides, I know for a fact that Sully is strong as hell. If she somehow got into a deadly fight, she'll have sent the other guy running home before she could take a hit."

Kjelle grinned and almost laughed at his reassurance. "Thanks, Robin. That actually means a lot. I know my father must be about as capable as her by now, too."

Robin shrugged. "Probably. You feeling a little better now?"

"Considerably, yeah." Kjelle smiled at him, and his own smile grew far brighter in response.

"Alright, awesome. It's time for our final duel, then."

Kjelle's smile immediately died. "Right now? As in, actually now? Not tomorrow, or in a few days? No time to prepare?"

"I'm more ready than I've ever been." Robin said, his gaze levelling and growing a degree more intense. "Honestly, if we don't fight soon, I'm afraid I may lose that sense of clarity that's keeping me ready. So yeah, let's fight right now."

"Uh…" Kjelle faltered further, her mind searching for a reason to delay the inevitable fight before resolving that such action was counterintuitive. She too should be as eager to put an end to their conflict as soon as possible. "Alright, let's do this. We'll have to fight somewhere outside the village, though. This may get destructive."

A growing sense of dread refused to leave Kjelle as she voiced her acceptance. Her nerves were working up in anticipation of the fight despite her confidence that she would be able to overcome Robin in all his might. Part of her mind scolded her for believing that she could reasonably overpower him, but was swiftly silenced.

Robin's smile grew fiercely cheshire as his eyes lit up, his entire being rejoicing in her acceptance. He quickly rose from their table and gestured for her to do the same. "Come on, then! Let's end this!"

Kjelle rose from her seat and followed him out of the tavern, then out of the village. Robin led her to the oasis that marked the approximate centre of the desert. Her unease became more difficult to suppress with every step.

Eventually, they arrived at their destination and placed themselves across from one another, each with the waters of the oasis to one side and the desert to their other. Neither combatant had brought their bags of equipment with them. All of their weapons were on hand. Neither had any healing potions after failing to resupply from Anna.

"You know, I'm glad you've made so much progress." Robin said. "In learning magic you've proven that you can overcome any challenge, no matter how difficult or improbable. That's the kind of drive that I know will keep the Shepherds in the right hands if I perish here."

"Which you won't." Kjelle said resolutely. "I'm saving everyone I can, Robin. That now includes you. I'm strong enough to do it; you can see that already. You're one hell of an asset, and regardless of how capable I am, you'll be the one to see the Shepherds through Valm. Also… at times, you can be a pretty good friend. I won't be the one to kill you."

Robin stared at Kjelle, his mask of serenity and levity fracturing in response to the believable authenticity behind her words. He eventually sighed and drew his levin sword from within his cloak. "I suppose we should get started. Where to begin…"

"Explain everything you know about what's been happening." Kjelle said, drawing her enchanted lance to meet his weapon. "The woman, the journal, the 'grey' you were going on about, all of it. I want to see the journal's missing pages, too."

"Laurent has the journal, and the means of restoring the pages." Robin quickly explained. "Whatever happens here today, people will know the truth. I suppose I have you to thank for that, Kjelle. You've given me the strength to accept what has to happen, the confidence to do it, and the reassurance that whatever happens, things will turn out okay. Thank you for granting me the serenity I need to do this."

Kjelle eyed Robin warily as she released a measured breath. Something about his demeanour was offsetting, but she couldn't place exactly what. "I suppose Laurent will know what to do with the journal. I'm mad that you didn't show it to me, though. Kinda makes it feel like you'll hide more stuff."

"I'm not hiding anything. In fact, I plan to reveal all that I can here and now." Robin said, his sword cutting through air as he casually waved it side to side. "Let's start, then. A few thousand years ago, when people like the real Marth were fighting the wars of heroes and shadows and whatever else, there was an alchemist by the name of Forneus. He-"

"You know what? This can wait until later." Kjelle cut him off. "There's no room for me to doubt myself, to act as though I'll lose this fight, so let's talk afterward. I'm certain we'll have all the time in the world." she said, and settled into a lax position, waiting for Robin to give some kind of response.

Robin blinked and stood still for a long moment, then gradually raised his sword to point at her. Without any indication whatsoever, he began shooting bolts of lightning at Kjelle, forcing her to dodge away from each one. Each miss heralded a tall plume of sand being shot into the air and a wave of heat more scorching than that of the desert.

"Forneus weaponised a type of insect he called thanatophages. He used them to revive the dead and have them serve him. That's where the risen as we know them came from, thousands of years ago." Robin continued, his breathing failing to slow despite his casting. "There were others who had managed to raise the dead in the past, notably during the holy wars that took place long before Forneus was ever relevant. Those undead - the deadlords and later the death masks - weren't mass produced and mass controlled like the modern risen."

"Didn't you say that you haven't looked into this kind of thing?" Kjelle huffed as she dodged another bolt of lightning. She didn't allow herself to grow disheartened by his display of magic. After another missed attack on Robin's behalf, she countered with a shot of flame from her lance, sending a bolt of energy soaring rapidly in his direction.

"I lied." Robin shrugged, blocking her shot casually with the enchanted fabric on his forearm. "You're going to hear that a lot. Anyway, Forneus also had access to the corpses of dragons, so he set about applying his risen methodology on them, too. One of the dragon corpses was given the blood of a divine dragon that had been granted to Forneus by the senators of the city he was operating in. That divine dragon was Naga. Later, after having been dismayed by his creation's lacking abilities, Forneus gave that risen dragon some of his own blood, which made it powerful. It gained dominion over his other creations, meaning all of the risen. It had the magic inherent to both Forneus' and Naga's blood to rely on, as well as technical status as a divine dragon. That undead dragon was Grima."

Kjelle hesitated in her dodging for an instant, though Robin thankfully stopped attacking at the same time. "You're saying that Grima was made using Naga's blood? Doesn't that mean that Grima could have killed Naga, and vice versa? That means you should have been able to-"

"As far as I know, Naga had no idea she and Grima were related." Robin said. "Few people have ever known about this, and the only reason I know is because of some ancient texts granted to me by the mystery woman."

"But if Grima and Naga were related, you should have been able to kill Naga back at Mount Prism." Kjelle argued, immediately being forced to sidestep another bolt of lightning. "You couldn't kill her. That means she and Grima weren't related."

Robin shook his head. "Not necessarily. It could mean that Grima… that Grima is…" his body shook slightly, a tremor of disgust worming its way through every muscle of his being. His sword hand dropped to his side as his other found its way to his forehead. "Godsdamnit, this shouldn't be difficult…"

He took several deep breaths, holding each longingly and releasing them slowly. His senses filled with the fresh scent of the oasis' water and vegetation, the heat baring against his little exposed skin, and the faint sounds of Kjelle maneuvering her way through the sands. He gradually put his mind at peace. Robin quelled his tremors and returned to his full faculties at the exact moment Kjelle's shoulder crashed into his chest.

Robin was knocked to the ground in a burst that took all of his carefully cultivated breath from his lungs. Kjelle remained standing after their collision, and as he fell she brought a foot down securely on his chest and used the butt of her lance to knock his levin sword from his grip. Her face quickly morphed into a pleased smirk as she held her lance in place, pointed at Robin's throat.

"Ha. That was easy." she said. "All that talk about the final duel, all the bullshit about one of us having to die, and I beat you in under a minute. I guess I'm not the only one who has to better themselves, huh?"

Robin's expression didn't change. He merely shifted his right hand so that his palm would face Kjelle. The knight pressed her lance close against his throat, but refrained from harming him as best she could, all too wary of how a single slip could spell disaster.

"This is a fight to the death, Kjelle." Robin said calmly, his voice practically monotone and his hand unwavering as the first stages of a wind spell manifested in his palm. "Even if you don't see it like that, I do. Only one of us is walking away."

Before Kjelle could give a reply, Robin fired his spell. A massive funnel of wind enveloped Kjelle. Robin widened it to have as large a surface area as possible in the short distance between the two combatants to ensure that it wouldn't rip the time traveller apart. Kjelle realised that Robin had dampened the spell as she was launched high into the air away from him, but even then her expression flashed in horror at the sheer might of his magic.

"Grima is… is…" Robin began again as he rose to a stand, though he met with the same inability to form words as before. His hands found his way to his head again as he contorted his body, physically straining to vocalise his information. He swiftly grew irrationally frustrated with his own lack of progress. "Damnit, damnit! Why is this so hard!?"

He struggled to calm himself before beginning anew yet again. "Okay… okay… Grima. The fell dragon. That evil thing, Grima, the fell dragon, created by Forneus and put to rest by Exalts of the past. Grima controls the risen. Grima is evil. Okay, okay. I can do this." he opened his mouth to speak again, and this time failed to produce anything more than a faint whimper. His hands moved to cover his face as he struggled again to form words. "I… I can't do this! I can't-!"

All that Robin was saying fell apart in his mouth as he forced himself to remember his serenity. He focused on Kjelle as she rose from the plume of sand that had heralded her crash back to the desert and used her image to anchor himself in his calmness.

"No. I can do this. We can do this!" he said enthusiastically, practically jumping in place to psych himself up. "Come on; it's time to end this! We'll see the conclusion here and now!"

Kjelle stood shakily as she withstood the last of her landing's delirium. She barely registered Robin's sudden charge toward her in time to block the swing of his sword, but block it she did - only to immediately regret the action when a powerful electric shocked coursed through her lance. Almost falling to one knee with a sharp gasp at the sudden pain, Kjelle nevertheless managed to evade the following strike of his sword. She leapt sideways as sparks erupted from where Robin's magical blade contacted the desert.

Robin continued to strike at her with his sword. Each attack lessened the window of opportunity to escape or counter as he pressed toward Kjelle harder and faster. His sword sprayed sparks into the air or sand with every miss, deterring Kjelle from attempting a counterattack for fear of another shock. Thankfully, Robin had yet to use his preferred thunder magic, though the fact that he hadn't set Kjelle on edge more than it comforted her.

After another missed swing grazed errant sparks against the chest of her armour, Kjelle took the practically nonexistent opening offered to her to press back against Robin. She brought up her left forearm to block the next inevitable swing of his sword as she swung out with her lance.

As Kjelle had predicted, Robin's sword cut into the armour lining her forearm but failed to pierce skin. Despite the wave of electricity that followed she successfully crashed her lance into the side of his abdomen. Kjelle ignited fire magic along the length of the lance, her spell creating a small explosion as it contacted Robin's side. The detonation launched Robin sideways away from her. His magic continued to paralysed her left arm for a few moments longer. When she moved the appendage back to her side, she found it impossible to properly relax or flex her muscles, though that sensation soon faded.

"That's a little more like it!" Robin laughed happily, disturbing Kjelle immensely. "That's the kind of power you need - the drive and ability to overcome anything. You've proven yourself a bit by learning magic, now prove that you have the power to surpass anyone!"

He raised his right hand, his sword held tight in his grip, and effortlessly conjured a massive orb of flames above his head. The sky itself almost seemed to flash out of colour for an instant. In as little time as the fireball had formed it had been launched in her direction. Kjelle dodged and succeeded in avoiding all but the intense wave of heat that threatened to bring her to her knees all on its own.

The sand the fireball contacted had already melted into a semi-liquid state by the time the magical flames had faded. Kjelle balked at the morphed ground, her expression becoming one of cautious shock at the sheer might of Robin's attack as she refocused on him. Part of her worried over the extent to which he was pushing himself for the purposes of their fight. Kjelle had never before seen such raw strength in so casually casted a spell.

"You're going hard as hell right now, aren't you?" she remarked. Robin's demeanor didn't change in the slightest. Kjelle broke into a smile. "I'm flattered. It's a shame you're doing so much, only to have to lose."

Robin reciprocated her smile. "That's good. Perfect, actually. Now then, where was I… ah. Right. Grima." he sighed deeply and brought a hand to his forehead, then after a few seconds of thought dropped it back to his side. "I'm sorry; I promise that I'll be able to tell you all about them by the end of this, but for now, something's holding me back. No… not something - someone. She doesn't want me to do this."

"Then talk about the grey and the woman." Kjelle said, interested in buying herself time free of his magic onslaught. "Or, if you want, you can shut up entirely. Either way is fine with me."

"Ah, the woman. Of course. She's the one who doesn't want me to do this." Robin said, brokering legitimate curiosity from Kjelle. "As you know, she wrote me the journal. She has so much knowledge about the events of the last war that she must have come from your time. Though, she's certainly proven herself powerful enough to do practically anything, as far as I'm concerned. Her magic ability alone may grant her status as one of the most powerful beings in existence."

"Sounds like a challenge worth overcoming." Kjelle said, causing Robin to force a short burst of air from his lungs that resembled laughter. The more they spoke, the more Kjelle plotted. She finally devised a plan she deemed suitable as Robin began to speak again.

"You know what? Go ahead. Try to stop her. If you can stand up to power like that, then you're without a doubt capable of altering fate." he said. "Hell, she knows as much if not more than I do about everything that's happened. She's the one who informed me of what had happened with Grima, aided me with the risen, and she's the one who informed myself and the Khans about you and your friends. She may hold the answers to everything. I truly wish that we could meet her and find out the truth, but alas…" he shrugged, as though doing so were an answer to his dilemma.

"I'll stop her. She won't kill anyone again, not like what happened to Naga or however many other people she's undoubtedly murdered." Kjelle said, thankful that Robin was content to only glare at her words. "She's so powerful, and she knows so much about my time, and yet she does nothing. She hides in the shadows as a nameless apparition, and expects the world to bend to her will. Naga saved us, Robin - my friends and I. Her death is all the reason I need to hate her killer."

"You really don't understand." Robin shook his head forlornly as Kjelle inched toward him, moving at what she assumed was a pace too slow for him to notice. "She doesn't hate us, and she doesn't want to kill us. She loves us. Everything she does is to save us all."

"And how would you know? Is it simply because you believe in her, the murderer of a gracious god?" Kjelle jeered.

"Because I've spoken to her." Robin replied nonchalantly, causing Kjelle to stagger as her movements resumed. She opened her mouth to express her incredulity, but was stopped when the grandmaster began to elaborate. "Technically, she's spoken to me; I haven't said anything to her, but we have communicated. She's the reason I heard debilitating tones in my mind. Those were signals that she was communicating with me. It happened once after I met you, but without tones. That was the day I restored a page of the journal for you to read. The power she used to sustain the link between us probably bled into my restoring of the page, which is what allowed the failed portal to form. A fraction of her strength was able to create something like that."

Kjelle froze for a moment longer as she remembered the day she had convinced Robin to restore the destroyed page. His oddly distant focus and his previously unexplained movements slowly began to make sense. "That admittedly goes a long way toward explaining some weird things." she said.

Her cheeks began to heat from the memory of the simple heart Robin had crudely constructed with his hands. The sensation quickly died down with the knowledge that the action hadn't been intended for her, only for it to be replaced by a dwindling confusion at her own emotional responses.

"There's more." Robin said. "Somehow, she's entirely aware of my past and who I am, more than you or anyone else from your time. She knew more than me and she's been more than happy to share it all. Ultimately, she's the reason I know what will become of this fight and why I know what has to be done, even if she loves me. It's what's necessary to save everyone."

No longer content with wasting time to speak, Kjelle launched her attack early. Now in relatively close proximity to Robin, she shot off a series of flame replicas of her lance at his feet. Each shot connected with the desert and threw up clouds of sand in the direction of her unfazed opponent.

She channeled as much energy as she could into her lance and shot one more bolt of flame at the floating sand. Her hope was to mimic what Robin had done to the desert near her, to force so much sheer heat onto the sand that it would liquify and spray in Robin's direction, temporarily disabling his every following action.

That plan immediately failed when Robin fired a concentrated bolt of lightning through her shield of sand. The beam of magical energy widened before it collided with her shoulder, lessening the raw damage it dealt in exchange for sending her sprawling to the ground. Kjelle still successfully fired off her lance shot, and as soon as she touched down she snapped her head up in anticipation of her plan following through. Her shot was shredded into thin wisps of flame by the lazily falling spray of sand. She stared at the failed attack in dismay before rising to a stand.

"What was your plan there?" Robin asked curiously, though his voice goaded Kjelle all the same. "Were you trying to melt that and encase me in glass? If that's the case, I want you to know that your stupidity in that moment was absolutely astounding. It was hopeful, sure, but beyond dumb."

"I'm so sorry for trying out different strategies like some kind of idiotic tactician." Kjelle sneered. Robin merely raised an eyebrow in response. "That's proper innovation on the battlefield. So what if it didn't work out? It's better than sitting here and getting thrown around by your magic."

"You're in a life or death fight." Robin reminded her coolly, as though she had forgotten - or rather, that she continued to deny that fact. "Innovation is great, especially in tactics, and I'm glad you're trying it out, but try it in practice before applying it. In a serious battle, it can be the difference between life and death."

"Do you think I don't know that!?" Kjelle shouted, her slowly growing desperation shining through in her voice. "I'm not going to lose this! I don't care if I have to try strange things, or put my absolute all into everything! I will win!"

Robin's expression had morphed into a frown at her initial failure, but it now returned to a deceptively bright smile. "Good! That drive is one of the greatest things about you, Kjelle. It's what I saw in your when we first met. That moment was when I knew you would do great things. You being here now is proof of that. If only you could see eye to eye with the woman…"

"I'll do everything in my power to stop her - if not because of her being evil, then because you won't shut up about her!" Kjelle shouted. Her gaze then narrowed on Robin as her fury subsided. "What if she's manipulating you? Don't give me any of that 'love' crap, or I swear I'll tear you apart through the power of annoyance."

Robin shrugged, his sword glinting in his left hand as his right began to glow with magic. "In all honesty, I don't know. She very well could be manipulating me. When I first learned about her I by all means attempted to defy her, but I've come to trust and love her as much as she does me. She wouldn't abuse that."

Kjelle's brow furrowed as she became increasingly aware of the prismatic magic glowing in Robin's fist. "You tried to defy her? How? Is it what you said about accelerating the war against Plegia, fighting battles as quickly as possible?"

"Yeah. Not like it helped. Emmeryn, Phila, and Gangrel are all dead, as she had predicted, and on top of that the Shepherds missed going to the Farfort and clearing those missions you and I did earlier with the bandits and Anna." Robin said. "Hell, maybe she predicted that, too. She could have known that I would try to accelerate things to try to save people and adapt her plans around that. Maybe that's what lead to people dying. She's clever enough to do something like that."

Kjelle blinked, her guard dropping entirely as she processed his statement. "Wait, you never-?" she began, only to immediately be cut off as Robin unleashed his spell.

Dark, fire, thunder, and wind magic all diverged yet coalesced, running parallel and together as they raced toward her. Kjelle attempted to divert and control the stream of magic with a burst of fire from her lance, but failed. Each spell collided with her in a range between her chest and her right shoulder, sending her violently spiralling toward the ground as her grip on her weapon was lost.

The magic annihilated the armour in each area it struck. Dark magic warped and practically erased the painted reddish steel of her upper shoulder as flames seared through her collar. Thunder jolted and wind tore into the protection lining her pectoral. Kjelle quickly gripped at her wound as she collapsed, hoping to stem any potential blood flow if not struggle to save her right arm entirely.

She gasped and restrained herself from screaming as the sensations of the magic washed over her, only to realise that she felt no pain. Her arm continued to send signals to her mind no different than when it hadn't been hit by Robin's magic. She grew steadily perplexed as she removed her hand from her chest and regulated her breathing to a normal frequency, finding that she was unscathed beyond her resoundingly destroyed armour. Even the light clothing she wore underneath was undamaged.

Robin approached Kjelle as she lay in the sand, and she began to panic as she failed to locate her weapon. Her dismay only increased when Robin picked her lance out of the desert on his way to her.

She had lost. Everything she had fought for, all the time she had spent training and preparing, it had all been for nothing. Her entire life had come undone from her own headstrong pride, as well as Robin's overwhelming might, in only a few short moments. She couldn't bring herself to even look at her opponent anymore. Kjelle squeezed her eyes shut and awaited the end to their duel. All of her fighting, all of her mistakes and wrongdoings, everyone she had saved and aided, every good and evil deed was about to be erased entirely.

She found an odd sense of comfort in that notion.

Robin came to a stop before her and extended his hand outward. Her eyes remained closed, and so Robin dropped her lance into her lap. Kjelle blinked her eyes open and stared at the weapon in utter confusion.

She raised her head toward Robin and saw his outstretched hand, and only grew more confused. "I… I lost." she said weakly, knowing what was heralded by such a result.

"It looks to me like you've still got a weapon on you." Robin said, keeping his hand out for her to take. "You don't look injured, either. There's no use in killing an opponent without beating them, especially if this fight is supposed to be the greatest culmination of our capabilities. Come on. Let's keep going."

Kjelle remained in place on the ground. Her head tilted down toward her lance as she ran her hands over the weapon, then the armour of her chest where Robin's shot had connected. Her voice grew weaker as she realised what was happening. "You… you're holding back. Even after everything, I still can't hope to best you."

"You'd be surprised." Robin smiled as warmly as he could. "You've made so much progress. You're in a better position to kill me than anyone else in any battle I've ever fought. You can do this!"

"I don't want to do this!" Kjelle shouted emphatically, the genuine dejection in her voice causing Robin's expression to waver. "I want to save everyone, even you. I want to be the shield that protects them all. I want to be strong. I don't want to lose, but… but I can't win. I'm not going to kill you, Robin, and now it's your job to do what I can't. I've lost. You were stronger. You deserve this victory."

Robin shook his head, his thoughts swimming in a haze that threatened to overwhelm him. He didn't know how to respond to the melancholy radiating out of Kjelle. "Don't worry about being strong enough to save me; worry about being strong enough to save everyone else. That's the last thing I'm ever going to try to have you learn: never abandon your drive. You have to kill me to save them."

He knelt in front of her and placed one of his hands over her lance, then the other over her right hand. He then gently brought the two together and closed Kjelle's hand firmly over the hilt of the weapon. "You have to keep fighting, Kjelle. For your ideals, for your friends and family, everyone and everything you love. You can't give up on it. Even if things seem impossible, if everything seems bleak and you can't think of any way to make things better, you can't give up. Keep fighting. For the sake of everything and everyone."

Kjelle focused on where his hands were covering her own. She slowly began to realise that her breathing had grown erratic and calmed herself. The feeling of comfort that had appeared when she had come so close to death dissipated, and in its place formed an irrefutable disgust. She had been so ready and willing to give up, to accept her own defeat and embrace her weakness. She had embraced being the coward she had always despised. A familiar strength welled up within her, and she used that growing fortitude to eliminate every trace of doubt she had felt. She placed her free left hand over Robin's, then used that strength to stand up.

Robin's expression brightened into a greater smile as he rose with her. Kjelle released his hands and he then did the same, and took several steps backward to give them space to fight. His smile never wavered. Kjelle knew he was too happy at seeing her stand.

"This is wonderful." Robin said through his smile. "We both need the other to fight at their absolute best to be able to prove ourselves, so we have to go all out. There's no room for fear, weakness, trepidation, or anything of the sort. Not anymore."

"I get it. I see how I can win." Kjelle said slowly, a smile appearing on her face that in no way rivalled Robin's, which only grew more intense at her words. She raised her lance with one hand, holding it sideways. "I can't overpower you; I'm simply not capable of it. That means that the only way to win, to make sure that we both survive, is to not fight. I forfeit."

Robin's entire expression turned blank. He physically recoiled as Kjelle dropped her lance to the ground. "What? What are you saying? Do you hear yourself? That's some of the stupidest, most trite bullshit I've ever heard!"

Kjelle shrugged. She moved on to her other weapons, dropping the other lance, the axe, and the sword on her person that she had never gotten the chance to use before being bested. "You'll keep fighting until I've given my all. Therefore, I can keep you alive by not fighting. I know you won't kill me if I don't fight; that isn't who you are. If you won't kill me, and my goal is to have us both survive, then me not fighting means I've won."

A note of laughter almost escaped from Kjelle's closed lips as she gazed down on her discarded weapons. "Lucina did something like this against me once. It was one of the many ways she won a fight without having either of us draw our weapons. 'Sometimes, the only way to win is to never fight' - that was her line. I always thought it was idiotic, an excuse to run away, but now I think I understand. Neither of us have to die, so we shouldn't be fighting."

Kjelle raised her empty hand toward Robin, ignoring the visible despair clouding his gaze. "Let's work together. I know I wanted this duel to have a chance at rightfully killing you, but now I can see that I was wrong. We can be so much stronger if we don't fight against one another like this. Each of us are already so powerful, so let's be stronger together."

Robin shook his head, at first slowly and then at increasing speeds. "No, no, no… that isn't how this is supposed to happen. I- we can't walk away from this. This has to end, here and now! I-I don't… I don't want to be what I already am. We need to finish this."

"We can overcome Grima, Robin. Together." Kjelle said, lowering her hand back to her side and taking a confident step toward him. "You, me, all of the Shepherds. There's no way Grima would be able to stop us. If the woman can do it, so can we. We'll kill Grima, and save everyone. We'll save you."

Robin stared at Kjelle for a long moment before screwing his eyes shut. He dropped his sword to the ground in order to run his hands through his hair. When he opened his mouth again, every breath he took and every word he formed was incredibly shaken. "Kjelle… I'm so sorry for everything I've been doing. All the lying, misleading, and manipulating. I'm sorry. I… I need you to know that if we don't finish this right now, I won't be able to come back to this point. It's all been so difficult, and I'm still so afraid at heart. I want this to end right now. Even if I have to lie to myself, even if I'm still too much of a coward to reveal the whole truth to you, I know that this has to end. For the sake of everyone."

"You won't be able to come back to this, huh? Good." Kjelle said. "We don't need to fight each other anymore. We can go to the Shepherds. We can fight with them and keep them all alive through Valm, then show Grima his place in the world. Together, not as enemies."

"I… that isn't… it's not…" Robin struggled to form a sentence, each word more difficult than the last to produce. "You can't say that. Not until you know the truth." he took a breath, his nerves barely calming. The image of Kjelle holding her hand out to him in peace was burning unbidden into his mind.

Kjelle continued walking toward Robin until next to no distance remained between them. She wasn't entirely certain of what was happening, but knew that Robin was as perturbed by their situation as her. "I know that no matter what's happened or what will happen, we'll be able to overcome it. We'll be able to overcome anything."

She closed the little remaining distance between them, wrapping her arms around Robin's shoulders and holding him close against her, searching for as much security in the embrace as she hoped she was offering him. Robin didn't resist the action, but at the same time didn't move to reciprocate. Kjelle eased into the embrace more as time passed. She allowed the uncomfortably warm heat of the desert to fade away in the face of the more welcoming heat offered by Robin. The grandmaster himself never became any less opposed to the action.

"I killed everyone, Kjelle." Robin said, his voice still struggling to properly operate. "Everyone in your time is dead because of me. If things keep going like they are, the same will happen in this time, too. I don't want that… I don't want to hurt any of them."

"You won't." Kjelle reassured him, maintaining the same intensity on their embrace as best she could. "I don't know exactly what happened in my time for everything to have gone so awry, but I know that I'm here now. So are my friends. We'll be able to stop everyone that threatened the Shepherds, and we'll be able to save all of you. We'll become your shields. I know that you aren't the cause for what happened, Robin; every part of who you are has been supportive, selfless, and only occasionally an asshole. You won't kill the Shepherds. I'll never have to kill you. We don't have to fight."

She could feel Robin's breathing growing less certain, and so relaxed further into him to better ease his trepidations. This time, Robin began to reciprocate, raising his arms in order to wrap them around her. The action only heightened Kjelle's comfort, and as she relaxed even further into Robin, he was able to do the same. His breathing continued to wrack his body, but he was nevertheless able to finally embrace her and ease away some of the insecurities brewing in his mind.

"I know who you are, Robin." Kjelle said, her voice lowering considerably to respect their nearness. "I don't know what happened in my time, what caused all of the death and destruction, but I know that it can't possibly be the you before me. I promise that I'll be your shield, to protect you from whatever fears are eating away at you and ensure that nothing of that calibre happens again. Even if I'm not quite as powerful as you yet, I'll protect you. You don't have to be afraid of anything that's coming. We can face it together."

Robin's body began to shake more, and Kjelle knew that he was on the brink of crying, but could also tell that he was beginning to relax. They stood in each other's arms for longer than either bothered to keep track. Kjelle remained in a comfortable peace as Robin attempted to attain the same state.

Kjelle's mind continued to swim with questions that had been raised or had yet to be answered, but she contented herself in that moment with simply existing. For her, being party to their embrace was enough to set her mind at ease. For the many minutes that they remained together and revelled in the warmth of their embrace, she forced out no more new queries or challenges that could possibly spoil their moment.

Robin struggled for the entirety of the hug to control his flow of emotions. Everything that had happened, from Kjelle's refusal to fight, to her proclamation of protection, to the knowledge that he would never be able to approach his own death again anywhere near as easily all shattered the false notion of serene clarity he had constructed for himself. He now remained as afraid and uncertain as ever before. For the moment, however, he was beyond content with remaining locked in Kjelle's embrace. In that instant he held no care for what would become of his future.

* * *

 **I'm on time again! Hooray! I'm not back to the point of 1,000 words a day, but progress is progress.**

 **There was a lot in this chapter's first draft that wasn't exactly well written. It should be better now. Mostly it was just Robin being edgy, which I really wanted to tone down.**

 **Also, this is the proper start of Robin being less of a dick, AKA not hiding plot info anymore. It'll still happen a little, but things should mostly be clear within the next few chapters. What's better is that now, since Robin and Kjelle are wrapping up a fair amount of their personal development, I can work more on the antagonists / how they contrast Robin and Kjelle / all the fun thematic stuff.**

 **Status: As of 06-04-19, I'm still on chapter 34. Like i said, there's not much progress being made, but progress is still progress regardless.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	26. Chapter 26

Kjelle awoke before Robin, as was to be anticipated. She rose for the morning easily, securing herself a meal in their inn's central foyer without issue, again in sharp contrast to how Robin had yet to wake.

After the events of their duel yesterday, Kjelle and Robin had returned to the town they had first entered. Neither was intent on pushing their fight any longer. Robin had swiftly retired to his room and had yet to reappear since. For her part, Kjelle had eaten dinner by herself and then recovered the equipment she had left in the desert, which now resided in her room. She wasn't certain how Robin was feeling after their prematurely ended duel, but knew that if he was as positive about the outcome as herself that there was no cause for concern.

Once Kjelle had finished her breakfast, Robin still had yet to appear, and so she decided to seek him out. She felt a strong desire to grow stronger in anticipation of the war to come, and she would have to ensure that Robin understood as such. There should be nothing preventing him from seeking the same goals.

She found his room and knocked on the door, giving Robin time to stop her but not waiting for a reply before she entered. Somehow, she felt as though she were beyond that barrier of having to wait, though she had never put much stock in that particular social norm. Robin was huddled underneath his blankets when she entered.

"Hey, Robin. In case you haven't noticed, it's morning." Kjelle said, moving to the side of he bed to roughly shake his shoulder and wake him. "We've got a lot more to do. We should be getting back to Port Ferox as soon as possible, so get up already."

Robin cracked his eyes open, his weariness giving the illusion that he was glaring at her. "You really have no concept of personal space, do you?" he muttered, his voice mired in sleepiness.

"You didn't seem to mind yesterday." Kjelle jeered, though her warm smile at the memory belied her true feelings.

"Ah, right, that." Robin cowered beneath his blankets. The frailty in his voice gave her reason to pause, but she didn't have to ask for elaboration before he continued of his own.

"Listen, Kjelle, I'm happy about everything that happened yesterday." he said. "I'm glad that you consider us so close of friends. That being said, we should finish that duel. So much depends on the outcome that I can't let it go like this."

"Technically, I won. I was serious about the winning move being to not fight." Kjelle said with a smile that was in no way agitating. "My winning conditions were for neither of us to die, and I disarmed you. That means I've won. It actually feels pretty good to pull that on someone, rather than have it used against me."

"Let's have a rematch, then." Robin said immediately, his voice perfectly level. All of his resolve to follow through with his plan to die had withered away yesterday, but that tiny amount that remained proved resilient. Robin reminded himself constantly that his original goal had to be reached. He couldn't return to Ylisstol. His death would save the Shepherds.

"Hm… no." Kjelle replied simply, giving the matter next to no thought before voicing her answer. "Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly fine with more duels, but not if the stakes are life or death. Not for you and I."

Robin sighed deeply, more of his previous resolve threatening to abandon him. "We have to do this. You still deserve answers, and I won't be able to give them unless we fight that final duel properly. It has to happen."

"Come to think of it, I do still want some answers." Kjelle said, her arms crossed. "Since I won, I get them, right?"

"You winning is debatable." Robin grumbled. "I'll try to explain as much as I can, but I'm not making any promises as long as we don't have the duel agreed upon."

"Alright, so, what's happened to the Farfort of this time?" Kjelle asked, her gaze locking on Robin's in anticipation of his response.

Robin blinked, having not expected a non-Grima question. "Um… nothing. There were reports of bandits a while ago, but I wanted to get through the Plegian war as quickly as possible, so the Shepherds were never redirected there. Once the war had ended and we got our year of peace, no one was formally sent put to handle things. I've been more focused on having the Shepherds provide international aid than handle domestic squabbles."

"'Domestic squabbles'!? There were - are - bandits raiding villages that are your responsibility to protect!" Kjelle said, her voice filling with horror. "Is this why you had those sections of your journal with my father crossed out? You had never even recruited him!? He and his family are probably still struggling to survive the bandits and you haven't done anything to help them! Oh gods, what if he's already…?" Kjelle shuddered and shook her head. "No, no, it's not possible. If you haven't found him yet, he won't be that strong, but he can survive. He has to if my family is to be whole again."

"Nothing will have happened, Kjelle. The Shepherds weren't sent out, so the bandits aren't-" Robin began to reassure her, only to stop and blink in confusion. "Wait… what? No, this… this definitely made sense to me before. The bandits won't attack until the Shepherd arrive, so we can have our dramatic entrance and defeat their leader. That's… that was… what the hell, why did I think that would happen!?"

"Are you asking me why you made such a stupid decision!? Why the hell would I know!?" Kjelle shouted, her demeanor becoming increasingly flustered before she was able to bring it under control. "Alright, we need to go to the Farfort immediately. We have to make sure that everything's fine."

Robin grimaced at the desperation in her voice but otherwise steeled his expression. "You can go if you win our fight. Until then we can't leave. We can't go back. This has to end before we do anything else."

Kjelle stared at him. Robin could feel his little remaining desire to continue the duel fading away in the face of her incredulity. "Seriously!? You aren't going to help people in need because you want to fight? We have to go help them - we have to save my father!"

Robin opened his mouth to refute her again, but couldn't find the will to form words. "I… okay. If we leave now we'll probably arrive at the Farfort within three days."

Rather than brighten as Robin had anticipated, Kjelle's expression remained strained. "We have to do better than that." she said. "Every moment we waste is another one where my father could be getting hurt, or killed. We need to save him. I have to make sure that my family can be together!"

"Sully isn't about to end up with Donnel." Robin reminded Kjelle softly. She seemed to ignore the statement entirely. Her expression remained unchanged, causing Robin to sigh. "Fine. I'll try my best to fly us as far as we can toward the Farfort, but I won't make any guarantees. Things are going to be more difficult than ever."

He passively patted the front of his cloak where his tomes had once rested. Now that Laurent was in possession of his wind tome, the task of flying himself and Kjelle truly would be a greater challenge than he had hoped to face. That wasn't to mention the phantom throbbing already forming in his right hand at the prospect of such a difficult task. He chose yet again to ignore that sensation.

Kjelle broke into a smile that effortlessly wiped away his apprehension. "Thanks, Robin. I'm not about to say that you didn't make a terrible mistake in not helping the Farfort earlier, but thanks. I know we'll be able to do this."

Robin blinked several times before averting his gaze from Kjelle's, the phantom pains in his hand fading to a sensation of warmth in his chest. "Yeah, we'll save Donnel. I promise. We can do this."

Kjelle's smile grew brighter. She moved away from Robin's bedside and toward the door out of his room. "We should go, then. I'll be waiting outside." she said, then exited his room, making to gather her own equipment.

After several more long moments of doing nothing, Robin slowly rose from his bed. He knew that he couldn't refuse to help Kjelle now, having seen the hope she held at the prospect of saving her father. Some part of that issue continued to disturb him as he thought on it, but he soon allowed his disparaging thoughts to dissipate. He had far more pressing matters to attend.

He hurriedly changed his clothing, freshened himself up as best he could, grabbed a small breakfast, paid off their stay, and met Kjelle in the sweltering heat outside of the inn. They assumed the same positions they had previously used to reach the desert, with Robin constructing several spheres of magic to house them both in anticipation of an extensive flight. Without a second thought for the duel they were leaving behind, Robin and Kjelle began to soar toward the Farfort.

Robin propelled them for over half an hour at as high of speeds as he could manage. Then, his magic completely failed him.

* * *

Shells of wind eroded into nothingness as Robin and Kjelle flew. Having long since closed his eyes and adopted a fierce grimace of concentration, Robin failed to see them, but was able to notice their loss through the overbearing numbness threatening to overtake his right arm. The erosion was halted every time they stopped to replenish their air, but then resumed with a greater intensity when they began flying anew. Their losses multiplied when the strain on Robin's expression increased.

Kjelle had noticed the losses shortly after they had begun. She watched the distant horizon that would eventually reveal the Farfort and mentally noted each time the shade of green between her and the edge of her view weakened. Once their shells had reduced to a fraction of their original number, she tapped Robin on the shoulder.

"We should stop soon. We're already near the island." she said, her voice warmer than she had expected. "We've made way more distance than when you tried this before. If you rest now, we can probably reach the Farfort later today. It should be a short distance south of here, and the flight'll cut down on walking times. You'll need a break, though."

Robin didn't open his eyes, but after a few twitches he nodded. He began to lower them down to the ground. The last of his wind spheres faded as they landed, and the grandmaster immediately bent over.

Kjelle started to relax, no longer fearing any potential crashes as had previously occurred. She approached Robin after a few moments of wandering around their surroundings. Already she had taken in the familiar woods coupled with a sea breeze she had come to know so dearly in her childhood. The world seemed brighter than it had back then, though the threat of Grima remained as it had before.

"You did well. I sure as hell couldn't have pulled something like that off." she said, placing a hand on Robin's back as he struggled to control his intake of air. "Rest up a minute and make sure your tome isn't drained. We still have a ways to go, and it'll definitely be easier by air."

Robin opened his mouth to voice his dissent, but closed it before saying anything. He got his breathing under control and nodded to Kjelle. He straightened his posture and forced upon himself an aura of acceptability.

All of his body felt warm and tight. It was as though he had gone through one of Frederick's full exercise routines with Sully and Vaike goading him on. Except for his right arm. As soon as he had landed, all feeling in the limb had ceased entirely. No matter how much he strove to ignore the lack of sensation he couldn't stop himself from panicking. His accelerated and unsteady breathing had been born from that panic. As he calmed, faint traces of sensation returned to his bicep and he managed to rein in his sense of control.

Robin attempted to raise his arm to better assess his damage, but failed. Nothing below his bicep was giving any form of sensory response. Everything below his shoulder was immovable. He used his left hand to raise his right, forming a ninety degree bend at his elbow, and slowly removed the second hand from play. His right remained elevated, though he was yet again completely incapable of moving it further. He released the tension he was maintaining and his arm fell limply to his side.

With a deep breath Robin attempted to raise his arm again. As with before, he was incapable of raising his right independently. His arm felt cool and limp, the opposite of the rest of his body, though more and more sensation was gradually returning to him. His hand remained obstinately inactive.

"You okay over there?" Kjelle asked curiously, damaging his focus. Robin spun his head to see her, having been up to that point wholly engrossed in his faltering arm. He only then realised that she had been staring at him.

"I'm fine. It's nothing." Robin lied. He tried to raise his hand to reassure her, only for it to fall limply to his side.

"Bullshit. Let me see." Kjelle said, approaching him again in a few swift steps. Robin instinctively shielded the right side of his body from her.

Kjelle grabbed his right wrist, holding and rotating it with both of her hands. "This is the hand, right? What the matter with it?"

Her grip on Robin's wrist was adamant. Though tight, her hold was by no means unnecessarily strong. The fact that she seemed genuinely interested in his ailment to the point that she was being intentionally gentle was odd to Robin. He felt urged to trust in Kjelle in a way he couldn't quite describe.

"I don't know. I can't move it properly." Robin slowly admitted. He partially resented confiding in her and partially enjoyed being able to do so.

"How do you mean? Is it sore? Wounded?" Kjelle asked as she placed one hand at his elbow and experimentally bent his arm. Robin offered no resistance and gave no signs of pain, so she bent it up and down repeatedly. "Doesn't seem to be damaged in any way. That's good."

"It feels cold. Weak." Robin said, trying and failing again to do anything with his failing hand.

"Huh… that's honestly not ringing any bells for me." Kjelle said. She lowered his arm back to its original angle and placed her hand back on his wrist. "Maybe it's some weird fatigue? We've been doing a lot of stuff for a while without much rest; it was bound to happen eventually."

Robin shook his head. "This has only happened one or two other times. Both were recent, and both were after I had used magic. I think it's related to when I've been casting spells, but there isn't much evidence to back that up."

"Magical fatigue? If that's a thing?" Kjelle suggested with a shrug.

"Magical fatigue. Huh." Robin repeated after her, then shook his head again. "No, I've felt fatigued after using too much magic before, and it wasn't like this. It was more typical, you know? Like any other form of weariness."

"So what could this be then, assuming it's related to magic?" Kjelle asked. She narrowed her gaze on his hand, flipped it over, and rolled up his glove. The Mark of Grima rested faintly on the back of his hand, its purple lines faded into borderline nothingness. "Well, that's new. It also means this is likely related to magic, or at least Grima."

Robin blinked and stared at the markings on his hand. He had never thought to check them after experiencing his issues. He had additionally never seen the Mark of Grima look so faint in his extant memory - not on himself, tomes, or any of the Grimleal enemies he had faced.

"When were the other times this happened?" Kjelle asked as she ran her fingertips over the markings. Though she wore her gauntlet, her touch was light, and Robin was again certain she was taking incredible care to be gentle. The fact that she was acting with such consideration was enough to make the odd sensation within him grow stronger.

"Once was after we found Nah on that island. I messed up some magic, and later couldn't move my hand enough to pick up a tome." Robin confided, hiding the heat in his face by turning it away from Kjelle. "The second time was when we crashed after flying. Not during, mind you, but after. That one was barely noticeable. They both went away with time."

"Those were both after the risen had changed. After Flavia killed the Grimleal leaders." Kjelle reasoned aloud, remaining focused on tracing a nonexistent pattern over the Mark of Grima as she talked. "Hey, maybe this means you're losing your ties to Grima! You may not have to deal with them like you've been fearing!"

"That isn't…" Robin began to refute her, but quickly shut his own mouth. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I am losing my tether to Grima. It sucks if that means I'll lose some of my magical ability, though."

"You seemed to be doing fine yesterday." Kjelle smiled at him without any trace of hostility. "I'm sure you're strong enough to work through whatever happens. You're you, after all."

Robin blinked, uncertain as to whether he had truly received so genuine a compliment from her. Sensation was slowly beginning to return to his hand, but he failed to notice it in the face of the silence between him and Kjelle that he was unable to comprehend or end.

Kjelle ran her finger over the back of his hand again before stopping it over his rolled glove. "Robin… what were you trying to tell me during the duel? It was something about Grima, right? Something big?"

"Ah, that. It was nothing, really." Robin smiled casually, as though that made him any less suspicious.

"It didn't seem like nothing." Kjelle said bluntly. "You were freaking out. It was something substantial."

Robin's gaze and voice both hardened How was he supposed to face the reality of Grima now, if he hadn't been able to do so yesterday? "It appears as though you were wrong, then."

"...Right." Kjelle agreed with him slowly, her gaze narrowing before she cleared her expression and sighed. "Look, Robin, I'm not going to try to force an answer out of you. As much as I'd like to beat you in a fight - and I absolutely could if you didn't have your magic - I can't. Just know that I want to know, alright?" Her voice held no animosity, and Robin found it impossible to challenge her curiosity.

"Alright, Kjelle." he said. "I'll tell you when I can. It's nothing too big, though. Nothing to get excited over."

"As long as I know, I'll be fine. It's a pain to be left in the dark all the time." Kjelle said, though her voice again held nothing vitriolic.

"Yeah. Sorry about that. Again." Robin said, lowering his head as he delved into his thoughts. He already knew that he would be incapable of sharing his information on Grima's demise. While he knew he was trusting Kjelle more with every passing day, so too did he know that no one - not even her - would be prepared to hear the truth. He himself certainly hadn't been prepared a year and a half ago.

From the position he was in, Robin couldn't see that Kjelle had turned her head toward the general location of the villages of the Farfort. Her hands remained on his, again giving him no indication toward the shift of her gaze or mood. She remained focused on the direction of her old home until Robin finally successfully moved his arm.

"Ha, it's working again. I suppose the fatigue is leaving me." Robin said, clenching his fist experimentally and regaining more of his strength in the process.

Kjelle turned back to face him. When she did so, her entire expression was a mask. "Ah, that's good. We can get moving again."

She didn't move her hands away from his. Her left held his hand in place as the thumb of her right passively rubbed over the same stretch of skin. Robin, too, took long to notice that she wasn't about to let him go.

"Um… I'll probably need my hand for that?" Robin said, his voice uncertain, as though he weren't positive that he would need the appendage to function. He didn't attempt to pull his hand away from her.

"Mhm." Kjelle agreed, wholly disinterested. She was looking directly at Robin, but the grandmaster couldn't tell if she was actually seeing him or something intangible.

"So… can I have my hand back?" Robin asked. He moved it to emphasize his point, though he still refrained from pulling out of her grip.

Kjelle's movements of her fingers and thumb slowed to a stop. She blinked as though she were only now seeing what she was doing, and she immediately released Robin's hand as though she had been burned. "Ah, right! Of course! It's time for us to go! Right now!"

She turned and began brusquely walking in the direction in which she had been staring. Robin raised an eyebrow at her, concern manifesting in him in response to her erratic behaviour. That feeling contrasted fiercely against the brush of red growing on his cheeks. Kjelle stopped after a few steps, but didn't turn around to face Robin.

"Are you feeling alright?" Robin asked before she could say anything, his concern making itself known through his voice.

"Yeah, I'm doing great." Kjelle replied too quickly. She took a deep breath and nodded as if to confirm her sentiment to herself. "I'll be better once we reach the village. It's been a while. We should be able to get there before afternoon, at the latest. The place can be difficult to find, especially since we're flying rather than using the main roads."

Robin faltered, the muscles in his arm surging with nonexistent pain at the mention of more flight. "Actually, Kjelle, can we walk for a little while? It's nothing big, but I don't want to stress myself too much. Flying around can be draining."

"Sure. Let's go." Kjelle said, again a little too fast. She pirouetted and made her way to the forest through which her village could be found.

Robin stared blankly at the spot she had been occupying before following after her. His face ran through a variety of expressions as he struggled to understand what was going through her mind, but every time he may have come close to a reasonable explanation he failed to connect it to her personage, and so failed in rationalising anything that had happened.

* * *

Midday passed before Kjelle entered view of the Farfort's villages. Each building was exactly as she had remembered them from before the risen hordes, with simple wooden architecture that in no way rivalled their glamorous counterparts in the stone artisan buildings of Ylisstol. Unlit torches dotted predictable walls and roadsides, having been set up to provide light in darker hours. Several had been removed from their stands and ignited by the bandits running about the quaint locale. The bandits were the only people Kjelle could discern save for a single, secluded man.

Robin followed shortly after her, clamouring through underbrush in unrepentant exhaustion. Kjelle stood resolutely in place as he emerged, her expression stone as she stared at the lone man.

"Gods, I did not think I would have to do so much today." Robin groaned as he stood tall and attempted to recover his lost breath. "I realise we moved across an entire continent in the past two weeks-ish, but this much flying and walking paired together is awful."

"That's him." Kjelle breathed, breaking her stoniness and ignoring Robin's complaints. She raised her hand for Robin to follow to the man. "That's my father. Donnel."

Robin blinked and squinted at the figure. "Is he wearing a pot on his head?"

"He had a tendency to do that, yes." Kjelle confirmed. "He's actually still alive… I knew it. Of course he is!"

Robin frowned at Donnel's distant image. "I suppose it is better than wearing nothing. Aren't knights supposed to have helmets? Cavaliers, too?" he asked, gesturing to her incredibly damaged armour.

"Eh, I've never been one for helmets. Never kept track of any for long." Kjelle dismissed his nagging concern with a wave of her hand, then started jogging toward Donnel. "Come on, we need to handle this. He'll be strong, but we can't let him come to harm. He can't die here."

Robin's shoulders sagged at the prospect of more strain, but he soon corrected his posture and followed after Kjelle. He stopped partway to stare at Donnel and the bandits, his gaze narrowing in scrutiny as he attempted to piece together what had happened.

Donnel was clearly terrified. His shaking was visible regardless of distance. Robin's gaze rested on him as he wondered how the shivering farmer could evolve into so great of a soldier that even Kjelle would sing his praises. His gaze then grew more scrutinising as he shifted over to analysing the bandits.

Their raid on the village had begun only recently. The first reports of their activity had come in well over a year ago, and yet they appeared to have only initiated their attack now.

Somehow, the bandits hadn't attacked until today, shortly before his and Kjelle's arrival. As improbable as that sounded, it somehow made sense to Robin, though he couldn't place why. He was beginning to grow frustrated over the commodity of that ridiculous feeling.

"Hey! You! You're Donnel, right?" Kjelle shouted once she had neared the man in question, causing him to jump and Robin to cringe at how easily her actions could draw in bandits.

Donnel raised his bronze lance against Kjelle. He quickly pointed to the ground when he saw that she didn't match the stereotypical appearance of a brigand. "A-Are you a soldier? You are, ain'tcha? H-How do you know my name?"

"That doesn't matter!" Kjelle said, again unnecessarily loud. "You need to get out of here! We can handle the bandits, so stay safe, okay? We'll find you after everything is taken care of."

"And who is 'we'? You don't look like no Shepherd or anything, at least not-" Donnel began to say, only for his words to die as he caught sight of Robin approaching behind Kjelle.

"We are Shepherds, Donnel. Well, she hasn't done the paperwork yet, but that's a formality at this point." Robin said. Donnel again grew confused when Robin addressed him by name. "I'm given to understand that you've a will to fight. We should talk after this; if my intel is correct, then you'd make a fine addition to the Shepherds."

Donnel stared at Robin with wide eyes and an open mouth for several long seconds. "A Shepherd? M-Me? I-I want to fight, to help protect my ma' an' my home, but a Shepherd? I ain't ever fought against a real person before. I don't think I could come close to handlin' as big a job as that."

"If I'm being brutally honest here, I can see why you would say that." Robin said, earning a harsh glare from Kjelle. "I've been assured that you can become a great fighter with time, though, and the person advocating for you is reliable. You may have a change of heart after fighting alongside us today."

"Thank you kindly, sir and miss. I don't know if I'll be of too much help, but I reckon I'll be able to at least not get in your way."

"No! You're not fighting in this!" Kjelle shouted, startling Donnel yet again. "I mean… you're not strong yet, you know? You'll get there in time, but for now… stay safe. Alright?"

"Erm… a-alright." Donnel hesitantly agreed. "I'll, uh, stick to the rear, then. I'm still gonna protect my family and home if I have to, though, so don't ask me to sit this out entirely."

"I expect nothing less." Kjelle smiled warmly, so much so that Robin almost forgot her standard vitriol.

She turned to face the bandit forces. "Stay here. We'll find you when we're done. There's a lot we have to go over." She waved Robin up to her side with one hand and lowered her voice, ensuring that Donnel would be incapable of hearing her.

"I want you to stay here and keep an eye on him." she said. "I'll handle the bandits myself and come back when I'm done. Make sure he doesn't get hurt."

"From a tactical standpoint, that's stupid." Robin stated bluntly, casting a glance back to Donnel, who smiled through his trepidation. "Ideally, Donnel would leave the battlefield entirely, but I get the feeling that he won't be keen on joining us if he never gets any battle experience here. He should try to fight. I'll be able to see if he's be up for joining the Shepherds."

"He is, he just… he can't die. Not again. I can't let something like that happen again." Kjelle said. "Stay with him. Ensure his safety. Ensure that I can have my family again. Please."

"You're not confident in his ability, are you?"

"I'm more confident in my own. At least for now."

Robin nodded slowly. "Okay. I'm not going to condone your strategy, but okay. Promise me that you'll know when to stop fighting and fall back to us, though. I don't want you to risk too much for this."

"I'll be fine. These guys don't look tough." Kjelle said, attempting to dismiss Robin's concerns but failing entirely and causing him to sigh.

"Know when to stop, Kjelle. That's one of the most important things you'll have to learn." Robin said. He moved to stand beside Donnel, leaving Kjelle to dismiss his words as she pleased.

 _I know what has to be done. Father must be saved_. she thought to herself. She drew her weapon and advanced toward the first bandit she spotted. _I already got him killed once. I won't allow him to die again_.

She cleared her mind as a final preparation and shifted into a full sprint. Every step of ground she covered was natural to her. She had long ago memorised the Farfort's village roads, expanses of farmland, and sprawling forests.

Once, she had used her knowledge only to run, to abandon her home and her dying father out of equal parts fear and cowardice. Now, she was prepared to fight. She wouldn't make the same foolish mistakes as her younger self.

The first bandit she came across failed to notice her. She charged into him, her lance driving cleanly through his chest and silencing any action he could have taken.

Another bandit near the first yelped and readied their weapon upon noticing the fate of their fellow. He jumped away from Kjelle swiftly, but failed to come close to dodging the blazing fireball she sent his way. The magic connected with his upper body, and though Kjelle was still too weak to kill a bandit with her magic, the spell was more than enough to blind him to the more powerful flaming lance replica that followed soon after.

The second bandit fell to the ground in the same silent embrace as the first. Then a third and fourth met with similar fates, all falling into cold tranquility. As more bandits meandered out from the low walls that paved the way to the village, Kjelle met them with magic and hits from her lance, felling each one within seconds.

Once the bandits grew wise enough to stop charging toward her, Kjelle advanced onward. She had once hated taking human life, and while she by no means had begun to enjoy such a thing, she found that the task was easy to carry out when she was doing it to protect others. This was the means through which she would save her father. The sensation of having that ability to protect was exhilarating.

More and more of the bandit forces fell with little to no issue. When Kjelle finally approached the last of the haggard buildings leading into the village, she had killed more opponents than in the past several days combined.

She hesitated for a second, knowing that such a thought should disturb her. So many people had perished in the past few minutes alone, and yet she felt little to no remorse at having been the one to eliminate them. She wasn't like that. She wasn't like Grima.

It felt to her as though something was absent from her combat. She waited a moment to think on the matter. Only when another bandit charged at her from the last room - and yet again was felled in a single hit - did she find what was lacking.

Challenge. She wanted to better herself through combat, not mercilessly cut down swathes of opponents. Each bandit she had defeated in no way forced her to better herself; none had so much as landed a hit against her. None were capable of magic or tactics as fearsome as Robin. None were as physically strong as any of the risen, slavers, or bandits she had faced on her journey through Ferox. None were as driven as Lucina. They didn't come close.

Only then, with that realisation that she was missing a means to push herself, did Kjelle feel uncomfortable. She was fighting to protect others. That fact held much of her discomfort at bay, but she couldn't quite put to words the discontent she felt. She was practically bored.

With a deep breath and intense concentration Kjelle refocused all of her effort into finding anything that would do away with her sense of stagnation. She could constantly better herself against all manner of opponents, but that did nothing to assuage her growing desire to not fight such weak foes. They were all proving to not be worth her time.

Kjelle backed up until she could lean around the wall nearest her. In doing so she caught sight of Robin and Donnel. In seeing them, her doubt at continuing to fight disappeared entirely. The fact that she could protect people, that she had the power she had sought for so long, was more than enough to destroy any sense of boredom.

She was saving people. The people who had already died in another time, who she couldn't help but feel responsible for. She had the power to save them. It didn't matter if her opponents were weak to her, for as long as she was helping another, she would have no doubts about her actions.

Finally, after so many years of training for the strength she desired above all else, Kjelle had attained her goal. Her opponents were pathetic compared to her. She was finally powerful enough to protect.

A deep, undesirable part of her mind whispered about such power not being enough. She would never be able to stop striving for more. Her strength would never be enough. There would always be far more progress to make, be it in magic, weaponry, fighting styles, or anything and everything else. She silenced that noise with the warm feeling of finally being the indomitable warrior she had always wished to be.

In her bliss at the realisation of her own capabilities, Kjelle was completely sidelined by a charging brute of a bandit. He shouldered her to the ground in a heavy thud, pushing her into the open where she knew that Robin and Donnel would undoubtedly be able to see her. That thought was oddly encouraging - she would be able to give them a demonstration of the extents to which she had excelled.

"Grah! What the hell do you think you're doin' here!?" The bandit yelled, his axe held tightly in a single hand. He raised the axe in the air as Kjelle calmly pointed her enchanted lance at his chest, her adrenaline completely in check and her mind calm despite her imminent danger.

"This is my land; land for wild men! It's time you see what toughed up people like me-!" the bandit, apparently a commanding officer or rough equivalent, began to say. His words were met with a stream of fire that poured out of Kjelle's lance, eclipsing her previous casts of mere fireballs.

Kjelle truly had become more powerful than ever before. A grin formed on her face at that thought, practically in spite of the burning body collapsed on the ground a short distance from her feet. Her grin widened as she rose and caught sight of Donnel and Robin once more.

She briefly surveyed her surroundings and, finding a total lack of bandits in the area, made her way over to her two awestruck onlookers. Her content smile blinded her from noticing the fear shining in Donnel's eyes.

* * *

Robin relaxed as the battle went on. Kjelle was proving with each felled bandit that his concern had been misplaced. She was handling her opponents with a finesse and strength that could surpass that of some Shepherds - all of the Shepherds, if Robin's ambitions were to be met.

Next to him, Donnel proved incapable of relaxing. He jumped after every attack Kjelle made. He grimaced as every bandit was slain, while Robin's expression cracked into a thin, easily missed smile.

"Gosh, I can't believe how easily she's handlin' those fellas." Donnel murmured. Kjelle exited his line of sight, only for flashes of red and orange to follow after her. "They seemed so strong when they were attackin' before, but she's destroyin' them."

"Yeah, she's made a lot of progress." Robin said. "Ha, I'm almost jealous of her. Not really, though. I'm pretty great with enchanted weapons myself."

"Isn't she some kind of rider? Like a cavalier or somethin'?" Donnel asked Robin. "Least, that's what her armour looks like. It's kinda banged up, though."

"She's technically a knight." Robin said. "She doesn't have the armour for it, and her gear is way more diverse than a knight's, and she's probably more at the level of a general by now, but yeah. Technically a knight."

"Yet she's out there usin' magic like it's nobody's business." Donnel remarked.

"That she is." Robin concurred, and in doing so brightened his smile considerably. Kjelle truly had made the progress he had wished. She would be strong enough to save the Shepherds in the coming war. That thought warmed him as he continued to watch the flashes of light Kjelle generated.

"How did you know my name, anyhow?" Donnel asked, distracting himself from Kjelle's stellar fighting for a few moments longer. "Not to be too harsh on myself or nothin', but I ain't some kind of fancy royal or a fighter like the Shepherds. I'm grateful you came to help, but I still find it funny."

"It's a long, complicated story. It's probably best if my friend were the one to speak to you about it." Robin explained vaguely, waving away Donnel's concerns. "I'm sorry we didn't show up earlier. These bandits must have been hell for the longest time."

"It's all good. They weren't real trouble 'fore lately." Donnel remarked, shuddering when a flash heralded the end of another bandit.

The two watched Kjelle maneuver into a few more buildings. She then backtracked her way out of a side path to look over to them. Donnel tried his best to not appear shaken by his spectating of the fight while Robin smiled at her effortlessly, causing Kjelle to smile warmly in return.

Both onlookers winced as a bandit emerged from the building at Kjelle's flank. Robin instinctively reached for his tomes as she fell to the ground, only to softly curse when he remembered their absence. His concern soon proved unnecessary as Kjelle eliminated the bandit in a more powerful stream of fire than she had previously conjured. Robin grinned brightly at her ability while Donnel's jaw dropped.

Kjelle approached them once she had pushed herself up from the ground, a smile that rivalled Robin's on her face. "Ha! That wasn't even a challenge! To think that I was worrying myself over this. Honestly, you may have been able to handle them yourself at where you are now, fa-" Robin coughed much too loudly to cut her off, though Kjelle had immediately caught her own error.

"We should find somewhere proper to talk about Shepherd recruitment, Donnel. After that we'll get you to Ylisstol. From there you'll have to meet some people. It'll be easier to hear it from all of them." he said, directing much of his statement toward Kjelle rather than Donnel.

Kjelle paused for a long moment before nodding. She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb and began taking small steps backward. "The village is this way. Come on, I want to get back to Ylisstol and Port Ferox as soon as we can. The sooner we do that, the sooner my family can be…" she trailed off wistfully before turning in the direction of the village.

"No." Donnel spoke up quietly, halting Kjelle cold in her tracks.

Robin raised an eyebrow at the former, all too aware of how Kjelle had frozen in place. "What do you mean 'no'? Is that a no to going to the village?"

"It's a no to joining the Shepherds." Donnel clarified, hardening his voice. He hesitated when Kjelle whipped around to face him, her expression entirely aghast. Robin's eyebrow remained raised in disbelief.

Donnel cleared his throat with some difficulty before clarifying further. "I saw what she was doin' to those bandits. They've killed people friends and family, but I never stood a chance against 'em. I was cowerin' out here, and if I had been the one to fight 'em, I wouldn't have ever won. I can't hope to pull of the amazin' things you've been doin'. I want to stay as a farmer, not a fighter."

Kjelle's jaw dropped at his words. Her expression morphed from one of intense, freezing fear to one one of utter horror. "What!? No, no, you can't say that! Do you have any idea how strong you are!? You have to come to Ylisstol!"

Donnel shook his head decisively and dropped his crude bronze lance to the ground. "I'm honoured you fellas wanna make me a Shepherd, but that ain't me. I'll stay here and farm. Probably be more help to people as mighty as you like that, anyway. Anyway, I'd be glad to have a feast to thank ya for your help - I'm sure everyone here would feel the same."

"No!" Kjelle shouted, startling Donnel and causing Robin to wince at the genuine desperation in her voice. "That isn't how this needs to go! You need to come to Ylisstol! You need to meet mother! You… you can't say no! You can't…!"

"I'm sorry, miss, but that ain't my place. That fightin' doesn't look like something I'd ever enjoy. I'm gonna stay right here where I am." Donnel said, furthering Kjelle's distress exponentially.

"No, no, that isn't… this isn't… this can't be happening!" Kjelle said. "You died once already; this time, I'm going to save you! You and mother both! I can't let you stay here! You have to meet her… you have to stay with her… you can't leave me again…!"

Robin opened his mouth to explain away the critical information Kjelle was spouting, but upon taking in her unsteady breathing and borderline inconsolable state, he silenced himself with a sombre sigh. He placed a firm hand on Donnel's shoulder and nodded to the farmer.

"If that's your choice, we won't force anything." he said. Donnel's focus shifted to him, away from Kjelle's time travel allusions. "Swing by the castle if you change your mind. There'll be people who'll want to see you."

"What!? Robin, what are you-!?" Kjelle shrieked. "No! No, this can't be happening!"

Her hands tensed and relaxed into and out of fists. Robin attempted to raise his hand toward her, only to be met with a forearm that knocked his hand aside. Robin's expression grew pained at seeing Kjelle so distraught, though it was nothing compared to the time traveller's own blatant torment. Unwanted tears began to stain her eyes as she struggled to retain any sense of calm.

"He's made his choice, Kjelle. We have to respect that." Robin said, making his voice as soothing as he could.

"So much of what I've fought for, so much training and fighting and killing and bleeding… and it's all for nothing!?" Kjelle shouted. "He says 'no' and it all ends there!? You want me to accept having everything I've done be made worthless!?"

"It's not worthless, Kjelle." Robin argued softly, knowing he couldn't hope to compare to her outrage. "Think of how much you've grown as a person - think of how much you can still grow. This isn't a tragedy, it's an opportunity. Despite how half-assed of a reassurance that may sound, you're as much you without Donnel as you are with him, maybe more. Now you have the chance to show that. You can prove your strength by being your own person, not by having to rely on the ghosts of your family."

Kjelle's vision began to blur as her world spun, teetering on the brink of a total collapse. Worse than the sense of hopelessness that consumed her was the knowledge that she was being punished for her success. She had intimidated Donnel. She had ruined her chances for her ideal future purely through her own accomplishment, and that thought tore at her mind. Half of her thoughts willed her to weaken to have her family return to her, and the other admonished that consideration. Both left Kjelle in a disarray that forced nausea into every action she made.

No matter what, she couldn't grow weaker. She had done so much to be as powerful as she was now. However, every way she envisioned her future had been with the family she had lost at her side. Now, that ideal was crumbling into a barren waste as devoid as her future past had been in the hour of its death.

Her breaths caught in her throat as she failed to focus. She couldn't force Donnel into doing anything, not as she had regrettably forced Nah into accepting family. Donnel had to be her father, yet he had refused, and Kjelle knew from a lifetime of experience that he couldn't be coerced into any course of action.

The thought of force continued to broil in her mind nonetheless. She began to rely on it as a means of retaining the final shreds of her composure. She was more powerful than him now, possibly more powerful than he had been in her time. She could force him to do what she wanted.

Only when Kjelle met with Robin's gaze did she grow disgusted with her thoughts. There was a coldness in his expression, one that reminded her that if she tried her preferred methods of force she would already have lost. She would grow to resent such action as she had done with their final duel. Furthermore, there was a warmth in his eyes that kept her in check, one that contrasted the cold and begged her to refrain from force.

Robin couldn't hope to fully understand her situation. Neither could Donnel. The expression of confusion and incertitude that the farmer with her father's face wore made that fact clear. She could tell, though, that Robin was trying his absolute best to empathise with her state.

That knowledge pushed her mind away from the decaying perception of her family whole and united. It eliminated the last reminder of her concept of a saved future. Her mind splintered at that loss, and before she knew what she was doing she had turned away from Robin and Donnel and had begun to run. All she wanted was to be rid of her failure, of the memories of death and weakness.

Kjelle's feet pounded across familiar paths, her body skirting familiar walls and trees. She didn't stop until she had reached the village of her past. She ignored the shouts from Robin that echoed after her as she froze in front of the door to a familiar home.

The locks had been put in place earlier in this time than her own. Perhaps it had been due to the delay in reaching Donnel. Perhaps this time was truly more dangerous than her own, as she had come to learn through the resurgence of risen and brutality of her foes.

In the end, the difference was inconsequential. Kjelle had lost everything regardless of whatever tedious details played into her defeat. The lock on the door barred her further than in her past. In a now unrestrained fury she placed her hand on the door and began to charge her magic.

Something had to pay for her loss. Her strength had failed her, but that wasn't possible. Her ideals couldn't have been so misguided, her means of accomplishing them so misplaced that she could have failed so resoundingly. It was the fault of anything but Kjelle herself.

Her hand rested against the door. She could feel the fires of her strength growing, burning brighter as they demanded to be released. Her power was a fire that could burn away everything - her losses, her regrets, her past of weakness and fear.

But it couldn't save. She had lost her family in the past, and now her current counterpart was at risk of never forming. Her strength had failed her. Her fire had once burned too softly, but now blazed with such an intensity that she couldn't control it. Everything was burning down.

Exactly as had happened years ago in the destruction of her village. Exactly as had happened in the annihilation of her world.

Kjelle had believed that in attaining power unmatched, she would be able to save everyone. She reminded herself of that ambition with every loss and victory. That ideal now seemed nothing but hollow. Nothing had changed. Her life wouldn't be any better than in her world of ruin and desolation.

The fire inside of her struggled to remain lit as her hand trembled. Kjelle could clearly envision the claw marks of risen that had scoured the door before her, ripping and tearing into all they could reach. Her mind reconstructed the splatters of blood that had lined every stretch of wall and road, the flames and ashes that had burned into her skin, the scent of fiery ruin burning through houses and families alike. She could hear screams cut short, and though she knew they were mere illusions, they silenced the flames in her core.

She had been weak in the past, and she was now strong. Neither had saved her village, family, or world.

Kjelle allowed her hand to fall limply to her side. She turned so that her back was against the door to her old home and sank to the ground, any sense of heat remaining in her body dissipating as she went.

She had always been weak. She still was. Regardless of whatever power she attained, she was in her heart as pathetic as always. Her lies of strength were failing her. She would never have the strength to change her past. She would always be weak.

Kjelle drew her knees up to her chest, buried her head in her hands, and began to cry.

* * *

Robin and Donnel watched as Kjelle spun away from them and ran, neither knowing whether they should attempt to stop her. She sprinted away from them, ignoring Robin's uncertain attempts at calling after her and Donnel's mixture of confusion and concern.

"Kjelle!" Robin called out, though she was already far enough away that Robin doubted she could hear him. He opened his mouth again to shout, but ultimately relaxed his posture with a sigh.

"I suppose one of us should go after her." Robin said. He hoped that his tone would convey to Donnel that the farmer should be the one to go.

"Be my guest." Donnel said, surprising Robin. "I don't know where she's goin' or what she's doin', and I have no idea who she is. There's no way I'd be able to do anythin' to help."

Robin blinked. Donnel's claims made more sense than he had first thought. "I guess you do have no idea who she is. Sorry about this, by the way. You, ah, look similar to someone she once knew. Actually, you technically are them, but that's a bit too confusing for me to explain."

"Uh… right. Well, you better get after her, then." Donnel nodded in Kjelle's direction. The time traveller had long since disappeared down the path she had taken.

"Right, right!" Robin nodded hastily before moving out. He raised a hand up beside his head as a farewell to the would-be Shepherd he knew he was likely to never see again. "Goodbye, Donnel. Feel free to visit Ylisstol at your leisure, and… have a good life, I suppose."

"Goodbye, grandmaster Robin, sir." Donnel almost flashed a salute. He stood in place as Robin trailed Kjelle, mulling over what had happened without coming to a satisfying conclusion. Eventually, he simply shrugged, picked his lance up off the ground, and began to leisurely make his way back to his village.

Robin found Kjelle within a few minutes of searching, the quaint village of the Farfort to him being unfamiliar. He found her slumped against the door of an unassuming house. Her head was buried in her hands and resting on the knees she had drawn up to her chest, with the sound of wracking sobs occasionally transmitting through her defenses.

"Hey, Kjelle?" Robin greeted her, his voice low.

Kjelle gave no. indication of hearing him. Her choked sobs continued to echo through the village uninebriated.

"It's probably best if we don't linger here for long." Robin said, hoping again to get through to her. He failed, sighed, and hung his head. "We can stay for as long as you like, though. I don't know what you're going through, but it seems difficult, to say the least."

No other people had emerged from any of the buildings within the village. Everyone had locked themselves away in anticipation of the bandit attack, though the general lack of presence in the village still disturbed Robin. He couldn't help but feel as though some of the locals may have disappeared in a similar fashion to what had occurred in Ferox. If the sheer size of the mass grave on the Isle of Lost Souls had been any indication, then he knew that possibility could not reasonably be ignored.

Regardless of the village's current status, Robin was aware that Kjelle required consolation. He silently lowered himself to the ground across from her, ignoring the dirt striving to stain his pants. He took up a more relaxed pose that mirrored Kjelle, wrapping his arms around his legs and leaning back to ease the wear on his muscles. They both remained in those positions until Kjelle's sobs began to weaken.

"I… I'll always be weak." she said, choking and sniffling between words. "No matter how strong I become, no matter how hard I try, I'll still be weak. It's part of who I am."

Robin waited until he was certain she had finished speaking before saying anything. "You know that isn't true. You might feel awful right now because things have turned out poorly, but that doesn't mean you're weak. I can vouch for that. Anyone who's met you can."

Kjelle shook her head. "I've forced things all of my life. I forced myself to grow stronger, tried to force you to fight me to the death, forced Nah to go to her family, I… I wanted to force my father to come with us to Ylisstol. I've used my strength to harm people. You don't. Lucina doesn't. That's why you're strong, and it's why I'm weak."

"As awful as this may sound to you, and as much as I'm sure it's not what you need to hear right now, I agree." Robin said, causing Kjelle to emit a sound halfway between a sob and a deprecating laugh. "I don't know Lucina, but if she's more powerful than you and doesn't flaunt it or try to abuse it, then she sounds like an amazing person. What you've said doesn't exactly apply to me, but I appreciate the sentiment."

"However, you're not giving yourself enough credit." he continued before she could get a word in edgewise. "You didn't kill me at the duel. You reconciled with Nah. Donnel hasn't been forced to do anything. That's all more than a weak person would have done. I'll admit, I saw a lot of strength in you when we met in the form of hate I thought I could manipulate. You've proven to be too strong for that."

Kjelle removed her hands from her face and moved her head back to rest against the door behind her. Her eyes had reddened and puffed up from her tears, which had formed pale streaks in the red on her face where they had fallen down her cheeks. She wore a smile that was in no way happy.

"Talking to you has been easy for a long time, Robin. I care about what you say. I don't find anything about you to be too abrasive. There have been more moments where I've found myself enjoying your company than not. I've been hoping that you've been feeling the same way." she said. Robin blinked, entirely uncertain of how to respond to her statements.

"If you were weaker than me, though, I would hate you." Kjelle continued. "Every duel would've been a waste of my time. Every smile forced. The thought of you liking me would've been repulsive. I wouldn't have thought twice about your character, and I would've killed you, as I had planned. Then you proved you were stronger than me and everything changed. I thought that strength was everything, but I'm the weakest of everyone."

"You're a driven, capable, confident person." Robin refuted. "You know what you want and you go for it. That may make you seem abrasive, but those are some of the greatest qualities anyone could hope for. You're strong, Kjelle. Also, for what it's worth… I do like you, and I'm glad that were friends. You're an amazing person that I'm glad to have met."

Kjelle laughed so weakly that Robin wanted to move to her side and openly comfort her. "You really have no idea who I am, then. I've always used my lie of growing stronger to save people as an excuse for putting myself first."

She raised a hand to the gouged and burned armour on her chest and closed her eyes. "I've hidden in the shade of people who were truly strong, pretending that I was the one casting shadows. That's why I've kept my mother's armour. That's why I still hide in it. I thought that all I've done to be here today was justified, but now…"

"You aren't hiding, Kjelle." Robin attempted to reassure her. "You've faced me. You were willing to travel through time to do so, to save the world. Without a doubt you are the most driven person I've ever met. I could tell as much as soon as I met you. I knew that if someone were able to kill me and prevent the deaths of the Shepherds, it would be you."

"Is that supposed to comfort me?" Kjelle asked in another pained combination of a laugh and a sob. "I've had enough of killing innocent people, of murdering them. I've lied to myself about being strong. I'm not a hero or saviour. I'm weak."

"You're an amazing person, Kjelle." Robin said. "You're giving me way too much credit, too. I've done terrible things, and I have the potential to do so much more. I'm not a good person, or a strong one."

"See? That's why you're strong." Kjelle said. "Humility, altruism, selflessness, all of that banal bullshit that I thought made people seem weak. It's made you stronger. I think it's what made Lucina strong, too; she always helped everyone she could. Regardless of how much of an asshole they were."

She sighed, and Robin could feel regret emanating from her voice. "People like you and her, you understand what it means to be strong. You fight to protect others. Not for your own ambitions. You understand how to be strong. You don't have to harm people to attain your goals. You haven't been hurting me, and Lucina could win fights without drawing a weapon. That's how great people like you and her are."

Half of Robin warmed at her praise while the other half went cold. There was a shred of hope in him that wanted to find truth in her claims, but the rest of him recalled all too well the grey had for so long concealed. He knew himself to be worse of a person than she could have assumed, with or without Grima.

"I've killed more people than most could claim." Robin said, the iciness of his blood leaking into his voice. "I'm not trying to win a contest here, but there are times where I kill out of opportunity. A possibility presents itself, so I take it. A stronger person would've avoided war with Plegia, or would've tried to avoid conflict with Valm. I didn't want those peaceful outcomes."

"Please. You've been acting to protect the Shepherds and Ylisse this entire time." Kjelle scoffed. "Ever since we met you've been striving to grow strong enough to protect the people you hold dear. You're a better vision of my ideals than me."

The coldness within Robin spread through his body. He wanted to stop Kjelle, to tell her of everything he was capable of and that the other him had done. More than that he wished to silence the melancholy that was so obstinately controlling her mood. He didn't believe what she was saying in the slightest. Though it was hypocritical, Robin believed that he could help her overcome her doubt in herself.

Robin rose from the ground and extended his hand to help Kjelle up. "I don't know how much I'll have to say this to get through to you, but you aren't weak. You're the strongest person I've met. So, let's go. I want you to see the Shepherds, the people you can save. Sometimes you will have to hurt or kill people to save others, but that's no reason to say that you're weak."

Kjelle lowered her head, ignoring Robin's hand. "You've gone on for so long about talking through things, relaxing, all of this stuff that I thought sounded stupid, but that's part of what makes you strong. I can't be like you or Lucina but maybe you'll understand me a little better if I try. Then you can see how weak I am."

Robin continued to hold his hand out silently, waiting for her to take it and move on with him. Kjelle looked up to him with such sadness that he almost lowered his arm.

"The last time I was here, I caused the death of my father. I practically murdered him. I pretended that it was okay, that I would be able to save him in the past, that my life was worth preserving above his. I lied about being strong, as I've always done."

Robin raised his eyebrows, but otherwise kept his stance entirely the same. After almost a full minute of standing with his hand extended toward her, Robin slowly retracted the appendage and lowered himself back to the ground. It was clear Kjelle had no intentions of moving anytime soon.

* * *

For close to sixteen years, Kjelle had called the Farfort home. She had always seen the old inns and emptied barracks of Ylisstol as temporary. The friends she made in the capital and the training she underwent was all of value, but could not replace her home.

She had spent as much time as possible away from the castle, always seeking to lengthen her time spent visiting the Farfort. Donnel had elected to remain there regardless of what happened in the outside world, at first to raise Kjelle when Sully had pledged to fight in the war against Valm, and later in an ineffective attempt to avoid the hordes of risen that grew without end.

When she was young, Kjelle hadn't questioned his motivations. He was her father, a commendable warrior, and a Shepherd. He had earned her respect without having to lift a finger to prove himself. He was all the family Kjelle had left, and she wasn't about to squander that.

That was why Kjelle's devaluement of his life had come as a surprise to herself. Donnel had been the one to raise her and teach her the majority of what she knew in terms of fighting. He had always been associated with calm island breezes and warm, freshly baked foods she had for so long viewed as part of her home. Yet she hadn't hesitated to erase all of it in exchange for surviving a little while longer.

The final time she had visited her home was no different from any other, save for the general increase in risen in Ylisse. Such was to be expected; the world was growing ever more bleak. Donnel had readily welcomed her, having anticipated her return for as long as she had been gone, as he had always done.

The first night they were together had been spectacular. A feast between the two of them, comprised of days worth of hunting, cooking, baking, gardening, and more from Donnel and the rest of the village. Everyone had always been so proud of her, had wanted to support her and Donnel both. The whole village had been as elated as her and Donnel upon every one of her return trips. As though that would somehow save them. Now, Kjelle couldn't remember a single one of their names or faces. Their kindness had been rewarded with nothing.

On the second night, Donnel had taken Kjelle out to scout the Farfort, pointing out whatever he found to be beautiful. He had showed her the horses he had taken to caring for alongside Sully, having at one time hoped to ride with her apart from any sort of battlefield. Kjelle had accompanied him willingly, though she didn't see the same wonder in the island as he had. She was simply glad to be with him. She wasn't the most empathetic of people, but having spent so much time around friends who were missing so much of their families, she knew to be glad for the part of hers that remained.

Donnel had provided unnecessary protection for the Farfort ever since becoming a Shepherd. He had vowed to defend it from risen. His fellow villagers, who had encountered the undead in controlled environments up to that point, had thought him to be ridiculous. Risen weren't natural swimmers; it was inconceivable to any of them that an island may be at risk of being overrun.

Donnel had still shown Kjelle how every single part of the island could be used defensively, from its craggy coasts and beaches to the forests and rivers that comprised all that wasn't farmland. Kjelle had absorbed every word, even if she hadn't thought it would be necessary to use.

Night three was less uplifting. Sully's old cavalier armour had been passed to Kjelle by a regretful Donnel. He had stressed the negatives of fighting, how combat could change and hurt people, and how he had wished for Kjelle to never have to fight. Kjelle hadn't listened. Though the armour was ill-fitting, she had been much too enamoured with it to hear anything beyond her own happiness. Her ability to pretend that she was strong had grown to an unprecedented level.

The fourth night was the first time they truly sparred with real weapons. Donnel again emphasised how he had never wished for more conflict, and how horrible he felt that Kjelle would likely have to fight to survive. As with before Kjelle barely listened.

They fought, and Donnel claimed victory. Kjelle surprised herself with how well she had stood against him; after five battles, she had won a single match and tied another. Neither of them sustained any serious injuries despite fighting fiercely. To the best of Kjelle's knowledge, Donnel hadn't been holding back against her. She had excelled to the point of almost being his equal. Perhaps more accurately, she had struck upon an excellent case of beginner's luck.

Her victory encouraged her more than she had thought possible. In some way, she thought that she could actually be strong. It wouldn't be until years later when she would finally be able to see her own lack of strength.

Day five was when everything fell apart. Kjelle had rejected the notion of risen arriving at the Farfort. Of course, they would, and they would destroy everything. That's the reason they exist.

Kjelle and Donnel had been inside their home when the world had grown silent. They had shared a meal, and had been talking loosely about more training Kjelle wished to undergo. Her regular knight armour rested against one leg of their small table, having only been recently removed for dinner. She had preferred to use the older set issued to her by the Shepherds rather than her more personal newly gifted armour.

The two hadn't realised anything was amiss until the scent of ashes began to waft through their open windows. Only then did the soft crackle of a distant roaring blaze become known to them.

Donnel rose from his seat and peered out of one of the small square windows that lined his dining room. "Stay here for a moment, Kjelle. I don't think there's supposed to be anythin' big happenin' right now." he ordered, maneuvering out of the dining room and toward the door that would take him outside.

Kjelle rolled her eyes and followed after him. She left her armour and lance behind at the table, knowing that such equipment would slow her down if she was needed to heroically rush into a burning building and rescue someone in distress. It wasn't as though somewhere as obscure as the Farfort could be under attack.

She neared Donnel before he had exited the building. Donnel opened their door, leaned forward through the frame, and surveyed the neighbourhood outside as best he could. First his head swiveled right, then within a few seconds turned left, where his gaze rested for several long, unblinking moments. He then restored his posture, and without turning around Kjelle could tell that his face had drained of colour.

"Get your armour and lance, Kjelle." he commanded softly, the wavering in his voice disturbing her more than whatever was beyond the door possibly could. "I'm sorry that it's had to come to this."

With that ominous warning ringing in her ears, Kjelle returned to the dining room to equip her armour and lance. Whatever awaited her beyond the doorway, she knew that she would strong enough to overcome it. She was becoming strong enough to overcome anything. No bandit, raider, or risen would be able to stand against her in battle.

When Kjelle arrived back at the front door of their home, Donnel was hastily equipping a few mismatched pieces of armour, a set of silver weaponry Kjelle had never seen having manifested in a pile next to him.

Once he had finished applying his armour, his hand came to rest on the small lock he had installed on their door in anticipation of a potential attack. The lock was merely a small slab of metal at the height of his chest that could be slid into a nook in the doorframe. It could be opened from either side, but not by an unintelligent risen.

Donnel shot Kjelle a quick glance, and at that moment she felt the first hint of nerves acting against her will to fight. Something about his gaze had transmitted such uncertainty that she had momentarily doubted her resolve.

"On the other side of this door are risen, Kjelle." Donnel informed her, his voice resolute yet uncertain. "As much as I hate to do this, I'm askin' ya to fight with me. I don't know how well I'd fare alone. If there's ever a chance you're in danger, come back here, lock the door, and don't come out until you're sure everythin' is okay. Got it?"

Kjelle blinked at the prospect of risen on the island. How they had appeared was of no significance. All that mattered was that they were in the Farfort, and therefore had to be eliminated. Kjelle gave Donnel a determined nod to show her acceptance of his terms, though she had no intentions of retreating.

Donnel's sad gaze lingered on her before he sighed and opened the door. He grabbed his weapons, stepped outside, and was swiftly followed by Kjelle. The thought of proving herself propelled Kjelle through the door, and into a world tinted orange by flames.

The forests around their home had been set ablaze, once-lush trees now sending thick plumes of grey smoke airborne. Kjelle coughed as soon as she stepped outside. Ashes reached skyward yet managed to choke her all the same. Only now could she hear distant screams from people who had been caught outside when the risen had arrived. The screams sounded nearer with every passing moment.

Donnel was in the process of cutting down a risen by the time Kjelle had recovered from entering her new environment. As she neared him, purple ashes were washing over the ground at his feet, a second risen bathing his sword in waste as it was slain.

He noticed Kjelle approach him and hold her weapon out defensively. Without breaking line of sight on the risen nearest him he shouted, "we need to keep them away from the village as best we can!"

Donnel momentarily averted his gaze from the approaching undead to shout as loud as he could. "Everyone! Get out of here, now! There are risen on the island! Get away from the village!"

After a few people began to exit their homes, at first cautiously and then rapidly, he returned his attention to the rise and Kjelle. "I don't know how these things got here, but there are still people in their houses. We can't let the risen get to them!"

"Already on it!" Kjelle shouted in response, jabbing out with her lance and sinking the head of the weapon into the risen Donnel had been tracking. She smiled as the being easily dissipated into ashes then nothingness, already knowing how easy the battle would be. Part of her had difficulty believing that anyone, even the weak or unarmed, could die to something as pathetic as a risen.

Together Donnel and Kjelle formed a two-person wall, annihilating any risen that dared to near them. Thankfully, all of the monsters were appear from a single direction, a fact that Kjelle found to be as unusual as it was convenient. Risen would normally swarm their targets and attempt to overwhelm them through numbers - at least, that's what Cordelia had once told her. Only the Shepherds had real experience fighting the undead.

A diminishing number of pained screams cut short informed Kjelle of the fates of those beyond where she and Donnel were defending. Oddly enough, she found that the sound didn't disturb her much. How could someone die to a risen? The thought was nearer making her laugh than weep. How could anyone be so weak? Her training hadn't been much compared to fighting real risen, but she had yet to take any damage, and she doubted that she ever would.

Kjelle began to smile. Everything was coming naturally to her, as though she had been born to fight. To her, that meant she was powerful. It meant that she was near to having the limitless power she had always desired, the strength to overcome any challenge in existence. She reveled in her elation as the crowd of risen streaming toward the village slowly came to a close. The last of their numbers were depleting fruitlessly into swathes of ashes.

As the last of the risen within her view was slain, Kjelle gave a low laugh. She had eliminated so many supposedly deadly beings without breaking a sweat. Donnel had helped a little too, of course, but what she wanted to focus on was how amazing her own talents had become.

She put her lance away on her back and turned to Donnel, her smile persisting as she spoke. "Ha, that was too easy! Do people seriously die to these things? They're so weak!"

Donnel didn't turn to face her, his head remaining locked on the scorched treeline beyond the village. "Somethin' ain't right. We can't rest yet. The risen got here somehow, and we need to find out how. There are dead out there, too. We can't let them turn into more risen."

"If that's all, it won't be a problem." Kjelle boasted, her grin never wavering.

"Let's be glad we haven't come across any chieftains, alright? They're a heck of a lot meaner than what we faced here." Donnel tried to shut her down. Kjelle didn't allow his words to faze her.

"Whatever you say. I'm sure they're as big of pushovers as everything else I killed today." Kjelle said. "Come on, let's go clean things up and get back home. I want to get back to some worthwhile training."

"Don't be arrogant, Kjelle." Donnel advised with a sigh. He placed his weapon away now that he was confident they were in no further danger. "There's more to everythin' happenin' than you can see, and you aren't that strong yet. Not like his highness Chrom, or sir Frederick, or your ma'."

Kjelle rolled her eyes as she took her first steps toward the forest and fields that would need to be swept for risen. "Sure, think whatever you want. I'm practically stronger than you already, and one day, I'll be the strongest person alive. No one will compare."

"It's good to have goals, Kjelle." Donnel sighed again, his disinterest bothering her. "Promise me you won't go dyin', too, y'hear? The world needs strong people, now more than ever."

"I get it, and I promise you: one day, I'll be stronger than anyone. I'll stop all of the risen singlehandedly without breaking a sweat!"

Donnel gave a short laugh as he placed his hand on her shoulder, stopping her from advancing any further. She turned to face him as he smiled.

"I'm sorry you weren't able to meet Sully, Kjelle. I know you two woulda loved each other." he said, his smile growing strained but refusing to fade. "I promise that when you get strong, I'll be tryin' my best to follow you up. I don't know if I can be one of the most powerful people in the world, but if it's to protect people like you, then I'll be more than happy to do everythin' I can."

Kjelle beamed and allowed herself to be pulled into a quick embrace. "I appreciate the support. Not that I'll need it, but it's nice to know it's there."

"You really can be a lot like your mother, y'know?" Donnel laughed weakly as he broke their hug. "She was always gettin' it through her head that she'd be one of the strongest people in the world, too. She wasn't fond of relyin' on others, either. I can't help but feel as though that didn't work out for her in the end. I don't know if things woulda been different if I had gone to Valm with her, but I know that she was more than happy to go on her own, and I know that I think about it whenever I've got time."

He took a deep breath before continuing, "tell me you'll know when to lean on other people, Kjelle. Your friends, me, the Shepherds, anyone. It's important."

Kjelle nodded, though she was doing her best to not roll her eyes. "I understand. It's not like Lucina and the others haven't beaten that idea into my head enough. Rely on your friends, know when to fall back, don't punch Inigo for being late to practice, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to be the unstoppable strength other people lean on, not the other way around. An indomitable force that breaks armies over her knee!"

"As long as you know that it's okay to have people help you, then that's all fine by me." Donnel said. "Other people may not be as strong as you, but they can still be good help."

"Yeah, yeah. It'll be fine." Kjelle said dismissively. "My promise is to protect everyone. I'll make sure Chrom and Lucina and their whole family never gets hurt, that none of my friends or any more Shepherds get killed. I'll protect you, too, father."

Donnel smiled at her warmly. "Thanks, Kjelle. I'm glad to have someone so strong watchin' my back. I know everyone'll be safer with you around."

Kjelle smiled back to him, then returned to making her way out of the village. "They will be. Now then, we have some stuff to take care of. Wanna see who can kill the more risen in cleanup?"

Donnel gave no response, causing her to pause for a moment, then turn back to face him. Her gaze was met with the crook of his elbow, which flew into her face as Donnel used all of his weight to push them both to the ground.

A bright, compressed bolt of fire cut through the air where Donnel had been standing, exploding in a vibrant spray of flames as it collided with a house. The shot hadn't been aimed for Kjelle, and she made sure to quickly push Donnel away from herself so that she could confront the new assailant. She would be the one to face any challenge, after all.

Flames from the firebolt bathed the ground between Kjelle and the village, burning constantly regardless of how much kindling it consumed. Donnel regarded the sight fearfully before he rose alongside Kjelle, drawing his weapon with a shaking hand.

"There's a mage! A strong one, too!" he shouted to Kjelle.

"Then let's kill it already!" Kjelle shouted back. She ran her gaze over the village, searching for the position from where the mage had attacked.

The risen mage nonchalantly stepped out into the centre of the village several houses away from her. Kjelle could only assume the risen had been a woman in life from the sorceress' robes it wore. Her skin had turned the stark grey colour of ash, with purple miasma slowly trickling from once-lethal wounds in her chest and head. Her eyes occasionally sparked with an unnatural red light.

Kjelle's grin returned, the thought of her strength propelling her into a charge toward the risen. Donnel silently cursed as his daughter darted forward, pushing himself into an equal sprint to support her brash assault.

The risen gave no attempt to dodge out of Kjelle's way. Instead, it remained focused solely on Donnel. Only when Kjelle sprang toward with her lance outstretched did the sorceress deftly rotate her upper body, avoiding Kjelle's strike and causing the knight to stumble past her figure. The sorceress retained their lock on Donnel even then.

Donnel cursed louder than before as he slowed his approach toward the risen. Its behaviour was strange, though it was nowhere near as intelligent as a living opponent.

As much as it irked Kjelle, she could tell that the sorceress knew to prioritise her targets. It was shrugging Kjelle off, ignoring her to better focus on combating a Shepherd. Kjelle knee that such an explanation was the only valid reason the risen would have to ignore her. She would simply have to prove herself stronger than Donnel, as she would always be willing to do.

Before the risen could get another attack off at Donnel Kjelle charged into it again. This time, the risen's focus caused it to fail to evade, and they both crashed to the ground. Kjelle wrestled to place herself atop the risen with her weapon remaining in hand. She succeeded in claiming her position only as the risen snarled, its hands coating in auras of darkness in response to her attack.

Kjelle drove her lance downward as the risen allowed its magic to erupt from its palms. Donnel dashed forward and ripped Kjelle off of the risen before either attack could connect. He threw Kjelle aside as the sorceress prepared another rapid attack, which he then dodged out of the way of on his own.

"I had that! I would've killed it!" Kjelle shouted in an untamed fury, correcting her stance in response to being forcefully moved. Her gaze narrowed on her father for a brief instant before snapping back to the risen. Donnel's misplaced doubts could wait to be addressed.

Donnel dodged out of the way of a shot of dark magic. "I'm not gonna let you go down like this, Kjelle! This mage ain't weak. You should get outta here! This fight's gonna get way worse before gettin' any better!"

"Bullshit! You just don't want to see that I'm already stronger than you!" Kjelle shouted in response. She quickly closed the distance between herself and the risen once more.

That thought about Donnel wormed its way further into her head as she considered it - she was stronger than him, after all. He didn't want her to get hurt or die, but he wasn't afraid for her safety in some pretentious altruistic sense; no, he was as much an obstacle as the risen before her. He didn't want her to grow strong enough to fight. He didn't want her to be able to make her own path and save the world as she pleased, to fulfill her ambitions. He didn't want her to fight.

The risen sorceress would die to her in mere moments, and from there, she would be able to reach heights none had dreamed of reaching. She would set new limits that could never be broken from ambitions that only she would be able to attain. She would save the world from the plague that was the risen.

Then again, why save everyone? Why bother protecting people who aren't strong enough to protect themselves? She had fought with all of her might and trained endlessly. Why should she protect someone who couldn't be bothered to do the same?

Her friends were strong, and so were the Shepherds. She could understand wanting to aid them, but not others. The villagers of the Farfort were doing nothing to fend off the risen, leaving herself and Donnel to fight alone. How could people like that be worth protecting? They were all weak, and the weak didn't deserve the grace of the strong. Not in a world where every day could herald endless amounts of death.

Kjelle jabbed her lance toward the sorceress, catching it cleanly in the thigh. Her smile appeared once more as she pulled her weapon back. The sorceress remained so focused on Donnel despite her strike that she was able to attack without reprieve. She attacked the risen three more times in a few short seconds, stabbing through its leg or abdomen with each hit and causing it to collapse to one knee.

A red glow indicated that the risen had begun charging another bolt of fire. Kjelle was confident that she would be able to eliminate her foe before it could get off another spell. Donnel interrupted her next strike, a potentially lethal blow that had been aimed for the sorceress' head, his hand gripping Kjelle firmly by the shoulder and forcing her to restrain herself.

Kjelle struggled against his grip for half of a second, time she would have believed to be sufficient for eliminating the risen. However, the spell was already underway, and the risen wouldn't have bothered to stop even as it lay dying. Donnel pulled Kjelle away from the sorceress alongside himself as best he could in that half of a second. Then, the risen unleashed its spell.

A beam of flames erupted into both Kjelle and Donnel, catching them both in their sides. Heat from the bolt washed over them, scorching their armour and sending them both sprawling. The risen hissed as its arm was eviscerated in the splash damage of its spell. It still managed to rise to a stand and face down its burned opponents without issue. It stood silent as it watched Kjelle and Donnel beat at the magical flames consuming their armour.

"It's no use! We can't put out magical fire as long as that thing's still standin'!" Donnel said, calming himself and allowing the flames on his armour to burn without restraint. "We need to kill it as soon as possible!"

Kjelle continued her efforts at futilely smothering the magical flames before they actually began to die down. Her armour had been seared, smudged, and in some places melted by the intense heat of the magical flames, but other than that she was largely unscathed. Donnel's armour continued to burn.

Within a fraction of a second, Kjelle had narrowed her gaze on the risen, and had then transferred that same look over to Donnel. Kjelle had overcome the magical flames when Donnel hadn't. She had proven herself against a foe a Shepherd like her father was struggling to overcome. The fact that the sorceress hadn't been targeting her purposefully slipped her mind.

"Don't get in my way!" Kjelle shouted at Donnel. She charged once more toward the sorceress.

Donnel darted toward Kjelle yet again as the sorceress fired another shot of dark magic. He managed to cut Kjelle off, tackling her with his shoulder as the risen's spell was casted. The burst of dark magic connected with Donnel's arm, though Kjelle was again certain that she wouldn't have been in danger had Donnel kept his distance.

"I don't want you to fight this! Get outta here!" Donnel said to her, ignoring the pain across his body as his armour continued to burn. "I'll be able to handle this, so don't worry about protectin' me. Get back to the house and stay safe!"

Kjelle glared at Donnel as she stood, shrugging off the effects of his sidelong tackle. Did he seriously think she was too weak to handle herself? Him, someone who was losing such an easy fight? That notion would have been humorous were it not so infuriating.

Donnel gently pushed Kjelle back in the direction of her home and moved to charge the sorceress himself. Kjelle struck at his leg with the butt of her lance. The weapon connected with his knee, the incredible force eliciting a dull cracking noise alongside a sharp cry of pain. Donnel staggered as his leg bent inward, cancelling all of the momentum he had intended to generate. Kjelle pretended that he would be fine after taking a vulnerary.

The risen sorceress began to charge a bolt of fire magic, again aiming for Donnel. Kjelle used her father's wound as an opportunity to attack. Donnel was unable to stop her from advancing on the risen, and as the sorceress unleashed her spell Kjelle drove her lance deep into its chest. The magic fired off past Kjelle's side toward Donnel, but within a manner of seconds Kjelle had removed her lance and driven it back into the risen mage, reducing it to purple ashes.

Kjelle relegated her breathing as she watched the last of the risen's remains waste away into nothingness. She then turned back toward Donnel, a decisive grin on her face. She blinked upon seeing him sprawled across the ground much further away than expected. The magical fires from the sorceress, though they were clearly growing weaker with every passing second, continued to faintly burn on his armour and now skin. Kjelle blinked again and sprinted over to Donnel's side.

She had been so absorbed in that brief moment of killing the sorceress that she hadn't noticed the firebolt hitting Donnel. That sensation of overpowering a foe was almost overwhelming, and it had blinded her to the rest of the world.

Donnel was lying motionless on singed earth by the time Kjelle reached him. He never once moved as she knelt at his side and shook his chest with trembling hands. How had she failed to notice this? Had she been that absorbed in killing the risen, in proving her might? Was she in some way responsible for causing him to be hit by the spell?

There was the possibility that he wouldn't have been hit had she not wounded him. Then again, there was no guarantee that Donnel would have been capable of fighting the mage on his own. Kjelle, meanwhile, had been able to easily kill the sorceress in a matter of moments when she was no longer being impeded. Ultimately, she wouldn't know whether the situation would have turned out better had she not attacked Donnel, but she was certain that it wouldn't have ended so poorly had Donnel not interfered.

After another second of shaking Donnel with no response, Kjelle shifted her hands up to his neck to check his pulse. She hoped with all of her heart that she would find signs of life. Regardless of how much his interference had infuriated her, she hadn't wanted for him to die. Her entire reason for getting stronger was to protect others, even if they did occasionally anger her. All she wanted to do was protect.

Didn't she? She wasn't certain anymore. The desire to protect people was why she told herself she wanted to be stronger, but was that true? Why should she protect someone weaker than her? Such a nonsensical notion was nothing but absurd. Her strength should be what mattered above all else.

No, that wasn't right. Even if she disagreed with them and despised their weakness, Kjelle would have to protect the people that would be lost to the unfairness of the world. After all, if someone like her mother could perish while fighting for a cause as honourable as service to Ylisse, then Kjelle couldn't call her weak. She had to fight to protect that small amount of strength found in people. The fact that her strength was greater than any other was all the reason she needed to bother protecting them.

That's what Donnel and Sully would do, fight to protect the strength that could be found in anyone. Her mother had fought in Valm to protect her daughter, knowing that Kjelle would one day surpass any other. Perhaps Sully was as strong as Kjelle herself. Without having the legendary paladin alive, though, she wouldn't be able to determine whether or not such a statement was true.

That same sentiment about protecting the weak would be something Lucina would support, too. The mere possibility that someone stronger than Kjelle would hold such ideals was reason enough for Kjelle to seek to protect others equally as much. She would have to feel bad about harming Donnel because stronger people could be expected to do the same.

Only then did she begin to feel uneasy about Donnel's state. If he was dead, could she be said to have failed? She hadn't been able to flawlessly protect someone weaker than herself, something Lucina could have done without question. That thought distressed her as much as the prospect that her father may be dead.

She hesitated before placing her fingers tentatively over the artery on Donnel's neck. His pulse made its existence known, thrumming against her fingertips in a harmony greater than that of any instrument. Donnel would survive. Kjelle hadn't killed him. She hadn't failed due to her own lack of strength. She smiled at that fact.

"Don't worry, father. You'll be okay." Kjelle murmured, as much to herself as to his unconscious body.

"I can handle this. This'll be easy." Kjelle continued to talk to herself as she rose away from Donnel's side and made her way back to their house. "Vulneraries are… ugh, where did he keep them? Come on, think…"

She entered the building and began to search the depths of its drawers and cupboards for some form of healing potion. Her murmurings to herself grew more frantic every passing second. "Come on, where did he keep them? They have to be here somewhere. Come on!"

After maneuvering through several rooms and prying open more cabinets, Kjelle finally found a mediocre supply of healing remedies. She was close to being joyful at the discovery, were she not annoyed by the difficulty she had in locating the supplies and mired in panic from the state in which she had left her father.

A low, loud rumble of a groan sounded throughout the house as Kjelle piled vulneraries into her arms. She froze, easily recognising the sounds of another risen. The cries of this one managed to chill her blood in her veins, though she remained certain that she would be able to handle the new undead. It was only her father for whom she was concerned.

The groan increased steadily in pitch, with more wails joining the noise until Kjelle knew there to be dozens of risen awaiting her outside. She wasn't certain if Donnel was still alive, and that lack of certainty only exacerbated her growing sensation of powerlessness.

Lucina would have understood what had happened by now. She would have already helped Donnel, defeated all of the risen, found out how they had reached the Farfort, and she would've saved everyone, as Kjelle had failed to do. That's how powerful Lucina was, how much more powerful she was than Kjelle. Sully probably would have done the same, had she not perished in Valm. Any Shepherd would have succeed on far better terms, too.

Kjelle expelled those thoughts as best she could. In time, she would grow stronger than all of them. She had the drive and ability to be the most powerful person alive, and she would be damned of she let anything get in her way.

Kjelle rushed out of her home back toward where Donnel was waiting on the scorched ground outside. She froze in her tracks as soon as she passed through the door out of the house. A bulky risen stood only a few short metres from Donnel, one with massive muscles that rippled on its bare upper body with every movement it made. An axe of make Kjelle couldn't discern trailed on the ground behind it and glowed in a manner more ominous than any of the sorceress' magic.

Her breathing caught in her throat as the risen stared at her. Other risen lined the town around the berserker, these ones boasting sunken flesh, pointed talons, and greyed skin that the earlier undead hadn't possessed. None made any form of advancement toward her, and instead simply stared. Kjelle held in place for a moment longer before dropping the vulneraries in her arms and reaching frantically for her lance.

The hulking risen stared at her listlessly as she drew the weapon before traipsing its gaze to Donnel, then gradually over to Kjelle once more. It slowly began to raise its axe as Kjelle charged desperately toward it, the sheer size of the beast easily ensuring that any single lazy swing would decimate the fallen Shepherd at its feet.

Kjelle had almost closed the distance between herself and the attacking risen before its weapon was at waist height. Every movement it made was excruciatingly slow. Fortunately for Kjelle, all risen were much too moronic to do anything but eliminate any and all signs of life, so she was able to evaluate her new foe's capabilities at so little as a glance.

Unfortunately for Kjelle, she had never fought a powerful risen before. The berserker before her was a being that had been a soldier in life, and now stood as one of the most fearsome opponents possible in death, having lost all sense of self-preservation. The sorceress had been much the same, but Donnel had been able to distract that opponent, intentionally or not. This risen wasn't as easily overcome.

As she came within a metre of the berserker, Kjelle reared her lance and made to ram the weapon directly into the thing's chest. The risen wasted no time in effortlessly snapping its axe sideways, betraying any notion of speed Kjelle had evaluated by whipping weapon's head into her chest in a fraction of a second.

All of the air in Kjelle's body was forced from her lungs as the axe connected, crushing her armour as much as her chest. The warping of the metal was far worse than that of her skin and bone. She was sent flying away from the risen, her lance still in hand until one of her shoulders crashed into the doorframe of her house and caused her to collapse in a heap to the ground, at which point the weapon dropped from her grip. She struggled to breathe without cracking ribs as she pushed herself to her hands and knees.

The risen continued to stare at her as she coughed and then cried out weakly in pain, that action inflicting as much agony upon her as the enchanted axe. It then shifted its gaze back to Donnel, returning to the deceptively slow movements that in no way portrayed its true agility.

Kjelle's vision blurred as she attempted to stand. The muscles in her arms and legs wavered as she was struck with intense nausea that threatened to bring her back to her hands and knees. The risen berserker ignored her wholly as it instead focused on Donnel. Another attempt to stand taller caused Kjelle to shake and collapse, her vision blurring to the point where she could barely distinguish between the berserker and the horde of lesser risen enshrining its massive stature. Her arms both found their way to her abdomen, where she held them tightly against herself to brace her torso against all movement.

Kjelle slowly stood once more and took an uncertain step forward. Her foot accidentally kicked a vulnerary aside, almost causing her to trip. A fierce haze filled her mind as she considered any possible course of action she could take.

Her weapon remained out of her grip, having fallen somewhere near the doorway from which she was limping away. She didn't dare look back for it in fear of what so much movement would do to her fractured physical state. The risen berserker had resumed raising its menacing axe into the air to kill Donnel.

Kjelle thought it impossible for one hit to have done so much damage. She had already exerted herself in fighting the sorceress, and she had been panicking since Donnel had been wounded, but those were no excuses toward her being so soundly decimated by the new risen. It should have been impossible for one undead to be that powerful.

The berserker scared her more than Donnel's current state. Her fear forced her to stop. Kjelle wasn't certain if she could take any more steps toward the berserker even if her body hadn't been so horrendously damaged. The risen had proven itself stronger than her in a single swing.

The feeling of nausea Kjelle was experiencing worsened. As she stood motionless and watched, the berserker raised his axe high above his head, preparing to strike downward at Donnel. Her attention remained rooted on the berserker itself, as well as the other monstrous risen that surrounded it with their obscured faces and jagged claws. Theirs were claws that could easily slice through armour, shred weapons, and rend flesh into pulp.

Kjelle was afraid of them. She was weaker than them.

Her breathing was too shallow to remedy the pounding within her mind. Without averting her gaze from the blurred risen, Kjelle slowly bent down, wincing and gasping with each difficult movement, and fumbled with the vulneraries at her feet. She managed to pick up two of the potions in her shaking hands and slowly began to back away from the risen.

There was nothing to stop her from healing and attacking the risen again, to try to save her father. They were strong, of that she was certain, but she wouldn't let something like that stop her. Instead, it was her own fear, that subconscious admission of weakness, that urged her toward the open doorway of her home.

She almost tripped over her lance as she backed into the entrance of the building. The weapon staggered her, but rolled into the house, allowing her to progress as she had intended. None of the risen made any move to follow her. All of the undead were enraptured in the imminent swing of the berserker's axe. Maybe this was the chieftain Donnel had warned her about.

The risen's axe reached the peak of its arc as Kjelle backed fully into her house. She fumbled with the door at her side, squeezing her eyes shut tightly as she failed to close it in time and was subjected to the first falling of the executioner's axe. Tears stung her eyes as she awaited the inevitable sound of her father's demise.

A dull, sickening thud sounded as she finally swung the door closed. She subdued the a gasp at the brutality of the noise, and after a few seconds of silence, she slowly managed to open her eyes. Small traces of tears spread across her shattered complexion. She slowly reached up to the simple lock on the side of the doorframe and slid the slab of metal over into place. That single act made her feel safer, being separated by so flimsy a shield from the undead.

The sickening sound of the risen removing its axe from Donnel echoed through the village, penetrating walls and causing Kjelle to shudder. She quickly opened the vulneraries she had reclaimed and drank them both. Then, she dropped their containers and brought her hands to her ears. Her chest ached as the potions took their time taking effect.

Things could still turn out okay. She had to tell herself that, otherwise she would be forced to accept the truth of her weakness. Lucina had a contingency for if things became unsalvageable. The princess had spoken before of some form of plan involving magic and Naga, and Kjelle grasped for that memory as an escape. It became her excuse, her justification to grow stronger and set things right when Lucina's plans came to fruition.

None of the deaths of weaker people mattered for now, because Kjelle would grow powerful enough to save them all. Every death would be made irrelevant. What was the point of putting value in life and death, especially that of those weaker than herself, if it would all be undone anyway?

The risen's axe descended again, splitting bone with a sharp, wet crack. Despite her words and arrogance, Kjelle shuddered at the noise. Every attack the risen made shook her to her core, and she began to tremble in her armour in anticipation of the next swing.

Her armour grew suffocating. She began to rip the mangled pieces of metal away from her body, stopping only for a brief moment when another axe swing cut through all vestiges of her senses. Her pace hastened once she had recovered.

There were horses outside. The risen may not have targeted them, given their intense focus on Donnel and the other people of the Farfort. Kjelle could flee. Outpace the risen on horseback, reach a boat that would be able to take her to mainland Ylisse, then take solitude in Ylisstol with her friends and the Shepherds.

In time she would be able to grow stronger. She would save the world from the risen, even if a few lesser lives had to be sacrificed to attain that goal. Lucina's contingency plan would save everyone. The princess wouldn't lie about an opportunity to save the world.

Kjelle clung to every vain excuse she could find. She would take any means to not accept her own weakness. There had to be a way out. Something to blame. She would do everything in her power to find that scapegoat.

Another axe strike split the silence of her mind. Kjelle tensed until several seconds after the weapon had audibly been removed from Donnel's body. She then pried off the last remnants of her damaged armour. As the vulneraries took effect and remedied the pains coursing through her chest and limbs, she began to maneuver toward her gifted set of armour in the dining room.

Kjelle easily slipped into her mother's old armour. Another axe swing struck flesh outside, causing her to wince at the sounds of wetness and splattering. Her breathing shook as she awaited the next strike, with any attempt Kjelle made toward steeling herself only contributing further to the wreck of her emotions. No new strikes sounded from that point on.

Kjelle had tensed so much that by the time she accepted no new attacks would be made, she couldn't properly gasp for air. Her breathing staggered for a long while, and she sank toward the floor in a broken heap. She couldn't hear the risen at all, but even so she buried her head into the collar of her mother's armour and placed her hands overtop, silencing the outside world.

Eventually, Kjelle would grow strong enough to never lose a battle such as this. Not that she was at fault for this loss, of course; that had been the fault of weaker people. Of that she was certain.

Kjelle kept her head tucked toward her body and did her best to hold in her ragged sobs.

* * *

Kjelle had taken to watching Robin intently near the end of her recounting. Tears continued to stain her eyes and cheeks, but she gazed at him through their blurriness, awaiting a response. Robin stared at her before averting his gaze, wholly uncertain of how he should respond to anything she had said.

"Well? Surely you've formed some kind of opinion by now?" Kjelle asked when no statements were forthcoming.

Robin continued to shy his gaze away from her. He had always experienced difficulty handling sensitive matters. That was one of the primary reasons he had been so drawn to Chrom - the man always extended kindness, and radiated friendly confidence. These matters were simple for one such as him.

Robin grimaced when he realised that Kjelle was still awaiting a response. Against his better judgement, he raised his gaze to meet hers. Kjelle surprisingly soon faltered, averting her gaze from his. That made Robin more concerned than before.

"I don't think there's much left to say." Robin answered her after an extended pause, bringing Kjelle's gaze back to him in a mixture of confusion and contempt. It was only then that Robin knew her to be seeking disapproval.

"You know better than anyone what happened, and it's not like you'll be able to redo it." he continued. "I understand hating things you've done, but I don't think you should be obsessing over this. I won't tell you if I think what you've done is weak or strong, or what kind of a person you are now as a result - that's something you need to decide for yourself. Don't let the past control you, but rather be the one to shapes your own future."

His expression brightened into a smile, though Kjelle's remained unchanged. "If I'm being honest, I think you've done well to make it here. There's a lot going against you in the world, but you've come out on top every step of the way. That's something you should be proud of. I'm glad that you're here, Kjelle, regardless of anything came before this point."

Kjelle blinked, then directed her gaze away from him yet again. She couldn't bring herself to be inwardly spiteful when she saw such bright support radiating out from Robin.

"I murdered Donnel. I killed my own father. Left him to die when I could've tried to save him. Hell, I was the reason he was in that position in the first place." Kjelle argued against Robin's attempt at aid. "Then I lied about it. This is the first time anyone's known the full truth. I told Lucina and Severa about the Farfort at Ylisstol, but I lied about what actually happened."

"That whole 'murder' thing is pretty debatable, y'know. Chrom wouldn't consider you to be at fault for what happened. Maribelle might, but… eh. That's Maribelle." Robin attempted to lighten her mood, though the grimace she showed told him that he had failed. He in turn winced. "Sorry, that… I want to help, Kjelle. To comfort you and make things okay again. I don't know how to do that."

"There's nothing you can do." Kjelle said, her head lowering and doing nothing to ease Robin's mind. "I know what I did was reprehensible. There were millions of better choices I could've made, but didn't. I don't want you to comfort me. All I want is to make things right. Save my father, my future, everyone's families; I want to stop Grima and save the world. The best thing you can do right now is to help me reach that goal."

Robin nodded as she finished speaking. "I can do that. All that needs to happen is…" he sighed, a shallow noise that was necessary for him to think. "We should go back to Ylisstol. You're not in the best of ways right now, so… I want to make sure you're at the city before anything more happens. I want you to be safe. After that, we can end this."

Kjelle opened her mouth to speak, though she wasn't certain if it would be acceptance or protest. She held silent, eventually closing her mouth and nodding. Robin wishing to comfort her was proving far more effective than she had thought possible.

"We've made good time recently. Chrom might still be at the castle." Robin sighed again, this time far deeper. He used the action to hide a shudder from Kjelle, the mere memory of his closest friend heralding thoughts of death and dismay he so dearly despised. Robin had needed this 'vacation' to escape his thoughts, but if he were to face Chrom again, would anything be different? He truthfully hadn't planned on ever returning to the castle, but now, circumstance and his lurking desire to survive shone through his fears.

Kjelle smiled, and his fears melted further. He knew that he was making the right choice in helping her. "Thanks for this, Robin." she said, her worries forgotten for the moment.

"Honestly, I'm kind of surprised that I don't feel like complete shit right now." she continued, wiping away the traces of tears remaining on her face. "So, seriously, thanks. I'm glad that you're here, Robin."

Robin's expression grew brighter as she spoke, until he too was smiling happily. "I'm glad, too. There are a lot of things I'm admittedly uncertain of in this world, but this feels right. I'm glad that we're friends, Kjelle."

With smiles that rivalled one another's in radiance, Robin and Kjelle both rose from the ground and made for the end of the Farfort's main village. Neither of them had any place in waiting around on the island any longer.

Kjelle paused as they reached the edge of the forest surrounding what had once been her home. Her mind continued to struggle with the fact that her father wasn't a Shepherd and that her family would never be whole again. Even so, she had to admit to sharing Robin's earlier sentiment. Regardless of how horrible things were progressing, she felt content with where she was, as though every step she took was correct.

Her misery faded as she took to walking again. Robin had waited patiently at her side in anticipation of their departure. As they walked through the forest toward the shore of the island, Kjelle's smile returned to her in full. Everything in her day may have gone horribly awry, but being anywhere with Robin felt right.

* * *

 **That flashback took a while to do, but I think it turned out well. I don't want Kjelle to seem like too much of a dick, but that is part of her character (and I did already have her kill a guy), so yeah. Hopefully that helps justify the direction I'm taking her character.**

 **In case I haven't done so already, I think it's worth noting here that the changes to the future past and original timeline are what drive this story. The theme I'm trying to work with revolves around emotional fortitude. That's why Kjelle is one of the main characters and why Robin is being edgy about Grima. I messed with a lot of stuff to make effective foils for those two, but hopefully it'll turn out well.**

 **Status: As of 26-04-19, I'm on chapter 35. I'm trying to write more concisely, since I've now realised that** **run-on sentences are the bane of my existence. That being said, chapter 27 is super bloated, so it's going to be edited a lot and possibly separated into two like I did with Nah's joining chapters. It would have been smart to have beta readers go over this whole story and help me edit so I could avoid thins like that and fix my writing style, however, I am not smart. Or at least I'm too stubborn.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	27. Chapter 27

Kjelle yawned and leaned back into the bark of a formidable tree. Her day had been long, consisting of more travel than she had thought possible. She and Robin had awoken late in the day and, in as little as twenty-four hours, had navigated all the way to Ylisse.

The sun had begun to rise minutes before Robin called for them to stop walking. The grandmaster's magical flares had lit much of their path across mainland Ylisse, but they now began to dim.

"That's more than enough." Robin yawned next to her, sounding more exhausted than she. "We should be able to reach Ylisstol within another day of travel, probably. I hope so. I hate walking this much."

"Eh, it's not so bad." Kjelle yawned in sequence, her body threatening to collapse where she stood despite her words. "The cramps are gonna be a pain whenever they hit, though. Oh gods, my legs are going to die."

"We'll have vulneraries soon. We'll be fine." Robin said. Some of his exhaustion escaped him as he stared in the direction of their destination. Shudders overtook his body as he thought on what may happen were he to meet Chrom again - if he were to suddenly wish to kill the Exalt, as he had feared he would do to so many others.

He turned to Kjelle, his gaze having grown intense yet weary. "Listen, when we get to Ylisstol, if Chrom is still there, I'm going to have to meet with him. Depending on how that meeting goes, I may want to fight you again, and I may not stop."

Kjelle furrowed her brow in confusion, a chill replacing her weariness at the undoubtable conviction in his voice. "What? Why? I already won our final duel!"

"Consider this an advance warning. If things go poorly, then I intend to fight you to the death. Got it?"

"Got it." Kjelle coldly accepted what Robin was saying, her gaze narrowing on him. It wasn't as though she wouldn't be able to win the duel a second time. "What's happening at this meeting? What would make you want to fight someone, let alone me, to the death?"

"Bad things." Robin answered vaguely.

Kjelle's gaze remained narrowed on his back, though her eyes soon lightened in worry. "Are you alright, Robin?"

Robin blinked and tilted his head. "What kind of a thing is that to ask?"

"I don't know if I ever have. You've helped me through a lot of stuff, and I feel like I haven't done the same. So, are you feeling alright?"

Robin's gaze became blank for a long moment. He hadn't expected her to act so warmly, and the fact that she was shut down his mind. He almost found himself wishing to divulge all that he could as a result of that small gesture alone.

"Yeah, I'm doing okay." he instead said. "Thanks for caring, Kjelle. It honestly means a lot."

"Don't mention it. Emotional strength is something I've learned I still need to master, so this is like training for me, too." Kjelle shrugged, then nodded to herself to reaffirm that sentiment. "Definitely. All to get stronger."

She sincerely hoped that Robin would fail to see through the paper-thin covering of her true intentions. She had wanted to provide a shoulder akin to the one she had been so often receiving. Robin laughed softly, eliminating her worry.

"I wouldn't expect anything less." he said with a smile. "Seriously, though. Thanks. I know you'll do amazing things in the conflicts to come, and the peace thereafter."

Kjelle smiled back to him, though she felt as though she had to force the action. Something seemed amiss, but she couldn't place why.

* * *

The streets of Ylisstol bustled as Robin and Kjelle arrived in the grand city. People made their way across cobble streets in large masses, washing over the land in an aimless chatter with equal parts direction and wanderlust. Several recognised Robin as he passed them by, flashing their grandmaster a quick smile and wave. Each gesture made Robin feel less comfortable than the last.

Ylisstol's royal castle loomed over the rest of the city as a testament to the grandeur of the past royal family. It was a monolith to which no other structure on the continent could hold a candle. Every step Robin made toward its familiar gates exacerbated a feeling of unease.

Should he prove incapable of facing Chrom, Robin knew he would have no choice but to die to save the Shepherds. He accepted that he was still afraid, that the woman in grey wouldn't want for him to die, and that leaving the Shepherds before war could spell disaster. Nevertheless, he also knew how horribly things would turn out were he permitted to stand at his friends' sides. He would become worse than Grima. Kjelle's future was proof enough.

Kjelle was the hope he held for what would remain after his death. She would surpass him in every way, as he had intended, and she would bring safety and prosperity to the Shepherds. Were Robin unable to face Chrom, she would be the one he would trust to save the world.

Robin shot her a glance as they advanced on the castle, setting his mind at ease with the image of her determined expression. She seemed eager to return to the castle so long after its bygone destruction. Her happiness gladdened him.

With a smile of his own on his face, Robin continued toward the castle. His fears and trepidations toward his potential meeting with Chrom remained, though they now rested beneath a comforting layer of reassurance.

"This place seems so much brighter." Kjelle commented in awe as they walked, her voice little more than a faint whisper.

Robin was uncertain if she had intended for him to hear her words, but he responded all the same. "Yeah, it's an amazing city. I suppose things would've been perpetually bleaker in your time. Worry about that."

"Mm, it isn't your fault." Kjelle waved away his concern, her focus remaining upon the artisan stonework within the city. "That was all Grima. When I see all this, I feel more confident than ever that we'll save the future."

Robin winced at her confidence. "Yeah. We'll save the future."

He shuddered as he came to a stop outside of the castle gates. He waited patiently for them to open as Kjelle continued to gaze warmly upon her surroundings. After a minute of nothing happening, Robin frowned. He had never before had a guard fail to recognise him on sight. He glanced up to the walls above the heavy iron bars that composed the gate, and his frown deepened

"What the hell?" he muttered. No one was present atop the wall. "Where are the guards? There should be a pair of knights, if not more."

Kjelle translated her gaze from Ylisstol to the tall walls of the castle. Within a few seconds, she had raised an eyebrow toward Robin. "What about Kellam?"

"What about him?" Robin blinked and searched the castle wall again. Within a few moments of doing so, he was able to pinpoint the familiar sturdy build that denoted his longtime friend. "Gods, how does he do that!? And why the hell haven't I made him a thief or assassin yet?"

"I've heard about that joke you guys play on him. It was around in my time, too." Kjelle said. "It's an asshole move, though I probably would've played along. Was he really so awful that you tried to pretend he didn't exist?"

Robin recoiled, his expression aghast. "What!? No! None of the Shepherds would do something so cruel! He can become invisible, I sw-" he said emphatically, only to stop himself short. "Wait, how did you notice him? Not even Cordelia's been able to do it that fast."

"Because he's a general, wearing massive armour, and standing atop a wall?" Kjelle said, as though it should have been obvious.

"Yes, but, invisibility!" Robin countered her weakly. "Seriously, no one in the Shepherds has been able to catch sight of him so quickly. He's probably here right now and not in Plegia because of his lack of presence - Cordelia and Frederick may well have forgotten about him. It's like he's cursed."

"Nah, Cordelia spoke with me personally before everyone else left." a new voice piped up behind Robin, causing him to jump out of his skin.

He rapidly spun around to see that Kellam had appeared a few steps away, having somehow opened the gate to the castle and noiselessly approached him. Kjelle too jumped, though to a lesser degree.

"Good gods, Kellam, please learn to shout." Robin grumbled before breaking into a smile. "It's great to see you again. I honestly didn't know when I would see you again, or if I even would. Before Valm, you know."

Kellam also broke into a bright grin. "Ha, yeah. It's been a few weeks, but that's better than the year you were supposed to be away. I'm surprised you've returned early, but I'm glad you're here. It's been too long since we've had time to catch up." His sight lingered on Robin for a moment before he turned to Kjelle. "And who might you be? A friend, I hope?"

"My name is Kjelle. Yeah, I'm a friend." Kjelle introduced herself, holding her hand out for Kellam to shake.

"A pleasure to meet you." Kellam said, using a nod to hide the tinge of scrutiny in his gaze. He turned back to Robin and, with a hushed of a tone, said, "Chrom told everyone about some letters where you had written about Valm, and time travellers. One of which was named Kjelle. Am I supposed to believe that she…?" he trailed off as his thumb pointed toward the woman in question.

"Yep." Robin answered simply. "I don't know how much she wants to disclose, so if you want to know more, you'd best ask her yourself. All I can verify is that she is in fact a time traveller."

"Ah, right…" Kellam said, turning back to Kjelle with an unassuming smile. "I'm sorry, but I hope you understand me being a little skeptical. Time travel is a pretty big tale to take in."

"My friends and I will be able to prove our claims." Kjelle said. "I know I can do so at any time. What say you to some sparring, Kellam?"

Robin raised an eyebrow in her direction. "Seriously? We aren't even inside the castle yet."

Kjelle shrugged in response. She had done nothing irregular by any stretch of the imagination.

Kellam gave a short laugh, though the sound was in no way happy. "I'd love to test my might, but you wouldn't learn much. There's a reason I was left here on the bench and didn't ship out to Plegia."

"What's up with that, anyway?" Robin asked before Kjelle could launch into armed combat. "Cordelia doesn't seem like someone who would ignore your usefulness on a battlefield. Why have you wait back?"

"I'm a knight. I can't keep up in terms of speed or movement, so I get left behind." Kellam shrugged, having long since come to terms with his unique predilection. Only when he noticed Robin's disturbed look did he bother to explain further. "Isn't that why you've all got that joke about me being invisible? I'm slow, so I get left behind, so you pretend I'm not there."

Robin's expression grew horrified. "No one in the Shepherds would ever be that cruel."

"I never thought it was funny, but I understood it. I suppose there was a little humour there." Kellam shrugged.

"Kellam…" Robin breathed, his voice and expression wounded.

"Bah, there's no use dwelling on it. Let's get to the castle." Kellam smiled, putting his friend's mind at ease. "Cordelia explained the movement problem to me before she left. She said I should instead accompany Chrom and Sumia to the port. That's one of the cons of heavy armour. Onto the bright side, I don't have to fight in a desert!"

He turned toward the castle and began walking, gesturing for Robin and Kjelle to follow. Kjelle glanced down to her own largely damaged armour, thankful in that instant that she had lost her knight equipment early in their journey. She had been unable to slow herself and Robin down. Her cavalier armour was comparatively weightless.

Robin surveyed his surroundings again upon entering the castle's outermost wall, only to frown within seconds. No guards graced his sight.

Kellam cleared his throat, an odd occurrence for the silent man, and gestured to the castle doors. "If you could leave your bags and weapons here, please. It's not that I don't trust you, Robin, but your friend here…"

Robin easily shrugged his equipment to the ground. Kjelle hesitated for a moment before doing the same. She noticed that Robin had neglected to remove his tomes from his robes, seemingly concealing their existence from Kellam, though the general didn't appear to notice the fact. Rather, his relaxed gaze widened at the small armoury Kjelle removed from her person. Her lances, axe, tome, and sword all clattered to the ground at her feet.

"You said you were waiting for Chrom and Sumia to depart, correct?" Robin asked Kellam. "That means they're still around?"

"Yeah. They were showing some aristocrats around the castle, giving them an introduction to wartime ruling." Kellam nodded. "Not that they really need it. I think everyone remembers how to operate from the war in Plegia. We'll be able to find them today, and I'm certain they'll want to catch up with you as much as I. There won't be reason to stick around longer, so we'll all be able to move out to Port Ferox together. Provided I don't slow you down too much."

"You never have, and you never will." Robin clapped a hand on Kellam's back. He then broke contact to allow Kellam to open the doors to the castle. The grand interior of the structure was brimming with unparalleled splendour. The three resumed walking, though with less direction than before.

Familiar stone mosaics lined the castle walls, provided that the surface of each was not blocked by royal banners. The interior was lit well by torches and sunlight. The gentle scent of nature wafted throughout the building from its central gardens and mixed with the warm scent of baking from whichever kitchen was in use.

"Say, you aren't the only knight here, are you?" Robin asked Kellam as they meandered. His gaze continued to scan over the open space of the castle's grand entrance hall.

"Aside from Chrom and Sumia, I'm the only Shepherd." Kellam replied. "As for the castle knights, I don't know where they are. I assume they're helping with the tours to nobles, but I went to check in on regular patrols and couldn't find a soul. It's kind of creepy."

"It's not like they disappeared, right? Like the people in Ferox?" Kjelle asked, directing the question toward Robin. "We don't know who caused the Ferox event, unless it was that risen sorcerer or the mage woman. Regardless, I don't think so many knights could be killed and buried in another massive grave."

"The woman was the one to kill all of those people. I thought that was obvious." Robin said.

"Even knowing that, you still don't hate her?" Kjelle asked, then sighed. "Gods, I grow to dislike this lady more every day."

Kellam raised his eyebrows as Kjelle and Robin spoke. "Should I be concerning myself with these disappearances and this woman?"

"It's a long story. You'll find out soon." Robin said. "Anyway, disturbing though these absences may be, there are more pressing matters to attend. It's imperative that I meet with Chrom. Any idea where exactly he is?"

"We could try checking out your office." Kellam said as he steered their path toward the location. "Chrom said he would be wrapping up each of his tours there, and he should be finishing the last of them soonish. We can wait around for him to appear."

"Sounds good. Thanks, Kellam." Robin smiled.

Kjelle watched him, and found that Robin seemed genuinely happy, more so than the smiles he had shown on their journey together. That thought unnerved her. An odd unease forcing her gaze to be anywhere but his expression. She forced herself to be lost in the comforting smell of freshly baked goods for a long moment before snapping back into consciousness.

"Hey, not to play the glutton, but what's that smell?" she asked Kellam as they walked. "I'd kill for some prepared, baked, or cooked food. Travel rations and inn breakfasts aren't the greatest thing in the world."

"That'd be Sumia. She wrapped up her half of the tours earlier than Chrom, and insisted upon bringing someone from Ylisstol out here." Kellam said. "They started baking pies a little while ago. As to why, well, your guess is as good as mine."

Kjelle lost herself for another long moment to the scent of baking. "Please tell me they allow sampling. I missed so many potential bulking phases in my future because of the crap crop conditions."

"Why don't you two check out the kitchens and have your practice?" Robin suggested. "It's probably best if I catch up with Chrom on my own. I'll come find you once we've talked."

"Alright." Kellam agreed easily. "Chrom'll probably want to head out soon. You'll be accompanying us, yes?"

"Depends on how this meeting goes." Robin said. "Kjelle will definitely be going. I'd appreciate it if you could outfit her with some armour and check her weaponry. She'll be fighting in Valm alongside the Shepherds."

Kellam nodded. With a smile, he and Robin turned away from one another. Kjelle had already made significant progress toward the nearest kitchen, so Kellam jogged to catch up with her, his heavy armour clinking as he went.

"Hah, so Robin was serious about you and the time travellers joining the Shepherds." Kellam wheezed once he finally caught up to Kjelle.

"Naga, you are slow as hell." Kjelle commented at the sound of his heavy breathing.

"Not my fault, that's what knights are like." Kellam said, his breathing slowly coming under control. "What kind of gear do you use? Robin wants you outfitted for battle. I want to say cavalier, but your armour is so beaten up that I can't make assumptions."

"I'm a knight." Kjelle said, shooting him a wry smile. "I'll want to look at lances, as well some swords, axes, and tomes. I likely won't need anything more than a new set of armour, though - not a reshaping of this set. This one is special."

"Doesn't sound like any knight I've heard of." Kellam murmured. "If Robin, Chrom, or Sumia have okayed it, there isn't much that's off access to you - only personal rooms and things other people have scheduled, like baths or training grounds."

"All I want right now is food, some dueling, and some armour." Kjelle said. She came to stop outside of the kitchen doors, the succulent smells wafting out from within intoxicating her. "Do you think Queen Sumia would want to fight? Is she a good combatant?"

"She's pretty strong." Kellam nodded, though he was taken aback by Kjelle's direct demeanor. "There's no way you're going to fight her, though. No one is going to consider putting one of the most influential people in the nation in a fight against an interloper."

Kjelle spun on Kellam with a fierce frown. "The hell do you mean by that?"

"Am I to believe that you're from the future and are going to save the world? Is anyone supposed to buy a story like that?" Kellam asked. "We aren't fools. I don't know how you got here, or your purposes, but I doubt you managed to fool someone like Robin. Maybe you're so good of a fighter that he wants you in Valm regardless of your stories. All I can say is that I don't believe you."

Kjelle sighed and crossed her arms. "Yeah, I should've seen this coming. What'll it take to convince you?"

"You know of events yet to transpire, yes? Like battles in Valm?" Kellam said. "If you give me the exact information on how, where, when, and what kind of troops we have to face in the invasion, and if your predictions prove accurate to the letter, I'll believe you."

"That's going to be difficult." Kjelle admitted. "Things have changed. People have died when, battles have changed, the invasion far sooner. All I can do is prove my own merit."

"No offense, but if you don't have proof, why are you accompanying Robin?" Kellam asked. "He more than anyone wouldn't listen to nonsense. You no verification whatsoever. Why does he seem to trust you?"

"First of all, he's been accompanying me, too. It's half-and-half." Kjelle said, her arms crossing tighter. "Second of all, he believed me before anyone else, aside from Flavia. Robin believes me and trusts me because I've proven my capabilities, and because we've grown to be friends."

Kellam raised an eyebrow. "I see. Well, perhaps he's waiting for you to prove you're actually from the future and can help. That'd make more sense than anything else."

Kjelle scowled, uncrossing her arms in order to knock on the kitchen door. Kellam clearly would not be persuaded by anything less than a direct verification of her time travel. Perhaps she had been lucky that Robin had believed her.

It was almost as though he had been prepared for an eventuality as absurd time travel. He and Flavia possessed knowledge they shouldn't have been able to obtain. Such as Robin's journal and research books.

Before knocking on the door, Kjelle spun around again to face Kellam. "Do you mind if we visit the royal library after this? I came across some information about books that I would like to find. You needn't be there, but I don't know if I'll be able to navigate the library. I never went there much in my time."

"Sure. As long as you don't do anything dangerous, you can do whatever." Kellam said. "I'd still appreciate hearing the actual story of who you are and how you got Robin to trust you, though. That'd make you more trustworthy in my eyes - and I can't be fighting alongside anyone untrustworthy, since Robin seems serious about you becoming a Shepherd."

Kjelle turned back toward the kitchen door and knocked on it before replying, "I told you, Robin trusts me because I've proven myself capable. Besides, there isn't a guarantee I'll be fighting alongside you in Valm. If Robin tries to duel me, I don't know if I'll be able to beat him soundly, and one of us might end up dying. Something feels off about him right now."

"He said you would definitely be in Valm. Sounds certain to me." Kellam said. "Besides, I know Robin. He isn't about to kill you or allow himself to be killed in something as petty as a duel."

"Hey, duels aren't- huh. He did say that." Kjelle snapped before bringing her tone down to little more than a whisper. She shrugged, "He probably meant that in case he doesn't want to fight, or if I win and don't kill him, as I've done before."

The door to the kitchen swung open. Sumia's bright face appeared a moment later from within. She furrowed brow upon noticing Kjelle and, failing to notice Kellam, she stepped out into the hallway to greet the new face. Her clothes were casual, a small white apron dirtied with flour having been pulled over a muted shirt and pants. The door to the kitchen was left open, allowing more delicious scents to waft outward.

"Hello! Did you need something, miss…?" Sumia greeted Kjelle, trailing off to allow the time traveller to finish the sentence.

"I'm looking for the queen, Sumia." Kjelle said, looking past the woman before her to see if anyone less casual was inside the kitchen.

"Ah, that would be me!" Sumia smiled to her, brushing a hand on her apron before extending it warmly. "Er, sorry if I don't appear very queen-y. I wasn't expecting any more visits today."

"Ah! My apologies; I didn't mean to suggest that you weren't… queen-y." Kjelle said, raising an eyebrow at the royal she had never met. "My name is Kjelle. It's an honour to meet you, Queen Sumia." she greeted in turn, extending a hand that Sumia shook.

"'Sumia' is fine, Kjelle. It's a pleasure to meet you." Sumia smiled. "To what do I owe this - wait… by 'Kjelle', you don't mean…? Er, are you from the future?"

"I'm a time traveller, yes. Robin apparently mentioned me in some of his letters?" Kjelle said, ignoring how high Sumia's eyebrows were rising.

"Oh, you actually exist… huh." Sumia said. "I'm sorry, I kind of thought that Robin had gone a little insane. It's nice to meet you, though!"

"I should be expecting nothing else." Kjelle said. She grew more exasperated for every person that doubted her, despite such being reasonable. "Anyway, Sumia, do you want to duel? Also, can I have some of whatever you're making?"

Sumia blinked at Kjelle's forwardness. "Um, I'm not ready to fight anyone right now, but you can certainly try some pie. As long as I can ask you a few quick questions. Sound good?"

"Go ahead. I'm certain there's a lot you want to know about the future. You should know that a lot of things have changed, though." Kjelle said.

"Is Robin here with you? The two of you were travelling together, yes?" Sumia asked.

Kjelle nodded. "Yeah, he's here. He went to meet with Chrom a few moments ago."

"Awesome! I'll go check up on him as soon as I can; I really wanted to meet with him again before leaving." Sumia smiled happily. "So, what do you think of him?" she then asked, an innocent smile that reached her eyes downplaying the irregularity of her question.

"I… what? What do I think of Robin?" Kjelle asked in turn, having been unprepared for such a query. Sumia's silent smile urged her to continue. "Uh… he's alright, I suppose? I once thought he had the potential to bring ruin to the world, and didn't want to place any trust in him, but I now consider him a close friend. He's reliable, capable, and more of an upstanding person than I thought possible. I can't imagine getting through all that I have these past weeks with anyone other than him, for better or for worse."

"Okay." Sumia said simply, clapping her hands together before backing away toward the kitchen. "I was so off. I was thinking books, and tactics, and stuff, but it looks like you don't embody any of that. Thank the gods you got here before I made any big decisions!"

Kjelle furrowed her brow as Sumia continued to back away into the kitchen. Before she could ask anything, another woman appeared from within and stood behind Sumia, a pie in hand. Aside from the sharp glasses that gave her the most stereotypically smart look Kjelle could imagine, the woman was plain, boasting an aesthetic more at place in a library than a castle kitchen.

"Sumia? I've completed my progress on the pie, though I fail to see how this is to win any man's heart." the woman said, ignoring Kjelle and Kellam.

"Hahaha! Whoops, looks like you didn't see anything!" Sumia laughed awkwardly before carelessly pushing the woman back into the kitchen. She then slammed the door shut and braced herself against it, leaving Kjelle to stare at her in confusion. "I totally wasn't trying to do anything! Haha! What a silly suggestion! Why don't you come back when the pies are done, okay? Haha!"

"Sure?" Kjelle agreed hesitantly. "I'm going to the library for a minute, then the training grounds, then Robin's office. I'd love if you could bring some to me."

"Oh, ah… a-are you sure you want me to interrupt that last one?" Sumia stammered, her face turning red.

Kjelle narrowed her gaze on Sumia. "What do you mean?"

"Ah, nothing! I'll swing by as soon as I can!" Sumia said. She gave Kjelle a short wave and flung the door behind her open, retreating inside before anything more could be said.

"Um… alright, then." Kjelle said, stepping away from the door and turning toward Kellam. "Why don't we head to the library, then-" she stopped and blinked.

Kellam had disappeared. He had made no sound in the process of doing so. Kjelle whipped her gaze around in a full circle to spot of the general, but failed to locate him.

She sighed heavily before nodding to herself. Kjelle then began moving in the direction of the royal library. "Okay, I didn't need help. I can do this myself." she muttered, consoling herself.

As Kjelle quietly fumed in the direction of the library, she located the slip of paper she had long ago stolen from Robin's cloak. She had been wise enough to keep the paper in her armour at all times, tucked away within plates of metal that had yet to be destroyed.

She located the paper in a matter of seconds, only for her expression to freeze on her face. She pulled free the wet blob the paper had become, having been rendered illegible. Only now did she remember crashing into the ocean following Robin's attempt to fly them away from Mount Prism.

"Godsdamnit!" Kjelle cursed, stopping her gait to fume before she forced herself to calm. "Okay, I can remember this. Something-dash-four, right?"

Kjelle mumbled to herself in vain attempts to recall the designation as she resumed her walk to the library. If she could find those books which Robin had learned from, then Kjelle could know for certain that she was making the correct choice in trusting him. There was no guarantee these books would hold the key to her curiosities, but she would hope for such an end nonetheless.

Her footsteps then halted. She had never seen Robin's writing. Nah had uncovered that the journal, which Kjelle had assumed to have been written by Robin, was in fact from the same person as Flavia's dossiers. Kjelle had assumed the note had been written by Robin as well. If the writing of the note, journal, and dossiers were all the same, then someone other than Robin must have written them. The unknown woman was likely their author.

Kjelle cleared her mind and resumed advancing on the royal library. There would be no way to determine anything until she came across Robin's writings or encountered the woman. Regardless, Kjelle would never stop until she was certain she had found a proper answer.

She soon found her way to the library, the massive structure comprising so much of the castle that it would never be more than a few minutes away. Gardens, training fields, and other open spaces lined every step of her path, most resting on the ground one level below where she was walking. The only thing separating her from them was the ornate railing along every hallway. The Emmeryn of this time had been as fond of the greenery as that of hers.

Kjelle's passage through the library's doors was met with with a quiet hum of recognition. She jumped backward, colliding with the door as it swung shut behind her.

Kellam appeared from nowhere, his gaze narrowed. "Well, you managed to make it here unescorted. You've at least done a bit of research." he remarked.

"Naga, learn to say 'hello' and 'goodbye', will you?" Kjelle muttered. She brushed past Kellam and made her way further into the library. She purposefully knocked into his shoulder to get back at him for startling her.

"I wanted to see whether you were full of lies or not. You can't fault me for that." Kellam said, shrugging off her push and following her further into the library.

"I can, and I will." Kjelle said. She stopped and spun back to Kellam after taking only a few steps further. "I've been in this place two or three times my entire life. I know the training grounds like the back of my hand, but how the hell am I supposed to find a book in here?"

"Miriel took this place over from the royal scribes a long time ago." Kellam explained. "People come and go as they please, but she's restructured everything from how it was years ago. What are you looking for?"

"Not sure, but I think it ended in dash-four, if that's of any help." Kjelle said.

"Floor four, then. Nonfiction. You'll be able find anything in the genre, from autobiographies, to old itineraries, to historical accounts - and Robin's favourites, battle strategies - to scientific documents and encyclopedias. Miriel went to great lengths to flesh out the number of nonfiction volumes here."

"Great. Fourth floor it is. I'd there any way to narrow down where specific books are?" Kjelle asked as she set off for the central staircase.

"What's name of the book?" Kellam asked in turn as he followed after her.

Kjelle shrugged. "Hell if I know. I saw coordinates of a sort, and I knew it matched the royal library, but not where."

"Who recommends books based on coordinates?" Kellam wondered aloud as he followed Kjelle up the staircase. He remained silent from that point onward, ghosting up the stairs with so little noise that Kjelle turned around twice to ensure he had not disappeared.

As soon as Kjelle reached the fourth floor of the library, she set about pulling books from the shelves and examining their titles. Kellam raised an eyebrow as she glossed over cover after cover. His expression then grew incredulous as Kjelle began to toss books away and move on to more volumes.

"What are you doing!?" he shouted, growing flustered. He felt as though Miriel would burst into the library at any moment and chastise Kjelle.

"Looking for something that seems important. Shouldn't be too hard to find." Kjelle shrugged. "If you want to help, look for anything out of place around the hundred-dash-four mark. I don't think the book I'm looking for exceeded double digits."

"That's not the point!" Kellam said as two more books hit the ground at his feet. "Stop throwing things around! Miriel will bite my head off if she finds that any books have been damaged in her absence!"

Kjelle paused for a moment, staring at an uninteresting book on agronomy before tossing it over her shoulder. "You'd best get started, then. I don't want to spend long here. The person I got the coordinates from would be less than pleasant if they found out I was looking into this. Well, knowing them, it wouldn't be too bad, but still."

Kellam fumbled with his words for a moment, trying to form some kind of rebuttal before he sighed in defeat. "Fine. I'll look for something out of place. Please, try to be gentle with the books. Miriel will seriously get mad."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. Get to searching." Kjelle said. She continued to callously toss books away, eliciting another sigh from the general. She then slowed her process to a less harmful rate. Despite her actions, Kjelle willed no harm upon any of the books, especially not if they held an answer to the questions picking away at her mind.

Kjelle pulled apart bookcases for minutes on end. She eventually took to replacing the books in their original positions rather than throw them about the library. Kellam approached the task gingerly, grabbing a single book and carefully examining its first few pages before replacing it and taking another.

Kjelle progressed through the entirety of four bookcases before reaching end of a fifth, where a single book remained. It gave her reason to pause, and she found herself hesitant to reach for its spine.

The words on the cover of the book had been blurred to the point of illegibility. The cover seemed to have been worn down by an impossible amount of time. Something about the wear on it was unnatural.

Kjelle picked up and weighed the book in a single hand. It felt heavy, though it was slimmer than any of the obscure encyclopedias nearby. The blur on its cover was beginning to give her a headache.

She flipped it open to the first page. Before reading a single word, she closed the book and again stared at the cover, struggling to understand what she was seeing. Its form was in no way memorable. Even now, as she did her best to focus on every aspect of the casing, Kjelle couldn't be certain of any part of its make. The material felt familiar, as though it could be leather or paper, but she couldn't determine which. So too was the colour visible but unknown to her.

Another tiny pinprick of pain manifested within her mind, urging her to look away from the cover. Kjelle opened the book again, and in doing so she forgot how the cover had looked. That fact failed to concern her.

She squinted at the first page, her brow creasing as she read a few short sentences. They were in no way blurred and were entirely legible. However, they bore the same writing style as that of the dossiers and Robin's journal.

'Hey, you've found it! Congratulations!' the book read. 'It may not seem like much, but you'd best find joy in small victories. There'll be times when getting up to so much as face the day may become difficult. It's best to value every step forward you take. Please know that I'll be rooting for you the entire time.'

Kjelle knew this was the book for which she was searching. Now that she had found it, though, she was left with more questions than before.

'I understand that you're confused right now, and maybe a little afraid, too. Possibly in pain as well. That's okay. I'm here to help. Figuratively of course; I can't be there to help you yet. Someday, though. I promise.

Anyway, first things first: the confusion. I know who are and what you are, as well as who and what you aren't. You know less about yourself than I do, but that's okay. I'm here to help you. To teach you. To show you what can happen, and make sure things turn out okay. I can't explain how I know so much, but I hope to offer an explanation when the time is right.

To end the confusion, I'll have you know about a few more books: there's an anthology on the Grimleal that Miriel put on the second floor. t'll help with some other stuff I've left for you to read. It's unique, all things considered. Shouldn't be hard to find. There are several others I've taken care to place adjacent that volume, as well - read them and understand everything they contain. Some have magic, some obscure trivia, some tactics, and others are things you'd simply enjoy reading.

When you're done with those, move on to the grandmaster study. Chrom may not have granted you access to it yet, but he soon will. If he doesn't, that spells bad news for all of us. I've left a diary of sorts that held a bunch of information you can and should use, from more magic and enchantments to step-by-step strategies for the war to come.'

Kjelle narrowed her gaze further as she read the passages. If Robin had written this, he had done it in such a way that would frame another person as some mastermind behind all that had happened. She continued reading.

'Next up: the fear. I'm willing to bet you're a little spooked. Maybe not a sense of dread piling up in the bottom of your stomach, but some kind of concern, right? That feeling will get worse as you learn more, especially when you touch on that last book I left you, but that's of no consequence. So long as you don't give in to that fear, things will be okay. Trust me. I know. Again, I'll be there to help someday, I'm simply not certain when. I hope it's soon.

Last, but not least: pain. You've got a headache right now, don't you? A little pinprick in your head that makes you want to stop looking at this book? That may have faded, but I guarantee you felt something when you looked at the cover. I felt the same way the first time I did anything like this.

That pain will get worse before it gets better. I haven't given you the full means to overcome it - that's something you'll have to do on your own - but know that the pain of not understanding is worse than any physical discomfort. That's the reasoning I abided by when I went through this. I hope you think the same. Actually, I know that you will.

You're probably wondering why it hurts to look at this book. It isn't magic, and I'm not trying to hurt you; it's merely the fact that this book exists that's causing the pain. You've glanced over a few other books on your way here. Check them again. I assure you, the pain will be there, as it was when you first set eyes upon this book. They oppose one another - the existence of one refutes that of the other. The inability to grasp such a concept is what causes the pain.'

Kjelle closed the book around a single finger, using one hand to hold her place as she reached for another book. She remained skeptical of the writings despite how accurate they were proving. Any of the happenings about her could be explained by magic. If this were set up by the same person who had killed Naga, she held no doubts that a such a feat of wizardry was plausible.

She picked up one of the booka she had previously discarded - or rather, what she assumed she had discarded. True to the strange book's words, she couldn't determine its title, and focusing on the colour of the cover caused a sharp spike of pain in the forefront of her mind. After a few seconds of focusing, the title she had previously read took form once more. She was able to read it without any pain or extraneous effort.

Before she could bore herself with the once-discarded book, Kjelle set it back in its place and returned to the new book. Doing so ignited a pain within her mind, though this time it quickly faded. She cautiously brought the cover of the book into focus, finally able to read the small paragraph etched into it as a title.

'Congratulations! You're literate!'

Kjelle narrowed her eyes and frowned. She couldn't tell if the writer had intended to patronise her, but it was certainly coming across in such a way. She flipped the book open to where she had left off and resumed reading.

'Did you try it? It'll help make a lot of this make sense. Kind of. Things are going to be confusing for a long time, but looking at the other books will make things a little better. The pain will subside with time and become less noticeable from then on. If you don't come to terms with everything you come across, I can guarantee It'll terrify you. I was scared too, once.

Don't worry about anyone finding these books, or the one I left for you in the grandmaster study. The only reason you're able to see this book right now is because I informed you of its existence. So long as no one else comes across the note I left, or for so long as you don't tell them about this, no one will be able to know about anything I'm telling you. I'm placing a lot of faith in you for this, Robin. Please don't fail me. I want to trust and love you as much as any of the other Shepherds, and I truly do love them - all that I do is to save everyone that matters.

As long as you do your best, I'm certain things will turn out alright. I promise to do my absolute best, too. I'll get in touch with you as soon as I can.'

Kjelle frowned as she finished reading. She flipped the page, only to find that the book contained no more writing.

A wave of nausea pressed against Kjelle. It wasn't enough to elicit a major response, but it was sufficient for staggering her. Strange memories began to flow back into Kjelle's mind. She recalled now meeting with a woman by the name of Andrea, and tales of someone named Tracie. Kjelle shook her head and silenced her disconcerting thoughts.

Kellam was still plucking books from the shelves by the time Kjelle reached him. She waved the strange book in his line of vision, causing the Shepherd to come to a stop as he flipped through a final volume.

"I've found it." Kjelle announced, her voice less enthusiastic than she had anticipated. "It's definitely special, too. I think there's some kind of magic in place over it. It hurts to look at, and in a weird way, it's difficult to see. Regardless, I'm done here."

"At least you found it. If it were up to me, we'd still be looking." Kellam grumbled, then extended a hand to take the book from her. Kjelle shied away from his reach, though she quickly caught herself and allowed him to take the book without issue.

Kellam winced from merely looking upon the book. "Wow, you're right, that stings. What kind of spell can do that to a person? How did Miriel not notice this? You don't think it's dangerous, do you?"

Kjelle's breathing caught in her throat as Kellam began to trace his gaze over the first few lines of writing. She ripped the book away from Kellam's grip, snapping the volume shut before shifting out of his line of sight. Kellam grew more confused.

"It's best if I clear up this magic before going further. Could be a hazard, you know?" Kjelle did her best to smile innocently, as though she weren't trying to irrationally conceal information.

Kjelle knew that a Shepherd would be the last one to freak out about all that Robin has hidden, but she was nevertheless worried about potential overreactions. Should anyone prove as violent as she had originally been, Kjelle knew any action after that point would be irreversible. Robin would be incapable of proving his innocence and Kjelle would bear the guilt of having caused his downfall. She despised that idea. She couldn't fail an innocent person so horribly. So, she would bide her time and protect him.

"I'll have Robin take a look at this - hell, I might try to poke around in it on my own." Kjelle said, her false smile persisting. "Once I know it's good, I'll get back to you, okay?"

"Uh, okay?" Kellam agreed. "Why don't we get you some armour, then? If we're all done here?"

"Sounds good. Let's go." Kjelle said. Upon doing so she began to back away from Kellam toward the library stairs. Kellam eyed her quizzically, assuming from his limited experience that her behaviour was irregular.

He eventually sighed and followed after her. Kjelle held the strange book tightly in her grip as she descended to the ground level of the castle, pausing only when Kellam reached the floor soon thereafter.

"You don't mind if I get my weapons and gear from outside, right?" Kjelle asked. "I should put this book away, and I'll need my weapons to fight. Surely you know by now that I'm not going to assault anyone?"

Kellam raised a hand to his chin and hummed, only to shake his head. "No deal. You can drop the book off if you want, but I'm not letting you bring weapons anywhere close to Chrom or Sumia. You won't be using real weapons in our duel."

"What? The hell's the point of fighting if we can't use real weapons?" Kjelle said, her voice rising in indignation.

"I'm not stupid enough to let a stranger into the castle with an arsenal. Admission for that goes to Frederick, and he isn't here to okay you, so I'm not going to pretend to have his authority and clear you. If you don't kill me, he sure as hell would."

Kjelle groaned before turning to the library exit. "Fine. I'll drop this off, then meet you at the training grounds nearest the barracks - the one between them and the Shepherd living quarters. Don't make me wait."

"I'll bring the training weapons." Kellam said before moving on his way.

"You'll end up wanting a real weapon." Kjelle said. She began walking toward the exit of the library, only for Kellam to call after her.

"What about your armour? I'll be bringing a vulnerary or two, but if you fight wearing what you are now, even training weapons are going to leave some nasty bruises." he said.

"I don't care about new armour yet. It's not like I'm going to get hit anyway." Kjelle called over her shoulder before leaving. She did feel confident in her abilities regardless of Kellam's status as a Shepherd. More than anything, she wanted to prove herself, even if she had grown to acknowledge that raw strength wasn't the best way to do so.

Kellam frowned as she exited the royal library, his arms crossing over his armoured chest in disapproval. Kjelle was proving to be abrasive, not to mention considerably more hostile than he would prefer. Hopefully she would calm down after being humbled in combat.

Kjelle progressed through the castle halls until she exited their grand doors. She never once slowed her pace and never once crossed paths with a single guard. The thought that the castle was empty should have perturbed her, but she remained too focused on her pending duel and the strange book in her hands to notice.

There was something more to the book than what her reading had revealed, of that she was certain. The fact that it managed to so easily induce pain, that no one before her and Robin had noticed its existence, and that the same person who had written it had also written the journal and dossiers all caused her to consider it the most valuable evidence in her possession.

In the end, she would still have to uncover what had been destroyed in the journal before daring to pass judgement. The potential to put a rest to all of the secrets she had encountered excited Kjelle. She reassured herself with that thought of answers as she hid the new book away within one of her bags. Soon, she would be justified in her trust of Robin, or would at least affirm the path she must take.

As a final measure, Kjelle took her fire tome from the ground and placed it within her armour. Though bringing in an unsolicited weapon was underhanded and would invalidate her duel, she wanted nothing more than to have an honest fight with true weaponry.

She moved away from her bags and weapons to reenter the castle, but stopped before opening its doors. There was yet something more that drew her mind toward the book, this time as a vague memory that mired itself in forgetfulness. She had forgotten the book's colour and make before overcoming the pain it inflicted. The last time anything similar had happened, she and Noire had both forgotten what should have been rudimentary observations.

At that time, Robin had claimed that his ability to observe anything about the woman Andrea had been tied to his hidden knowledge. Kjelle's forgetfulness regarding both Andrea and the book was too similar to be a coincidence, and the fact that both connected in some way to Robin's secrets again suggested their causes were intrinsically joined. Hopefully, she would be able to uncover the answers to both in mere hours.

* * *

Chrom came to a stop in front of the castle's grandmaster study. He rested his hand warmly on the door before turning to face his companion, a regal yet unassuming man dressed in flowing green robes. This man was the last of the people to take interest in Chrom's numerous tours around the castle, which would be the final official action the Exalt would take before heading to Port Ferox.

Normally, one or several of Ylisstol's hierophants would step in to fill leadership roles in the absence of royalty, but circumstances had changed after the events of the last war. As such, nobles and military leaders were being brought in from around the halidom.

"This is the study of Robin, our grandmaster." Chrom said to the noble. "He's been gone for a while, and likely won't be staying here again until after the coming conflict, but it's his room all the same. He tends to be rather particular with his work, so I would advise against entering at any time. I haven't let Frederick or the guards mess with anything in there."

"I see, I see." the noble hummed as he played with the hem of his robes. "I must admit, I am curious as to what manner of magic and tactics this grandmaster has utilised. An enigma such as him and the unconventional way in which he entered your standing has been quite the topic of conversation. Would you oppose some harmless evaluation of his quarters?"

"Sorry, but I don't want anyone entering unless absolutely necessary." Chrom said. "The Shepherds and I trust Robin, and I hope that everyone coming here to lead in my stead will do the same. The only way I'll allow you to probe into his personal affairs is if you receive his official consent."

The nobleman frowned. "I understand. He's to make his return to Ylisstol in a matter of days, correct? I shall eagerly await his arrival. There is much I would yet learn."

Chrom smiled and clapped the noble's shoulder. "If you're interested in magic and tactics, I'm certain Robin would be more than happy to host you. I only wish he would arrive sooner, so that I too may meet with him before heading out to Ferox."

"Do you not have some weeks remaining before the Valmese fleet is set to arrive?" the noble inquired. "I recall some mention of that in your designations. Did you not delay your departure specifically to meet with your grandmaster again?"

"That was my intention, yes. That's why Sumia stayed behind as well." Chrom nodded. "However, there was a change of plan. A few nights ago, a messenger arrived with an official letter from Khan Flavia. I can't expose many of the details to those not involved in military affairs, but suffice to say our international standing with Valm has deteriorated. Intelligence was updated, and things have accelerated beyond what we anticipated."

"Ah, goodness. That is unfortunate news indeed." the noble said. "My condolences for you, Exalt Chrom, that you must go to war yet again."

"I'll be fine. The Shepherds will be at my side." Chrom waved away his concerns. "Come; it's about time for us to be on our way. There are some last minute preparations Sumia and I need to make before we can depart. Any questions about the castle and running Ylisse?"

"Erm, yes, one last question." the noble said, then pointed down the hall opposite from where they had entered. "Is that not the grandmaster Robin himself?"

Chrom turned in the direction the noble had indicated, his eyes widening as he took in the approaching figure. "Holy hells, speak of the devil! Robin!"

Robin walked over to Chrom, a large smile on his face and his eyes screwed shut in what Chrom could only interpret as happiness. The Exalt in turn ran up to his friend in joy. Robin's gait was no longer steady, having grown insecure from the building guilt and dull pain that had manifested upon catching glimpse of Chrom.

Chrom pulled Robin into a firm embrace. "Gods, Robin, it's been too long! I was afraid that we wouldn't be able to meet up again before the fighting started, and… ah, what does it matter? I'm glad you're here!"

"Ha, yeah, it's good to see you again, Chrom." Robin said. He continued to hold his eyes shut, afraid of what would happen if he were to open them. "I suppose I got here early, huh? That's good, right? Better than being late."

"Yeah, that's for sure." Chrom laughed before breaking their hug, though he remained within arm's reach. "I don't know how I would've lasted a full year without you. Now that things have worsened… I'm more glad than ever to have you at my side."

"Hold a moment." the noble said, making his existence known to Robin. "You didn't plan on having him return until you had departed, lord Chrom. You didn't know his location or his time of return. Were you planning on entering a war without your tactician!?"

"Of course not!" Chrom laughed again. "Robin's schedule placed him at Port Ferox before the first launched ships would arrive, hastened invasion or not. My presence was merely requested by Flavia when she learned that I wasn't with the Shepherds, to better address the oncoming threat in proper. Besides, she wanted me to grant Robin as much time as he needed to carry out his vacation."

"Flavia requested that?" Robin breathed, ignoring the disgruntled sigh that sounded from the nobleman. "Flavia… she isn't supposed to be…"

Robin shivered despite the warmth offered by his cloak, his mind clouding with thoughts of the likely-deceased Khan. Eventually, Robin steadied his thoughts, allowing himself to pry open his eyes to see Chrom. He was met with the same warm, pleasant smile as always, and shuddered to his very core as threats of grey pushed themselves into his mind. He hadn't yet recovered from whatever had ailed him. He failed to notice how faded the Mark of Naga on the Exalt's arm had become.

"Chrom, can we talk somewhere private?" Robin asked, failing to steady his voice as his eyes closed themselves once more. "There's some stuff I need to go over with you."

"Of course. By all means." Chrom accepted immediately, his tone growing concerned at the gravity in Robin's voice. "Why don't we duck into your study? There's bound to be privacy in there. I've made certain that no one's disturbed it since your departure."

"Thanks, Chrom." Robin smiled weakly, fighting through a wave of nausea in order to make his way to the grandmaster study. His gaze focused on any point other than Chrom as the Exalt moved to unlock the door to the study. The nobleman that had previously stood at Chrom's side stepped away from his position near the door as Chrom moved toward it, granting adequate operating space.

Chrom fumbled with one of his pockets for a moment before pulling out a set of keys, ones which Robin had never before seen. He had never been fond of the idea of outright locking his quarters, as there could at any point be a Shepherd in need of his assistance. Then again, none had required urgent aid in his year as a grandmaster. There was also no guarantee he would be able to help anyone.

The door to the grandmaster study creaked open as soon as Chrom laid his hand upon its surface, before it had been unlocked. Chrom stepped away from the room in withheld surprise. The room sat in absolute blackness. No sunlight dared to bypass the thick blue curtains drawn over each window.

Robin walked into the room, shrouding himself in the darkness offered by the place he had considered a second home. Something irked the back of his mind, and though it wasn't quite alarming, it did give him reason to be confused. Something smelled atrocious, though he was certain he hadn't left any food in the room before departing. He had always been particular about keeping his primary operating space sanitary. He had also recalled leaving his windows uncovered.

Robin paused in front of his desk, an old towel draped over one corner long ago and having rested unmoved. Robin could vaguely recall leaving it in the exact same spot moments before leaving the castle weeks ago.

"As I said, no one's touched anything since you left." Chrom smiled, stepping to lean against the doorframe and watch Robin's reverent movements. "Feel free to chew any of us out over not cleaning up. We thought that you would appreciate having your equipment remain untouched. I'll be honest, if I knew what half of this stuff was, I'd probably be a little more inclined to clean it, but I've got next to no idea about what being a grandmaster even means."

"It's fine, Chrom. Thank you." Robin said. Sure enough, every paper and pen he had left on the desk had not been moved in the slightest.

 _Does that mean I'm valuable, or useless?_ Robin silently questioned. His hand hovered over his desk as Chrom began to speak again.

"You'd be amazed how different things were with you gone." Chrom said. "Most of us had to get used to you not being around. No sparring with you, no trying your strategies, no experimenting with magic and tactics. I didn't much care for it, nor did anyone else. We've missed you, Robin. I know it's not the best thing to say considering that we're about to go to war, but I'm glad you're back."

Robin's expression broke into a weak smile. Of course Chrom thought he was valuable, that he was a close friend who could do no wrong. That was one of the reasons Chrom was always so amazing. He was the type of person who deserved to know the truth.

"Things got hectic when Cherche and Say'ri showed up and told us about Valm." Chrom continued. "I'm glad to say that both of them are now Shepherds, too. You were right to trust in them. They went with the rest of the Shepherds to Plegia. Now, all we need to do is get to the port, where everyone should be waiting - even… Khan Flavia…?"

Robin winced at the mention of the Khan, failing to notice how Chrom's voice had shifted. He was merely thankful that the Exalt hadn't noticed anything awry with his current behaviour.

"Listen, Chrom…" Robin began in uncertainty, though he knew something would have to be said. "I can't go to Valm. I'm afraid that if I do, I… I'll end up hurting-"

"Hold a moment, Robin." Chrom said, an odd commanding tone lining his words that caused Robin to look in his direction. Robin's head began to ache and his mind filled with worry at the image of Chrom's perplexed face, though that confusion was enough to make Robin follow his friend's gaze.

His eyes widened as he took in the same sight as Chrom. A barely visible set of blonde hair was in the furthest reaches of the study, directly in front of his covered windows. Fear began to course through him as he took in a woman's slender yet toned form, visible through her stylised red and white armour, and her tanned skin. She had severed the link between the Grimleal and all else, but that didn't mean she was supposed to be here. Flavia was supposed to be dead. She wasn't supposed to be standing ominously in his study.

"How did you get in here, Flavia? Also, how long have you been standing there?" Chrom asked, his confusion remaining despite the warmth in his voice. He wasn't aware that the Khan would have been likely to perish in Plegia. He didn't know that Robin had anticipated her death.

Alarms sounded in Robin's head as he numbly stood his ground. His shock was threatening to petrify him. "Flavia? How are…? No, there's no way."

"Hey, Robin. Chrom. it's been too long." Flavia said. Her voice was hoarse. She wasn't turning to face them. Robin's heart rate began to accelerate.

"Do you mind if Robin and I have a moment in private, Chrom?" Flavia asked. Her skin wasn't as tan as it used to be. The study was dark, but the light of the hall outside showed clearly the faint sickliness of her complexion. "It's been so long. I've missed you so much, Robin. I'm happy to be here with you. I'm so happy…"

"Er, uh… sure?" Chrom responded, taken aback by the Khan's unexpected presence. "I'll step out and give you two some space. Come see me when you're done, alright?" he said to both Flavia and Robin.

"Wait, Chrom! Please, don't leave." Robin called after him, bringing Chrom to a stop before his exit could be made. "Flavia isn't… she isn't supposed to be-"

"I love you, Robin." Flavia said, causing Chrom's eyebrows to shoot up his forehead as Robin took in a sharp breath. "I offered you my heart. I promised to you everything that I am, and everything I'll ever be. I was so happy when you said yes. I felt like everything could be okay, regardless of all that's happened or will happen. Loving you made it okay."

Chrom's mouth fell open as he processed Flavia's words. He knew he could be dense at times, but to miss something as massive as this between two of his closest friends was something else entirely. A blush began to creep over his face. Robin oddly appeared to be backing away from the Khan to whom he had grown so close in the past year and a half.

"Are you certain you want me present for this?" Chrom asked Robin.

Robin nodded without diverting his gave from Flavia's form. He moved hastily enough that one of his many alarm bells began to ring within Chrom's head as well. The Exalt shifted his gaze between Robin and Flavia, trying and failing to piece together each person's intentions.

"What happened in Plegia?" Robin asked cautiously. His heart continued to pound as he made his way to Chrom.

"I won." Flavia said simply, breaking into a smile as she did so. Robin could only see less than half of it from his position and that of her head, but he could tell that the expression was twisted. "It was a hard fight, but I won. There aren't any more threats to face. We can be happy now."

She turned toward Robin and a blushing Chrom. Her entire figure remained shrouded in such darkness that neither person could make out any fine details. As Robin pressed back against Chrom, he conjured a small flame above his right hand and floated it toward the Khan.

Her rueful smile was the first thing to be illuminated, her cracked lips having spread tight over her paled face. Then, the long curved scar over her throat appeared in the magical light. Ragged flaps of flesh splintered off of the site where some jagged dagger had been drawn over her skin. Her armour was aged and worn, its paint having faded, with the dozens of scores and dents lining all that she wore. Her eyes would have flashed red had they not been rendered so utterly lifeless.

Robin recoiled, his hands instinctively flying to tomes he no longer possessed. He had been correct to assume that none could survive an assault on the Grimleal.

"Good gods! What happened to you, Flavia?" Chrom asked, his voice lined with concern. "We need to have that wound looked at! Come, now! There should be some healers somewhere near the guardhouses, and vulneraries and elixirs in the medical offices!"

Flavia shook her head as she stepped toward Robin and Chrom. "Be serious here, Chrom. There's no way I can recover from this."

Chrom's jaw dropped as he came to terms with the fact that Flavia was already deceased. She was a risen, yet also communicating flawlessly. Even Robin, with his knowledge about the change that had occurred within the undead ranks, was petrified.

Robin had secretly hoped for the Khan's death. To have such a dark ambition realised was beyond sickening. It was all the reminder he needed that he could be nowhere near the Shepherds.

"I still love you, Robin." Flavia smiled as she drew her silver sword. Her voice remained hoarse. Robin could now see her flesh undulating beneath her scar, and in that moment he grew too ill to function. "You didn't hate me; you simply didn't understand. I hated you - all I wanted was for us to be happy, and I thought that you had thrown that away - but even then I couldn't stop feeling love. Now, all I can feel is that love."

Chrom began to fumble for Falchion as Flavia approached them, neither he nor Robin capable of acting in their current circumstances. Robin remained locked in place as Flavia raised her sword.

"You loved me enough to show me the truth." she said. "It still hurts, but I understand. I know why you hurt me, and why you hurt so many others. This world, these friends and families… they're as meaningless as you saw them to be. They're nothing more than worthless messes of grey."

Robin remained frozen in place as her words washed over him. Flavia somehow understood the grey.

He remained locked in place as Flavia swiped her blade down toward his head. Chrom shouted a wordless warning and leapt to pull Robin away from the attack, jolting the grandmaster free of his shock. Robin raised his arms to block the hit with a fraction of a second to spare. As Flavia's slash connected, Chrom grabbed Robin's shoulder and threw the grandmaster backward out of the study. The nobleman yelped and jumped away from Robin as the grandmaster fell to the ground.

"I wish there was a better way to do this." Flavia said, her voice unchanged in its ragged tone and pitch.

Chrom backed out of the study and slammed the door shut on Flavia. He raised Falchion as Flavia wedged her blade between the door and its frame. She pried the door open and stepped out into the full light of the castle proper.

Her complexion was ashen and damaged, and she appeared all the more sickly in full light. The nobleman gasped and tripped backward away from Flavia. Chrom glanced between him and Robin, both of them struggling to so much as stand, and readied his stance to intercept whatever move Flavia would make next.

Robin tried and failed to clear the haze clouding his mind. A sharp pain in his arm was preventing him from moving properly. He had blocked the hit from Flavia entirely, and though he felt ill at the sight of the Khan, he knew that her state was not the cause of his delirium.

He tried to stand again, placing himself on one knee and using his hands to push himself up from the ground. He collapsed partway when his right arm faltered.

Robin's movements stopped dead as his right arm came into view. His jaw dropped and the warm pain in his mind grew all the more poignant. Blood was seeping along his arm, emerging in a continuous slow stream from a deep cut that traced from his wrist to his elbow. His cloak and glove had been cut through as though they were nonexistent.

Flavia had bypassed his enchantments. She had wounded him. Robin had forgotten what genuine pain felt like, but now that it insisted upon clouding his mind, it brought him to the verge of collapse. His nerves begin to scream in agony as he stared at flow of blood leaking from his forearm.

Robin curled his arm inward, as though the feeble measure would mitigate the knowledge that his grand enchantments had failed. Flavia charged Chrom from the edge of his fading vision. Robin barely noticed the action through the tears stinging his eyes.

Chrom brought Falchion up to his side, blocking Flavia's wide swing at the cost of a deafening ring of metal. Flavia relinquished nothing to Chrom, pushing hard and knocking the Exalt to one knee. Chrom swung Falchion toward Flavia in a short arc that promised to guve him enough space to remain safe.

Flavia allowed Falchion to slam into the side of her chest. The legendary blade lodged itself in her armour to the sound of shattered bone. She swiped her sword at Chrom in another attack without flinching.

Chrom opened his mouth in silent shock at the failure of what should have been a devastating blow. His motions grew desperate as Flavia's silver sword raced toward his chest. He attempted to pry Falchion free of her breastplate, only for the sword to hold definitively in place.

Flavia's blade sliced into Chrom's side, though she was blown off her footing by a weak gust of wind before she could drive the attack home. Chrom wasted no time in pulling Falchion free of her chest and bringing it up in a single-handed defensive stance. He used his free arm to nurse the long gash on his side. Flavia staggered toward Robin, away from where the shot of magic had originated.

The nobleman stood in place with a tome in his hands, his body shaking at the sight of the undead Khan. He yelped and fumbled with his tome as Flavia took a small step toward him.

Flavia spun back toward Chrom as the Exalt swung Falchion toward. She deflected his blade skyward with a swipe of her own, then rammed her shoulder into Chrom as he staggered from the parry, pushing him against the banister at his rear. Chrom was forced into a rapid block as the Khan flicked her sword down toward his head.

Falchion grated against silver before the rest of Flavia's momentum followed through, the pommel of her blade crashing into Chrom's upper lip. The banister beneath Chrom fractured from the might of the hit. Flavia withdrew her weapon, a small amount of blood trailing after her from a newly opened gash on Chrom's face. The Exalt's movements lagged as he reeled from Flavia's attack.

Flavia turned to the quaking nobleman with an empty stare. "I'm impressed. To think that nameless nothingness would attack me, would interfere with my fight? It's a sight to behold. Were you not so worthless I'm certain there'd be Shepherds who would be glad to have known you."

The nobleman backed himself against the wall next to the grandmaster study. Robin heard a distant shout of Chrom's name from far behind him, but couldn't determine who had said it or their distance. All sound was coming across as distant.

Flavia pressed toward the nobleman, her sword darting out toward his throat. The noble attempted to conjure a weak gale to redirect her strike, but wholeheartedly failed, with Flavia's strength being far too great to be overcome by the magic of a novice.

Chrom brought Falchion down across Flavia's back, causing her to stagger and miss the noble's throat. She stabbed his chest with her blade all the same. His eyes and mouth went wide in a silent scream of pain. A light wheeze escaped his lungs as his blood began to drip down the length of Flavia's sword.

Chrom pulled Falchion away from Flavia's back, revealing a new score in her aged armour. Flavia appeared unconcerned, turning back toward Chrom and casually ripping her sword free of the nobleman's chest. The noble's body slumped to the ground, leaving a thin trail of blood on the wall behind him. His tome landed at his sprawled feet.

"Robin!" the distant voice cried out again. The blurred image of Sumia appeared in the forefront of Robin's vision, her pink armour and light brown hair being recognisable regardless of how blurred her figure had become. She had dropped a basket of baked goods on her way to him.

"Hey, Robin, are you- oh gods, your arm!" Sumia said, her eyes widening as she caught sight of the wound. Her voice continued to sound distant.

Robin failed to form a sound at her appearance. His vision then began to slip away.

"Stay with me, Robin!" Sumia shouted, her voice carrying despite the clamour of Flavia and Chrom once again crossing blades.

Sumia patted her sides in search of a vulnerary, her expression worsening when she found nothing. She cursed and left Robin on the ground, knowing she would be of no help without a staff or potion. Instead, she turned her attention toward Flavia and Chrom.

She dropped her jaw as she realised the identity of the risen combatant. "Khan Flavia!?"

Flavia pushed against Chrom, knocking him back in order to spin toward the new appearance. "Sumia!" she smiled effortlessly. "I'm happy to see you here today. As soon as you're dead, we can all be happy."

Sumia faltered before springing into action. "Chrom! Tome!" she shouted, already sprinting in Flavia's diction despite her lack of a weapon.

Chrom processed her words instantly, jumping to drive Flavia away from the open weapon. Flavia drew up her blade as Sumia darted next to her, but the blow was pushed down and held firmly in place by a heavy swing from Falchion. The undead Khan struggled to free her weapon, but failed to overcome Chrom's burst of strength, and so abandoned her sword in order to dive for the tome.

Though Sumia was by no means as capable of a spellcaster as the proper mages within the Shepherds, her regimen as a dark flier had been sufficient for teaching her spellcraft. She was not yet as capable as Cordelia, who had grown close to mastering magic on the same regimen, but she was still a threat to any foe.

Sumia grabbed the tome long before Flavia could do the same. She readied a spell to eliminate the undead Khan, only for her legs to be pushed out from underneath her as Flavia dove to where the tome had once rested. Sumia sprawled forward, dropping the tome and scrambling to reach it while simultaneously kicking back against Flavia. The Khan pulled against her legs, trying vainly to lock Sumia in place.

Chrom drove Falchion into Flavia's lower back, wasting no time on fanfare. He held the blade firmly in place as Flavia's lower body went limp. Another well-placed kick from Sumia broke her grip and allowied the queen to grab the fallen tome.

Flavia curled her body around Falchion, straining her damaged muscles and bones to reach for her dropped sword. Her expression had devolved into a primitive snarl. Her entire being was no more than a perverse rendition of the original Khan Flavia to whom the Shepherds had grown close. Sumia intercepted Flavia's useless grasping with a burst of wind, shredding fetid skin and jolting her upper body to an angle sharply misaligned from her lower half.

Flavia defied death and continued to grasp awkwardly for her blade. Chrom ripped Falchion free of her back before driving it again into her upper body. Flavia's limbs began to disintegrate into fine purple ashes, though even that failed to stop her feeble struggling.

"I won't go…" Flavia murmured, her voice crumbling alongside her body. "I don't want to leave. I was so close. If only you would die… we could be so happy…"

Sumia shot another burst of wind magic at Flavia, ending the Khan with a spray of purple ashes. She and Chrom both stood breathlessly over her dissipating corpse for a long moment before putting away their weapons and moving to check on the wounded nearest them. Sumia knelt at the side of the nobleman Flavia had stabbed as Chrom rushed to Robin's side.

"Hey, Robin? Robin? Are you alright?" Chrom asked fervently. He could spot a single wound on the grandmaster, though that undoubtedly meant that the wound was grave.

"This isn't… it can't…" Robin muttered feverishly, his mind ablaze with pain. At least his shock allowed him to look at Chrom without having his thoughts drift. "None of this should be happening. Why did I…? How did she…?"

"It's okay, Robin. We're safe now." Chrom reassured him. He rose from Robin's side, casting a glance to where Sumia was appraising the noble before focusing on the opposite hall. "I'm going to run and get some elixirs for Robin."

"Fetch some for this guy, too." Sumia responded. "I don't know how well he'll recover, but we have to try. Hurry, Chrom."

"On it." Chrom nodded before sprinting toward one of the castle's many medical offices. Robin was distraught over the departure of his friend, but at the same time felt relieved. He would be unable to hurt Chrom if the two of them were in separate sectors of the castle.

Robin blinked and focused on Sumia as she put pressure on the noble's chest. Flavia was correct in one of her assertions - it had been unusual for the noble to leap to Chrom's defense. What were the chances that he would have a tome, and would be prepared to use it against a risen Khan? The thought irked Robin. The entire situation was too convenient for his taste.

There had been something more in Flavia's words that had rung true in his mind. Did he know the noble's name? Did anyone? Robin found so little as that consideration to be terrifying.

"Sumia…" he croaked, instantly drawing her attention.

"Take it easy, Robin!" Sumia scolded him before he could say anything further. "You're wounded! Chrom will be back soon, I promise, but until then there isn't much I can do to help you. By the way, it's nice to see you again." she added as an afterthought. This hadn't been how she had intended to reconvene with one of her closest friends.

"What's his name?" Robin asked, ignoring her greeting and then feeling awful for doing so.

"Huh? I don't know. I don't think he and I have been introduced before."

Robin frowned. He was afraid to inquire any further.

Sumia's gaze lingered on the spot where Flavia's corpse had dissipated before returning to the wounded noble. "Gods, Flavia. What happened? How did this…?" she muttered beneath her breath, though it was loud enough for Robin to hear.

"She was trying to save us… to save me." he explained solemnly. "She died in Plegia, fighting to save me. She succeeded in her mission, but died as a result. I could've helped her…"

"Plegia?" Sumia repeated after him. "Why were you in Plegia? Your letters said you were headed east from the port, not south. And who or what on earth is capable of killing someone like Khan Flavia, and of then bringing her here, like this?"

"I did head west. She headed south. I could've gone with her, kept her alive…" Robin said. "That's what I should've done. I planned on her dying. I knew what was going to happen and I did nothing. I killed her."

Sumia furrowed her brow as she wrapped her mind around all that was happening. "Don't blame yourself, Robin. You couldn't have known. At least you think that she succeeded in whatever she attempted, right? That means her loss wasn't in vain."

Sumia sighed and angled her head once more toward where the Khan had been put to rest. "Do you know who did this to her, Robin? She was speaking. No other rise has done that before. How is something like that possible,"

"When Flavia went to Plegia, she-" Robin began to explain, only to cut himself off. He knew he would have to tell someone the truth, especially now that he had proven incapable of facing Chrom without the infraction of his drifting thoughts. Perhaps it would be easier to confide in Sumia than Kjelle. Perhaps both of them, as well as Chrom, deserved the truth.

Robin took a deep breath and continued, "she severed the final tie between Grima and this world." His heart felt heavier and lighter at the same time with every word he spoke. "Grima's gone. Forever. There's nothing more of them. The risen were controlled by Grima, and now some have become autonomous. Others have been destroyed entirely."

"Grima? Was that old tale about a dragon something we were supposed to be concerned about?" Sumia asked. "I get that there's a whole religion devoted to raising and worshipping the thing, but come on. It's been dead for forever."

"It could've been a threat, yeah." Robin confirmed in a low voice. "Flavia saw that, and saw how it related to me, and she wanted to put an end to anything harmful that could happen in the future. She didn't have to do this. Had I told her everything, she…"

Robin took a long, ragged breath. "Sumia, listen. I can't go to Valm. If I do, if I take part in this war, I'll hurt people. Chrom, you, everyone in the Shepherds; I can't do that. I don't want to hurt them. I can't let myself keep fighting. I need to give up."

Sumia listened intently to every word he said, wincing as his voice cracked at the end of his statement. "Robin, you need to keep pressure on that wound. You're losing the ability to think clearly. I'm not certain about what will happen in Valm, but I know that you won't hurt Chrom, or me, or anyone else in the Shepherds. Everyone trusts you with their lives for good reason. I know that you'll do your absolute best, as always. Even if your strategies aren't perfect, they're going to be some of the greatest things in the world simply because you're the one who made them."

Robin's mouth fell open as he processed what Sumia was saying. He wanted to believe her, but knew that line of thinking would harm the people for whom he cared most.

"You're my friend, Robin. It hurts me to see you in pain. Please, don't mire yourself in everything that might or has gone wrong."

Robin teetered between a sorrowful laugh and a genuine choking sob before settling for silence. Sumia's words were reassuring, and were far more hopeful than could ever gave expected. He almost believed them.

"Thanks, Sumia. That isn't exactly what-" Robin began with a heavy heart, only to cut himself short. He blinked several times as he took the image of the queen in anew.

She was wearing casual clothing. A few stains cut off at sharp angles suggested that she had recently been wearing an apron over top of her clothes. Her armour was nowhere in sight. Robin should have been able to accept that as it was, that his eyes had failed to register her appearance in his shaken state, but he knew for certain that he had seen her signature pink armour.

To think on the matter caused Robin to be more afraid than he had been in many years. His mind was avoiding the consideration that Sumia had been wearing armour and was now wearing simple clothes.

"Uh, Robin? Are you okay?" Sumia asked. "You look pale. You're keeping pressure on your arm, right?"

"Huh? Uh, yeah." Robin said weakly. His wound continued to bleed despite his words, with blood washing over his his robes. As Sumia's gaze on him grew all the more concerned, he began to fade from consciousness. His last thoughts circled back to the expedition Flavia had undertaken in Plegia. "We should sweep the castle. There's no telling… if Flavia was the only-"

"Robin? Robin!" Sumia shouted before being cut off alongside all other sound. Robin crashed limply to the ground of the castle hall as his wound continued to bleed.

* * *

Kjelle stretched her arms high above her head with a satisfying sigh. Her body was already anticipating the fight about to unfold. She would soon be able to prove her might against a Shepherd - and a fellow knight, no less. Granted, she was uncertain of what she would do with the knowledge that she was stronger than Kellam, but it would be an excellent thing to know nonetheless.

Kellam stood across from her, a dulled iron weapon in his hand. He had originally insisted upon using a harmless wooden weapon, but Kjelle had pointedly urged him toward using something less preemptively insulting of her abilities.

Their battlefield was as much a garden as it was a training field. Finely cut shrubbery and giants of trees lined every edge of the hardened earth floor. Much of that floor was also topped by grass. The training grounds boasted no roof, instead allowing for natural light to shine down unimpeded. Emmeryn had approved the design by virtue of its radiant beauty alone.

Kjelle corrected the placement of a loose piece of metal on her chest to better hide her contraband fire tome. The metal had at one point composed her chestplate. She was in dire need of a new set of armour, regardless of how she wished for her mother's protection to last until the end of time. She steeled her expression and refocused on Kellam, her tome hidden away to the best of her ability.

"You sure you don't want better armour before we do this? I'm not opposed to fighting you, but I don't want anyone to get hurt." Kellam said.

"Ha! Don't insult me!" Kjelle laughed. She had been able to hold her ground against Robin, after all. A fellow knight wouldn't be able to compare. "Come on, tin man! Show me everything you've got and watch as I crush it all!"

Kellam laughed softly as a huffing noise that barely escaped the vast confines of his silent armour. "You remind me of Sully. Here's hoping you fight half as well."

Kjelle broke into a grin, both at the thought that she was so greatly reminiscent of her mother and at the insinuation of weakness she would soon prove false. Kellam waited until she had raised her softened iron lance before he raised his weapon to meet her. Both combatants then lowered their weapons to their sides.

Each waited for the other to make the first strike in silence. Kjelle broke the quiet with a grunted shout, dashing forward and jabbing her lance toward Kellam's chest. She in no way expected the hit to harm the general or even connect; had it done so the fight would prove too disappointing to finish.

Kellam dodged to the side, though Kjelle's weapon still glanced the edge of the armour on his chest. His speed truly was a disappointment.

"Word of advice: try not to call your attacks. Be as silent as possible in combat. Your enemy won't be able to anticipate your next move." Kellam advised. Kjelle's gaze narrowed at the notion that he, in an already faltering state, would be offering advice to his opponent. "I'm not the fastest guy in the world, but even I'm able to dodge if you keep grunting like that."

Kjelle pulled her lance back to her side and then lashed out at Kellam with the brunt of her might. This time she hoped to knock the general back in a single hit and swiftly end the battle - though she also begrudgingly remembered to hold her mouth shut.

To her amazement, Kellam tanked the hit without flinching. He brought his gauntlet into the side of her body, slow enough that Kjelle could have dodged had she not staggered back from the failure of her attack. The hit winded her and almost forced her weapon from her grip. Had Kellam not moved to catch her on her other side, Kjelle would have been sent tumbling to the ground.

Kjelle coughed from the hit, her lungs failing to refill with air despite Kellam removing his hand from her side. Kellam stepped away from her, a small smile gracing his otherwise muted expression.

"I'm not weak, you know. Slow, sure, but not weak." he said. He then moved a hand to the centre of his chest. "You're not a pushover yourself, you know. I almost felt that."

Kjelle balked at Kellam, as much at his effectively untouched armour as his smug expression. She brought her own expression under control and prepared to launch again into combat.

"Why are you doing this, anyway? Really, why?" Kellam asked with a shake of his head as he too adopted a combat stance. "There's no need to fight me if I'm going to end up being your friend. There's no reason to have a non-lethal duel if you're planning to kill me. Well, unless this is a long ploy, and you're earning my trust to better betray me later."

"It isn't any of that." Kjelle dismissed his ramblings. Kellam was actually capable of being irrevocably noticeable when Kjelle would have preferred the opposite. She still found herself growing annoyed whenever a battle failed to head in her direction, regardless of how her views had been tempered by people like Lucina and Robin.

"Once, I would've fought you to determine your strength. The result would tell me whether or not you deserve to be among the Shepherds, or even deserve a secure life." Kjelle continued. "Now, however, all I want is to grow stronger. That way, I can protect everyone - the weak, others who are strong, people I love and people I've never met. I'll do everything I can to protect everyone. So please, help me get stronger."

Kellam held a faint grin at bay as he appraised Kjelle. Though he couldn't admit such a thing to someone under suspicion, he was beginning to like Kjelle regardless of her abrasive tendencies. "Alright. Let's get stronger."

Kjelle grinned and complied instantly, throwing herself forward with reckless abandon. Again, she hit Kellam with a direct hit that should have resulted in his staggering, but was met with unflinching silence. Kellam knocked her away with one of his gauntlets and shook his head.

"You did good to be quiet this time, but you still aren't hitting as effectively as you should." he said, infuriating Kjelle. "There's a lot of momentum behind your attacks, but you don't have the finesse to pull off a good strike. If your opponent has a lot of heavy armour like me, no matter how much weight you put behind your swing you'll always fall short."

The tome Kjelle had taken shifted under her damaged armour as she inadvertently brought a hand to its surface. Were she to attack Kellam with fire magic, there would be no way for him to ignore her efforts or challenge the extents of her attacks. She lowered her hand before the Shepherd could grow suspicious. Such an underhanded tactic was only to be used if Kellam refused to fight.

"Why don't you try finding a weak point in my armour or some way to throw me off balance?" Kellam suggested, maintaining his casual air.

"I know what I'm doing!" Kjelle snapped. Kellam remained unfazed. Kjelle charged forth once more, hoping to solidify whether or not her crude but trustworthy attacks could cause damage. Kellam brushed her away as easily as he had done before.

"Heed my advice. It's already clear that I have more experience than you." Kellam said.

Kjelle glowered at him, her lance held beyond tight in her grip, her knuckles whitening on the cold metal. She calmed herself before she could waste her time in another enraged charge, and instead evaluated her situation as suggested. The most Kjelle found was that she hated listening to his advice regardless of his status as a Shepherd. Furthermore, she found that she could only take the time to evaluate her situation if she were to regard it as a strategy given from Robin or Lucina.

Those two were the only people in the world to have truly defeated her. Robin had claimed victory in the first days of their meeting and practically every day since. Lucina was the only person in the world that she had so far never managed to defeat in battle. With any luck, her training in magic would provide her an unprecedented advantage.

Kjelle hid an urge to shudder at the thought that she respected Robin and Lucina due to their strength and nothing else. She had to remind herself that each was an amazing person regardless of their power. If anything, losing to them was what had forced her to accept them with or without their prowess in combat.

To win against Kellam, Kjelle knew that she had she had to be stronger than her usual self. She had to be calm and collected. She had to be like Robin and Lucina.

Kjelle forced herself to calm down to the point that she was able to prevent herself from launching toward the Kellam. There was little in his stance and less in his armour that suggested a physical way to overcome him. Kjelle could tell as much from a cursory glance, but she searched for such a weakness all the same.

After more time than what would be allotted to her on a battlefield, Kjelle found a weakness. It was a simple matter, one she had encountered many a time in her endurance training: knights and generals were top-heavy. She felt foolish for having not used that weakness against him already.

Kjelle took a deep breath, calming herself as she finished her rough plan of attack. All she had to do was apply enough force to Kellam's upper body to throw him off balance, and then the weight of his armour would turtle him. It was a simple but effective plan.

"Took you a minute." Kellam observed her newly resolved expression. "What've you thought up? Not another charge, I hope?"

Kjelle remained silent as she bent her body toward him, then dashed forward. Kellam sighed as she made her approach, readying his lance to bar her path with little interest.

Then, in the final moments before she was set to crash into Kellam, Kjelle jumped. Her armour, though light and scarce, still prevented her from moving high off the ground.

Kellam's expression remained unchanged as he absorbed her hit, to the point that Kjelle believed she had failed as she slammed into the general's upper body. She then fell back to the ground in front of him, twisting to hit her shoulder rather than her back. Kellam teetered on the heels of his boots before planting himself firmly on the ground.

"Is that the best you could do? After that long of trying to think up a solution?" Kellam asked. "Wow. I'm disappointed."

"What would you've done, then!?" Kjelle asked indignantly, prepared to defend her plan at the drop of a hat.

"I'd have used the tome you're trying so hard to conceal." Kellam said calmly. "I appreciate that you haven't, though. It'd be unsportsmanlike, to say the least."

Kjelle frowned and trained her lance on Kellam yet again. "Using that was to be a last resort, one I'd only use if you refused to fight. I'm not going to start cheating by whipping magic out from nowhere."

"Good on you. Not the smartest move, but a good one." Kellam said. "An opponent in a real battle wouldn't give you the chance to evaluate yourself like this, though. It'd be best to eliminate them as soon as possible, even if you end up doing something dishonourable. To an extent. Our enemies are typically human, too, and deserve to be treated as such."

"Yeah, no shit, genius. I'll do what it takes to win - especially against risen - but I'm not going to sacrifice my honour as a knight to do so." Kjelle spat. "I'm stronger than you could hope to be! I'll defeat you and prove as much! Come at me!"

Kellam shrugged. "Okay. You have the will to try to fight, I suppose? It's okay if you want to use magic, though. I've never seen a knight be able to pull that off very well, but maybe you'll be different. You shouldn't put yourself at a disadvantage by not using it when you're so clearly outmatched."

"Like hell I'm outmatched!" Kjelle roared at him, barely restraining herself from launching another ineffective charge. "You'll see! I'll crush you into nothing!"

"If you say so." Kellam shrugged again, doing nothing to defuse her unkempt anger. "What I was hoping you would see was that my armour is weak around the joints." he said, flexing to show off the gaps between his interwoven plates of metal. "If you target that weaker space, even a dull weapon could deal heavy damage. You have the strength to pull it off, you simply need the finesse to land the hit and get away without getting countered, something you've failed to do."

"Shut up and fight!" Kjelle shouted. She aimed her lance at the weaker mail mesh on his knees and felt all the more a fool for not having targeted the area sooner.

"Okay." Kellam shrugged a third time, infuriating her further. He then rammed his lance down into the ground, embedding it in the soft earth and causing Kjelle to grow confused. She resolved that Kellam was taunting her, and embraced the intended ramifications in full, intentionally becoming all the more enraged. Kellam held his arms at waist height, preparing for another charge, and held in place.

Kjelle glared at Kellam for a long moment. She tried to find a way to counter him without relying on the tactic he had detailed, but found for herself no better recourse. Though she was wary of the way Kellam was now posing, she persisted in her vain attempts to overcome him.

As soon as Kjelle neared him, Kellam moved one of his hands to grip her shoulder, ignoring her attempt to push through the grab with his raw might. Kjelle ground to a halt in front of Kellam, her held arm unusable and her free arm as ineffective as always against Kellam's fortifications.

Kellam planted his other hand on her opposite hip. The general lifted her high into the air above his head, eliminating any slim chances that remained for her to counter.

Kjelle flailed in the air, reaching for Kellam's head as though she would be capable of forcing her release. Damaged metal slid over Kellam's face as she scrambled for grip, but Kellam shifted his stance and lifted her higher, nullifying her attempts to break free.

"This is more what you wanted, right?" Kellam huffed.

In a sense, it was. Kjelle had always sought ways to better herself, to defy any odds to overcome any challenge and prove to the world her power. She should have seen her situation as a means of bettering herself, but in truth she hated when victory failed to arrive with ease. Her strength and honour should be enough to allow her to overcome any trial, for her victory was inevitable and would occur without fail. Anything else was tantamount to losing, the ultimate form of failure.

Now, Kjelle was being challenged, as had happened with Lucina and then later with Robin. And she was hating it more than ever.

She felt powerless, flailing around without the ability to right herself. Powerlessness was as despicable as losing. All she wanted was to win.

"Let go of me!" Kjelle shouted to no avail. Kellam kept her in place without faltering. As she continued to flail, Kjelle dropped her lance to the ground and reached for her tome, now willing to sacrifice the honour of their duel to rid herself of the feeling of weakness. Kellam had already advised her to do so anyway. It was as though she were realising his greatest expectations, not defiling them.

Kellam began to tilt her forward st a steadily increasing velocity. Once she passed his head, Kjelle realised she was being thrown down to the ground, and in the final moments preluding her collision she hastened her efforts to cast magic.

Her right hand found its way to Kellam's face, the ragged remains of her gauntlet rubbing against his flesh before smoldering with the flames of a weak spell. She could charge nothing stronger in such short time, but not for fault of trying.

Kjelle slammed into the ground as her spell released, her hand slipping away from Kellam's face as she grunted with the hard landing. She fired off her spell anyway. Flames erupted into Kellam's face, engulfing it and causing him to reel backward with a muffled shout. Kjelle could not determine whether the sound had been made out of pain or surprise. She didn't much care. All that mattered was her claiming victory. All else could wait.

Kellam brought a hand to his face as the last of the embers of fire magic dissipated, his head shaking from side to side. He continued to stumble backward without the magic in effect, his breaths seething forth from sealed lips. Kjelle stood and began walking quietly toward him. She forewent retrieving her lance in favour of preparing another spell.

A low whistle from one of the many side paths lining the training grounds caused her to freeze in her tracks. Kellam lowered his hand from his face and began arcing his head to search for the source of the noise. Much to Kjelle's surprise, he appeared to be undamaged from her magical strike, with any singeing of his skin and hair being superficial.

The thought crossed Kjelle's mind that Kellam may have been baiting her. That infuriated her, though that sentiment was soon replaced by a wave of relief. She had no idea how far she would have been willing to go to win their fight.

"Wow. Slow clap." a deep, familiar voice sounded from the same direction as the whistle. "I'd've never expected you to learn magic, kid. Or to use it against a Shepherd like that. You weren't gonna stop, were you?"

Kjelle's blood ran cold at the notion, mostly from how she could not deny its merit. She trained her gaze and right hand in the direction of the voice, fully willing to vent her denial in their direction. "Who's there? ...And did you say 'slow clap'?"

"Khan Basilio?" Kellam asked, craning his head to better hear the voice. "What're you doing all the way out here?"

"Yeah, it's me." the voice said, a hand then tapping against stone to give away their position. Kellam and Kjelle both turned toward the direction of the Khan, though he remained too distant to see. "Sorry for the intrusion. There's some business I have to finish here before I can move on."

"You're alive?" Kjelle breathed in disbelief. "Robin and I were both so certain that… no, actually, that makes sense. You won in Plegia, didn't you? You severed the ties to Grima. That made the risen change and caused Robin to pass out."

Kellam arced an eyebrow at Kjelle, though he remained silent. The insinuation that Robin held some manner of tie to Grima was curious, but it was the less pressing of the matters presented.

"Plegia? Not this time." Basilio shook his head. "I've only left Valm recently. There's still a mission to finish."

"You went to Valm?" Kjelle inquired before Kellam could do the same, both being confused by the statement. "How is it possible to get back so fast? Besides, I was certain you had left for Plegia back at the port."

"Nope." Basilio said. "Actually, maybe. I've got a splitting headache right now. I can barely remember a goddamn thing."

Kjelle's brow furrowed. Something about Basilio was alarming her in some instinctive way. Perhaps it was because she couldn't see him. Perhaps it was because his voice sounded strained. Kjelle hoped she was being unnecessarily wary, but everything about her situation called for her to be cautious.

"Could you step forward, Basilio?" she asked with that same sense of caution. "Something about all of this isn't sitting right with me."

"Hm? Ah, right. I suppose things have changed a lot since I last saw you." Basilio said. The sounds of movement echoed forth a few moments later. "Hell, I'm surprised you remember my name. You've grown a lot."

Neither Kjelle nor Kellam managed to form a reply. Both of them were dumbstruck by the sight of the Khan as he stepped into their view. His once dark skin had been stained an awful grey, his sickly hue visible in the dappled sunlight the of the training ground. Aside from dozens of deep interwoven scars, his eyepatch was the only thing he wore on his upper body. Scorch marks lined where his facial hair had once rested. The entirety of his right arm had been severed from his torso below his shoulder.

"I'm not looking to hot, am I?" Basilio laughed. "Don't get me wrong; I can't feel the cuts and bruises, or the arm. It's my damn head. It won't stop hurting. I can't get it to shut up."

"Khan Basilio, you… you're a risen." Kjelle said in stupefied disbelief. "I thought you won. How did this happen?"

"What? You think I'm one of those freaks? Ha!" Basilio snorted. "Trust me, Kjelle, I'm as me as I ever was. I'm hurt, yeah, but I'm still me. Once I'm done here, I can be okay again. We can all be okay."

"Good gods, what the hell happened…?" Kellam asked as he took a short step away from the undead Khan. "Basilio… how are you speaking? What happened to you? How are you here right now?"

"All good questions, but I can't answer them. Sorry." Basilio shrugged. "All I know is that I have to finish my mission, and then things can be okay. We won't have to fear death. We won't have to fight any more wars we don't want to wage. Everything will be perfect."

Kjelle wavered between training her weapons on Basilio and setting them aside. Never before had she been placed into a situation similar to this. Was she to exterminate Basilio as though he were any other risen, regardless of the fact that he appeared to be cognisant?

"You know, looking at you now, Kjelle… it makes my head hurt more. It's like someone's tearing out chunks of my skull and throwing them around inside." Basilio said. "It hurts so much. I want it to stop. I don't… I don't think I'm supposed to see you right now. You're making it hurt so much more."

"Basilio, the risen have changed. They've started acting intelligent." Kjelle said as soothingly as she could. "You're one of those risen, Basilio. You might end up hurting people, as all risen do. I have to kill you."

"Ah. I see how it is." Basilio nodded. His remaining arm reached behind his back and returned with an obscenely sharp silver axe. "You've gotta die too, I suppose. All of you. It's to save everyone, I get that, but I'm going to enjoy this. I don't hate you, but I don't want to look at you anymore. This'll make the pain in my head stop. It has to!"

"Is this what risen are thinking all the time?" Kellam wondered aloud. "Why is this happening? How is this happening?"

"Ha! I may as well end you, too, Kellam. You're starting to sound like as much if a pain as her!" Basilio roared in laughter.

"We need to kill him." Kjelle said with all of her confidence, though her voice had begun to waver. The prospect of an ally becoming a risen had been at the forefront of her mind since the demise of her time, but to be confronted with such an eventuality was beyond disconcerting. "We can't let him hurt anyone. We have to do this."

"How are you so calm?" Kellam stammered to her, his voice fracturing. "For the love of the gods, he's speaking to us! There's still some part of him that isn't a risen!"

Kjelle winced at his words but trained her hand on Basilio all the same. "You heard him as well as I did, Kellam. Kill or be killed. I wish this weren't the case, but something changed in him when he became a risen. He's not Basilio anymore. Not really."

"You're wrong!" Basilio shouted with an intensity that caused Kellam to flinch and almost made Kjelle do the same. "Your minds are clouded, your thoughts plagued. I'm me! My mind is- gah!" he stopped himself short and bent forward, his remaining eye squeezed shut in pain. When his gaze snapped back up to Kjelle and only Kjelle, his eye was burning with an unmistakable yet unknowable fury.

"Why has this happened? Why couldn't you have died with all the rest and left the world to rot!?" Basilio spouted, his voice devolving into a shout.

Kjelle began charging her magic as she locked her gaze on her new opponent. "You've stopped making sense, Basilio. You're a risen. I'll stop you from hurting anyone - I promise." she said, knowing that the tremors in her voice were worsening.

Basilio's mouth twitched down into a vicious snarl as he leapt toward Kjelle. He was upon her in a flash, striking down with his axe and forcing her to abandon her spell as she kicked away from the swing. Several smaller attacks followed, each cutting air or nicking her ragged armour. Kjelle was amazed that she was dodging the attacks of someone like Basilio, regardless of how strong she knew herself to be. Remembering that he was fighting with a single arm dampened that sense of pride.

Whether he was ignoring or had forgotten Kellam was unknown, but either way, the general was able to flank the Khan without. As Basilio struck out again toward Kjelle, he charged into the undead man's side, barreling into him with all the force a full suit of armour could hold. Both men crashed to the ground in a spray of dirt.

Kjelle quickly adapted to the assist, charging her spell again in an instant. She knew her magic and Basilio's axe would be the only proper weapons in the area. Kellam and the Khan scrambled about on the ground in equivocal attempts to subdue the other. Occasional flashes of metal denoted futile axe swings as Basilio struggled to hit anything with his one-handed grip.

A distinct glow of red within Kjelle's hand indicated to her that her spell was prepared. "Kellam! Move!" she ordered.

Kellam swiftly complied, pushing himself off of Basilio to scramble backward. Basilio fixed his grip on his axe as he stood, his focus now locked on Kellam.

Kjelle fired her magic, aiming for and hitting Basilio squarely in the back. Basilio stumbled form the hit, a small cloud of purple washing away from his exposed skin alongside the embers of the fire. Aside from his superficial damage Basilio remained unharmed. Kjelle rapidly fired off another shot and was met with a similar result.

Basilio shrugged off another shot, turned to Kjelle, and charged at his assailant. Kjelle persisted in firing off another shot before she was forced to dive aside to avoid his charge.

Basilio spun on one heel to track her dodge, coming to a stop in an instant despite his incredible momentum. He lashed out with his axe again, clipping her unprotected side with the tip of the weapon's head, though he drew little more from her than a sharp intake of breath.

Kjelle brought a hand to her side to cover the wound as she backpedaled away from Basilio's attacks. Each subsequent strike missed her completely. The margin of safety she had to dodge narrowed with every swing.

Kellam charged into Basilio again, this time emitting a wordless shout and keeping his hands clenched around the hilt of his practice lance. He drove the blunt weapon through the soft flesh of Basilio's thigh and into the ground below, shocking Kjelle with the extent of his might.

Though he had sustained significant damage, Basilio struggled to pry his aggravation away from Kjelle. Something about her urged Basilio to end her life. He wished with all of his heart for the woman before him to suffer and die.

Kellam backed away from Basilio as he assessed the damage he had dealt. While Basilio struggled to pry himself free of the lance, Kellam turned to Kjelle, content that his attack had stalled the undead Khan for long enough to speak.

"Can you kill him with your magic?" Kellam asked. "No offense, but your spells don't seem to be the strongest in the world. If you can't, then you need to keep him occupied while I make a run for barracks."

"Save your breath. My magic is more than enough to fell a risen." Kjelle said, her hand glowing in the initial stages of another spell. In truth, she was uncertain of her ability to kill the Khan. That doubt would in no way stop her from trying.

She shot another, more powerful burst of flames at Basilio, hoping to accentuate her words with his annihilation. The hit staggered but failed to cause any significant damage to the Khan. Basilio freed himself from Kellam's pance in short order and renewed his sights on her.

"You may want to grab those weapons. Just in case." Kjelle said to Kellam out of the corner of her mouth.

"Got it. Try to stay safe until I return; the barracks are nearby, but it'll take me a minute to get there." Kellam said.

A faint smile replaced the snarl Basilio had worn up to that point. "Why don't you let Kjelle go? She's faster than you, and that way she won't be at risk of getting herself killed." he said. His grin grew predatory as he focused the expression on Kjelle. "Like old times, eh? It's not like you've changed since then. You're as much of a coward as ever."

Confusion grew on Kellam's face. Anything he could say or do was halted by an abrupt rise of indignation from Kjelle. "What!? What the hell are you saying!? I would never abandon someone to face the risen! I wouldn't let them die…!"

"Tell yourself that all you want. It won't change the past." Basilio said, his smile lowering into a frown. "You had potential, Kjelle. Once. Now when I look at you, I know that you're nothing but a sorry waste. You're pathetic. Your ambitions… a knight of chivalry, stronger than any man, one of the most powerful people imaginable. What happened?"

Kjelle faltered as Basilio spoke. Everything he said cut deep. She strengthened her resolve and cleared her mind, focusing her faculties now solely upon fighting him.

"He's right, you know." Kellam said, earning himself a sharp glare. "Er, not about whatever those insults were. It'd be faster for you to reach the barracks. I swear, though, if you turn out to be some sorcerer that's set this entire thing up to kill me, I'll… haunt you. Or something. Don't you dare think that I won't." He hesitated for a moment as he located the massive set of keys to the castle within his armour, before acquiescing to his thoughts and tossing her the keychain.

"What? No, there's no way I'd leave anyone to fight alone! I'm not that kind of person!" Kjelle shouted, swatting away his keys with her hand. "Come on! We can end this, here and now!"

"Consider this an order, not a request!" Kellam shouted in turn. "Go get a weapon and end this, Kjelle. It's not like I'll die in the time you're gone - my armour will be more than enough to handle him."

"You should go, Kjelle. That way at least one of you will live." Basilio encouraged, his expression unreadable. He advanced on Kjelle as he spoke, though she remained unaware of his progression as she struggled to form a course of action. "Wouldn't it be awful if you made it all this way, let your father die and abandoned so many more to a similar fate, only to lose here? Why not leave and get stronger, like you always pretended you would?"

"I-I… no! I'm not leaving! I'll never run-!" Kjelle began to shout, only to be cut off when Basilio rushed her with his axe raised. Their exchanged words stalled her long enough for him to be upon her.

Basilio's axe slammed into Kjelle's chest. The weapon carved into the side of her chest, eliminating the little flimsy armour that stood in its way, and struck her down with all of the force the Khan's arm could muster.

As soon as she hit the ground, Kjelle could tell that the hit had nearly claimed her life. Blood poured forth from her wound, something other than her armour had broken, her vision was beginning to fade; so little as breathing was proving difficult. The unmatched pain clouding her mind prevented her from screaming. Worse than that was the feeling of slipping away. She could barely see and could feel nothing. No ground underneath her. No blood. No fractures. No cold. Nothing.

Kellam had no time to gawk at the extraordinary damage dealt to Kjelle before he was forced to charge Basilio. The Khan began another attack as soon as his first connected, pulling his axe away from Kjelle's body and raising it to make a decisive blow on her fallen form.

Basilio wasted no time relishing in his attack. His axe descended at a blinding speed. Kellam slammed into his body at the last moment, the axe being pulled with the two as they tripped over Kjelle and crashed to the ground a metre away from her. A familiar wrestle for the weapon resumed as Kjelle watched on in helpless silence, unable to provide any assistance whatsoever.

While she watched the two struggle against one another, Kjelle's claim to consciousness grew weak. She could barely distinguish between Kellam's colourful orange armour and the pale sickliness of Basilio. It became harder still to comprehend the shape of Basilio raising his axe with before arcing it down into Kellam's crossed arms. For an instant, she wanted to gasp and shout at the nearly lethal attack she had witnessed, but she couldn't bring herself to make noise.

Kjelle sincerely believed that she had made the correct call in staying to fight, regardless of her current state. She had proven that she had the will to stand and fight against anything, even if doing so was in no way the safest or wisest decision. That was more than enough to justify her actions to herself.

As she drifted further out of consciousness, Kjelle insisted to herself that she had made the right decision. She had corrected the most significant wrong of her past. There was no reason to fear the nothingness washing over her, though she was terrified of that lack of sensation all the same.

It was not as though she would die here, after all. She refused to consider that possibility. There remained the mystery concerning Robin and the woman, as well as a future to save. Kjelle couldn't die. All she had to do was take a moment to sleep, and then she would wake and be as prepared as ever to face endless hordes of enemies, to grow stronger and save everyone. There was no reason to be afraid. She would fall asleep and wake up in a few short minutes.

Kellam deflected another attack from Basilio, then pushed the Khan back and freed the axe from his grip in retaliation. He snatched the weapon up before Basilio could do the same and propelled himself away from the Khan. Basilio snarled again, his gaze flitting between Kellam and the profusely bleeding Kjelle.

Before Basilio could make any move to target either Kjelle or the threatening Shepherd awaiting his advance, Kellam dashed forward and swung his stolen axe with all of his might. The axe sliced deep into Basilio's shoulder above his remaining arm as he failed to sidestep the attack, his attention having been split too far.

The undead Khan collapsed to the ground, the axe embedding itself in his shoulder. Kellam waited for Basilio's body to dissipate into ash, but when no such thing occurred he resolved that the changes to the risen had been greater than he had assumed. He left the corpse on the ground believing that it would no longer disappear.

Kjelle had fallen out of consciousness by the time Kellam knelt at her side. The general pulled a vulnerary form his armour, thankful that he had prepared for any eventuality, and poured the healing liquid over the wound on her chest. The wound refused to seal after consuming the entire bottle. Kellam cursed and attempted to rouse Kjelle.

"Hey, Kjelle? Kjelle!" he lightly slapped her face, earning only a weak murmur and a pained but unresponsive expression in response. "Wake up, Kjelle! You either get up now or you die!" Kellam said, his voice fluctuating into and out of certainty as he considered how to address her condition.

Kjelle failed to wake, but Kellam was confident she was clinging to life. He cursed and set his sights down one of the many halls lining the training grounds. "There's a clerical room nearby. There has to be. I'll grab you some potions and get back here as soon as possible. Don't die in the meantime, alright?" he muttered, aware that she would be unable to hear his words. He then took off toward the nearest medical office as fast as his heavy armour permitted, leaving her alone on the ground.

After a few moments of peaceful silence, Kjelle began to stir. Her eyes cracked open once more, her mind sluggishly coming to realise that she was awake and no longer in the process of slipping away. The thought that she had been so close to and so willing to accept death startled her, but that shock was nowhere near enough to make her start moving. Instead, she lay flat on the ground, her gaze aimed at the unmoving corpse of Basilio as she struggled to process what had happened over the past few minutes.

She had been hit by Basilio - hard. That much she could recall without issue. Then, her wound had debilitated her, bringing her to the ground and forcing her into unconsciousness. Her unimpaired memories stopped there.

One of her hands drifted down to her chest, where her wound had been carved into her body. As soon as she touched her clothing, she could feel blood staining her hand. The fact that she could feel such a sensation was more a relief than a concern. Her hand fell to the ground as she gave up on attempting to soothe her wound, leaving her again to stare at Basilio. Who had yet to dissipate.

Kjelle's mind screamed a silent warning to her about the Khan. Changed risen died the same as unchanged. That warning caused her to wince, any and all thought or action being as of yet beyond her weakened capabilities.

After several moments of her mind continuing to scream its warning, Kjelle accepted what her eyes were telling her and tried to shift her body away from Basilio. Every action either failed outright or succeeded in the most painful of ways imaginable. Her body lacked the ability to edge itself across the ground. She regained enough feeling in one arm to pull herself away from Basilio's body, though little more than her arm was capable of being moved.

Kjelle soon set her eyes upon her tome. There was the distinct possibility that she would be incapable of casting magic in her state, but having at least the illusion of protection would be better than nothing.

As if on cue, Basilio began to stir. Kjelle could clearly distinguish his form rising to an unsteady stand, the silver axe remaining embedded in his shoulder. He took a few stumbling steps toward Kjelle as she continued to crawl toward her tome, her movements becoming all the more frantic as he approached.

Basilio stumbled to her side before stopping and taking several ragged breaths. "You know, I think I may- know, I think I may be dying now." he said, his voice as ragged as his breathing. To Kjelle's ears, it sounded artificial, as though Basilio were stuttering through a sheet of metal.

"I suppose there isn't anything wrong with- anything wrong with that, though." Basilio continued. "The closer I get to death, the-the-the less my head feels like it's going to kill me. The more I can see what's happening. I am a risen, and it's-it's-it's time for me to- am a risen, and it's time for me to go. I'll show you, too. I'll save you- time for me to go. I'll show you, too. I'll save you."

An instant before he could kneel at her side, Kjelle grabbed her fire tome off of the ground. She could do little more than grip the book, yet still she aligned her working hand and tome with the Khan at her side to best cast her magic.

Basilio placed his hand on her wrist and lowered it, along with the tome, to the ground. His grip was tight, not to mention much too cold and clammy to be considered anything but repulsive.

"I think I understand- I understand now." Basilio said, maintaining an uncomfortable amount of pressure on Kjelle's hand as she failed to pry herself free. "There's two parts to my head. One hates you, but wants to save you. The other doesn't hate you, but-but wants you to- but wants you to die anyway. They're in conflict."

He fell silent for a long moment before his face contorted into an unsettling smile. "I like the second one. No more saving. It's time for everything to end."

His hand moved from Kjelle's wrist to her throat, where he squeezed with greater force. Kjelle gasped and choked as her body began to realise what was happening. Her mind searched desperately for a means of escape.

As Basilio's fingers wrapped ever tighter around her throat, Kjelle saw the axe embedded in his body, from which purple ashes had begun to sprinkle forth. Were he truly on the brink of death, the weapon's removal may be capable of killing him, provided that risen could lose ashes in a similar sense to how the living lose blood.

Basilio's thumb pressed down into the soft space her collarbone, closing the flow of air to her lungs. Kjelle could no longer sputter for air, or make any noise above a low, strained gurgle. She devoted all of her energy toward creating another spell with the tome in her grip.

The pressure on her throat worsened. Basilio never altered his grip aside from increasing the force he applied. Kjelle's grip on the tome loosened as she struggled to remain conscious. No magic manifested in her hands.

The world began to disappear from Kjelle again, this time in a haze of black and brown spots. Kjelle's body and mind screamed in agony, though that sensation too was beginning to fade. The sounds of her own choking failed to reach her ears.

Then, there was nothing. Not in the sense of death, as her mind had been subconsciously preparing her, but rather as no pressure or lack of air. Kjelle could no longer see properly, and her throat remained tight, but she knew that Basilio's grip was no longer assaulting her. The Khan had been removed from her presence.

Faint sounds that should have been loud barged into the small conscious part of Kjelle's mind. Her vision remained obscure, but she could detect movement next to her. Waves of cold washed over her skin, from one direction and then another which she couldn't bring herself to distinguish. With the clatter of an axe and more silence she knew that Basilio had been killed.

More faint sounds. Movement next to her. Someone knelt at her side and touched her shoulder, then throat - not with force as Basilio had done, but with evaluative care. Shouts. Kjelle could understand some of them this time around.

"-can't move her until we know-! -get some elixirs and-!" the voice cut into and out of existence. Kjelle recognised it, but could not place its owner.

"Got it!" another voice cut in, further and quieter than the first yet somehow more easily registered. Kjelle was able to place the newest voice as being that of Chrom, though she had rarely interacted with the legendary Exalt in her own time. More sounds heralded some kind of movement.

"That should've been my kill…" Kjelle choked out, the action making it all the harder for her to breathe. Her senses had slipped too far for her to know how the person at her side was responding. "I could've handled that…"

Her senses then once again cut themselves off from any and all stimulus, pulling Kjelle into unconsciousness. She could not sense Sumia at her side attempting to rouse her, be it as her touch or her frantic shouts.

* * *

 **This chapter was honestly way too large when I started editing. It was big enough that it lagged my phone when I tried to delete a paragraph, and I had to close out of docs to stop it.**

 **Basilio's speech was supposed to be more jagged, but it got annoying to read and kind of lost its effectiveness, so I toned it back a little. I had also originally made it to be** **like** **Grima's speech pattern at the end of the game (LiKe THiS) but decided that was also less effective. It would have been a better way to tie into the game itself, but I was in no way a fan of how it looked in paragraph and sentence form.**

 **Status: As of 16-05-19, I'm on chapter 36. That's because this chapter was in fact split into two because it was so massive, meaning subsequent chapters have all been bumped up by one placement. That second part of this chapter will be out in about five days. Hopefully.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	28. Chapter 28

Kjelle awoke at a time she was unable to place. Darkness surrounded her, but it felt warm. She lay in place for many long minutes before deciding that she should do something more than nothing.

She attempted to bring a hand to her head to remove the wet cloth that had for some reason been placed over her eyes, which her returning senses allowed her to feel. A blanket was covering her body up to her neck, and she struggled to snake her arm out from underneath. She rubbed her throat gently, verifying that it had been healed, and then removed the damp towel covering her face.

The room Kjelle was in was bathed in darkness, though a few torches provided a welcome amount of light. Well kept beds occupied much of the floor, which itself was spacious, though none but hers were occupied. Two had been recently disturbed. No one else was present in the room with her.

Kjelle sat up and swung her legs out from under her blanket, preemptively wincing in anticipation of a pain that never arrived. Healing potions and staves were more commonplace in this time than hers, a fact of which she had to constantly remind herself regardless of how often she needed to heal. She pulled the blanket free of her body and pushed herself off of the bed to a stand.

Someone had changed her clothes into what looked like another woman's spare outfit. She frowned at the loss of what little armour had remained at the time of her arrival, but quickly managed to find her gear alongside all of her other equipment near the exit of the room. Next to her armour and bags was a supply of vulneraries and medical equipment stacked on several shelves and counters, clarifying her location as being within one of the castle's medical wards.

A significant amount of blood had been spilled on the floor next to the exit door. As Kjelle's eyes adjusted to the low light of the room she was able to see that the blood led to each of the beds that had been used. She moved a hand to her chest, expecting to feel a scar from where Basilio had attacked her, but found nothing. The wound had been fully healed and cleaned before her change of clothes had been applied.

Once she had equipped her scraps of armour, Kjelle opened the door to the infirmary and stepped out into the halls of the castle. The torchlight in the hall was stronger than that of the medical ward, blinding her for a short moment before her eyes acclimated. Windows across from her signified in their darkness the fall of night.

Kjelle was able to place her location as being at the infirmary between the barracks and Shepherd quarters. She had spent many a night recovering from extraneous training in her time's version of this room.

Kjelle ran the circumstances of the fight against Basilio through her mind again, visualising all of the possible ways she could have claimed victory at any given point. She knew she was lying in claiming that she could have emerged victorious. In the end, as much as she wished to blame anything but herself, she knew that fault for the loss rested with her. She simply did not wish to accept that notion.

"Ah, you're awake!" a voice sounded down the hall, near enough that Kjelle almost jumped. "My name is Chrom, though I suppose you would already know that." Chrom introduced himself as Kjelke turned to face him. "I was coming by to check your status and fetch Kellam before heading out. I trust that you're faring well, all things considered?" he stopped a short distance from her. The Exalt was wearing impressive armour, a set which Kjelle may have expressed jealousy over were the armour of a knight not superior - practically half of Chrom's body was exposed to attack.

"Yeah, I think I'm doing alright." Kjelle said, a spell of lightheadedness marring her speech before passing. "I'm Kjelle, by the way, in case you didn't know. Thanks for helping me, I guess. Not that I needed it. Do you know what happened here? Khan Basilio, he…"

Chrom nodded solemnly, not needing for her to finish. "I saw. Robin has informed me of the endeavours the Khand underwent in Plegia, and their ramifications. We encountered Flavia ourselves a few hours ago. She didn't fare well either."

"Oh." Kjelle said simply. "I suppose I've failed, then. We wanted to save everyone, but both Basilio and Flavia are dead, in addition to so many others. Damn it! I should've… I was supposed to be able to-"

"There's nothing we can do now but mourn their loss and continue on in their vision." Chrom advised, retaining his somber air. He gave Kjelle a moment to process his statement, which she refused to do, as he gathered his thoughts. "Sumia, Kellam, and I are to leave for Port Ferox tonight, within the hour. I don't know if you'd like to accompany us or remain here a while longer with Robin. I'd recommend the latter. You'll need armour if you're to face Valm alongside us."

Kjelle blinked, this time processing his words. "Robin isn't going to the port? Isn't he necessary for the Shepherds to function?"

"Absolutely. Every member is required for us to work as a unit." Chrom said. "He wishes to remain here in Ylisstol for a day or so before heading out. Sumia, Kellam, and I will take the information we learned today and transfer it to the Shepherds at the port, then Sumia and I will assume commanding roles and ensure that Ferox is cared for before Valmese troops can arrive. Robin suggested you stay behind for the armour, too. He wants to make sure everything is safe here before he joins us, and I guess having you near will help him."

Kjelle grew confused at Chrom's words. She wished to believe that she was beyond exceptional and that anyone should be leaping to receive her aid, but Robin had time and again proven his capabilities. What purpose would he have for staying with her, especially now that they had returned to Ylisse and were no longer required to operate together?

"This entire situation is concerning when taking into account that the entire active guard force has been lost." Chrom cut into her thoughts. "I'm not certain what Robin will do to handle things here, but I'll trust in that whatever he cooks up. I simply hope he doesn't overtax himself."

"The guard force has been lost?" Kjelle asked incredulously. "Are you saying that Basilio and Flavia managed to kill everyone in the castle?"

"Gods, no! Er, actually, that may be more reassuring than the truth." Chrom clarified. "I mean that they're literally missing. We don't know where they've gone, or if they're alive, or anything. Robin said that he intended to use the reserve forces and orders to the improvisational government as means of keeping Ylisstol protected. We'll find everyone in time, I'm certain."

Kjelle raised an eyebrow at Chrom. "Yeah, I'd say that's worse than knowing them to be dead. They likely aren't in the best of condition if risen infiltrated the castle and they're nowhere to be found."

"I realise." Chrom sighed. "I hope we find as many people alive and well as possible. Other than that, the best thing we can do for everyone is to ensure that our lands aren't invaded by Valm."

"Don't worry. I understand." Kjelle said before breaking into a small smile. "You know, I didn't think I'd find talking to you so natural. I suppose you truly are reminiscent of your daughter - or rather, she resembles you."

"Ah, right, the future story." Chrom said. "That, ah, that's a difficult story to accept, you know. More so if you claim that I have a daughter. But, you've gained Robin's trust, and so you've more than earned mine. I look forward to working with you."

"Thank you, Chrom. I'll be sure to- wait, you don't have a daughter? She should've been born by now, if the war with Valm is anything to go by."

"I've been married for a year. I work fast, but not like that!" Chrom laughed. "Besides, Sumia and I haven't made any plans for children. Such things can wait until the world isn't threatened by war and the undead."

Kjelle blinked several times. "You've decided against having children? What of Lucina, then?"

"Who?" Chrom asked in confusion. Kjelle tensed for an instant before remembering how much knowledge of the future she had already exposed to Robin. Even so, talking to Robin about her time felt a vast amount better than doing the same with Chrom.

"Ah, haha, right." Kjelle laughed awkwardly, bringing her hand to her head in a weak attempt to play down her behaviour. "My apologies, Chrom. I think I still have a bit of a headache from that fight. Go ahead and ignore me for now."

"If you're not feeling well, then by all means help yourself to a potion from the medical office. I promise not to tell Lissa." Chrom smiled, forgetting her misstep in an instant. "We did our best to treat you, but considering that none of us have learned to use staves… well, I hope we performed adequately."

"Yeah, I noticed your 'help'." Kjelle said, casting an obvious glance down to her changed clothing. Her gaze then morphed into a glare and up to Chrom, though she felt little hostility toward him in her current state.

"I swear to the gods that was Sumia. I wasn't even in the room - Kellam, Robin, the visiting noble, and I all stepped out. I swear." Chrom assured her.

"Mhm." Kjelle hummed as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I'll pick up a vulnerary before fitting myself for some armour. You don't mind if I use royal equipment, right? Because I'm going to. I plan on being on the frontlines protecting everyone long before war has the chance to arrive."

"Not the wisest choice in the world, but an admirable one. I can tell I'd be glad to fight alongside you." Chrom said, his smile returning. "I'd recommend you get Robin or one of the members of the next guard rotation to help you. Armour's a pain to fit yourself. You can easily become a Shepherd, by the way - ask Robin for some forms, and you'll have access to practically everything in this castle, with a few limits. I even have a cheatsheet for the written test, if you'd like."

"I'll pass for now." Kjelle said. "If you'd like to wait, I should be able to get everything ready by tomorrow, and I'm certain I can get Robin to do the same. We can all leave together for the port."

Chrom shook his head and stepped past her into the infirmary. "Robin was adamant about the need to move out as soon as possible. If I'm being honest with you, I think he wants time alone. I'd like nothing more than to offer him my shoulder now and whenever he should need it, but sometimes, I don't know how to act around him. Perhaps having time to himself would be best for him. Though, come to think of it, he did want you to stay."

"Yeah, from what I've gathered he seems to be like that from time to time." Kjelle said, following Chrom into the medical ward to continue their conversation. She swiped a vulnerary off the counter near the entrance, needing it to complete her lie about head trauma.

"Do you think you could check in on him? You know, make sure he's okay?" Chrom asked as he continued further into the room. "Sumia told me how close the two of you were, and I believe that if I can't bring myself to speak openly with him, then you would be the next best bet."

Kjelle furrowed her brow. "Why the hell would I be the next choice? I've known him for a few weeks and spent most of that time plotting his death."

"You did what?" Chrom spun around to face her with a look of shock on his face.

"Er, nothing. Joking." Kjelle offered weakly. Apparently Robin had failed to mention her attempts on his life in his letters, something she had not expected considering that he had composed the papers at Port Ferox. She believed he would leave never out such an important detail, not even now when they had grown so close.

 _Why would Robin conceal something like that_? Kjelle asked herself. _It would be important, right? The potential of him dying while away from Ylisse? Did he think I was so weak that I wouldn't pose a risk to him!?_ Her blood boiled at the thought, though she was swiftly able to calm herself.

There was undoubtedly some form of explanation. This was Robin she was thinking about, after all, and she had come to know Robin well. He would have some confounded reason for his actions. He always did.

"Ah, there you are!" Chrom interrupted her line of thought, bringing her back into the infirmary with a tap of metal. "Y'know, if you're aware that someone is searching for you and you want to be found, it's okay to make a little noise."

"Why would you be looking for me, though? Why would anyone?" Kellam's voice sounded from within the room. Kjelle could barely see the Exalt and saw nothing of the general that was by her hearing wearing his full armour.

"Come on, Kellam. You know you're as valuable as any other Shepherd." Chrom said as he pulled the general toward the light of the castle hall. "If you would speak up amore, we wouldn't have any issues like this."

"You were still in there!?" Kjelle asked Kellam incredulously. "Good gods, why aren't you an assassin?"

"Robin used to ask me that a lot, too, back during the war." Kellam said. "I don't want to be an assassin, though. I want to help people. Protect them, not assassinate them. Sorry about before, by the way. I really thought that Basilio was dead."

"You could've been a hell of a lot more thorough, that's for sure." Kjelle rubbed her throat regardless of the fact that it was absent of pain. "Whatever. It wasn't like I couldn't have taken control of that situation at my choosing."

"Weren't you unconscious?" Kellam asked innocently, earning himself a conceited glare. "Er, right, of course you could've. Sorry for sending Chrom and Sumia."

Kjelle huffed and closed her eyes, hating that she would have to in some way thank him for having saved her life. "I suppose Sumia was of some help, and she and Chrom both got some experience out of it. What you did wasn't entirely bad."

"Whew, that's a relief!" Kellam wiped at his brow, with Kjelle being uncertain as to whether or not he was attempting to ridicule her. "Heh, you can get scary fast. Not like, actually scary, but an I'd-be-scared-if-I-hadn't-fought-risen scary. So more of a fake scary, if anything."

Kjelle narrowed her gaze on Kellam. The general rapidly grew less comfortable. "Ha, ha… I've got to get ready to go to Port Ferox. It was nice beating you up, Kjelle!" he said.

Kellam dashed out of the infirmary at a surprisingly graceful speed, his footfalls somehow never generating noise. Kjelle would have continued to glare at his fleeing form had the matter of his silence not distracted her. How was it possible to be so absurdly quiet?

"It seems like you're… I was going to say getting along well, but that didn't look amicable." Chrom said, walking over to Kjelle's side at the entryway to the ward. "I hope you're having an interesting time, and that you haven't been turned away from the lifestyle of a Shepherd so soon."

"Trust me, I'll be here as long as I can - until I know there's no danger anywhere, and that everyone is safe." Kjelle said. "Kellam watching me as I sleep is… disturbing… but I don't think he had any questionable intentions. If he did, I'll make sure to beat that behaviour out of him soon enough. Now, while it was a pleasure to meet you, Chrom, I've got to go find some armour. I'll also have to whip Robin's ass into gear to get to the port as soon as possible - we'll meet you in Ferox a day after your arrival. You have my word."

"Ah, one more thing about that!" Chrom said, stopping Kjelle before she could make an exit. "First of all, don't worry about arriving so soon. Take as much time as needed to ensure that Ylisse is safe. Second, I have something I'd like for you to deliver to Robin - he should be somewhere in the gardens, if you want to go find him now."

Chrom pulled out an envelope from underneath the cape covering his side and held it out to Kjelle. She took the letter without a second of hesitation. On its front were the words 'Chrom only', and below that 'Seriously, not even Sumia for this one. Only open this if I don't make it back in time for Valm'.

"What is this?" Kjelle asked, turning the envelope over to check for further information only to end up disappointed.

"I'm not sure. Some kind of early battle strategy, I presume, or possibly something more." Chrom said with a shrug. "I was careful to not tamper with it, as Robin had written. There's no use for it now, since he's guaranteed to be at Port Ferox in time. I wanted to return it to him and allow him to to do with it as he sees fit."

Kjelle shifted the envelope around so that she could once again stare at its front, eyeing the package as though it held some grand secret. "You never grew curious enough to open this and check out what he wrote?"

Chrom shook his head. "Robin's wishes were clear. What manner of friend would I be were I to violate them?"

Kjelle frowned at his words. It was admirable that the Exalt thought so highly of his friends so as to never cross them, and Kjelle knew she could only hope to replicate that behaviour. At the same time her desire to know what the letter held was impossible to ignore. She hoped that feeling didn't make her a worse friend than Chrom to Robin.

"Wouldn't it be helpful to learn about his strategies whenever you have the chance? Meaning you should read this?" Kjelle suggested, more than eager to play Grima's advocate.

"I doubt we'll need to look at this once we see what he's been working on since starting his escapade." Chrom said, gesturing to the letter before shifting his gaze to Kjelle. "Come to think of it, you were there for the entire planning process, weren't you? Tell me, is his plan as amazing as always?"

"I don't know." Kjelle admitted. "I don't think I ever saw him working on anything like that. I wasn't with him every waking moment of the day, but I was still around for most of it… huh. He may not have planned anything as of yet."

"Hm. That doesn't sound like Robin." Chrom said, his confidence in his friend shining through. "Well, I suppose I don't have to ask about the strategies if I already know they'll be great."

"You're not concerned at all?" Kjelle asked, once again eyeing the envelope curiously. "There could be valuable information in here. Actually, this is a lot of trust to place in me. Most people I've met from this time haven't been anywhere near as believing as you."

"If Robin trusts you, then so do I. I would take it to him myself, but someone as close to Robin as you will be able to complete the task, not to mention that Kellam and I… I've already lost Kellam again. Godsdamnit!" Chrom languished before moving in what he assumed was the direction of his fellow Shepherd. He spoke to Kjelle over his shoulder, "Get that to Robin, please! Also, tell him that his other letters and some info from Cherche are in the roundtable room! Also also, Sumia and Cordelia are finished learning magic! He should plan around that!"

Kjelle narrowed her gaze for a moment at the mention of her being so close to Robin. She would like to believe that such a thing was true, but there was no way she nearer him than Chrom. She shrugged that distinction off, switching her gaze from Chrom's retreating form to the letter. It had remained sealed since the moment of its completion at Port Ferox weeks ago.

"You really are that trusting of him." Kjelle muttered to herself as she ran a hand over the top of Robin's hidden writings. Chrom suspected nothing but the best from Robin, and that was allowing him to have more faith in the grandmaster than Kjelle had ever expressed. In an odd way, she felt jealous of Chrom. He was being a better friend to Robin than she could hope to be.

"A good friend would leave this closed. They wouldn't doubt Robin and try to uncover his secrets." Kjelle continued to murmur.

She tore open the top of the parcel in one swift movement, giving herself no time for doubt before the letter was in her open hand. She unfolded the two pieces of paper before she set about reading them in the dim torchlight offered by the castle hall. Finally, she would be able to uncover something more about Robin, and perhaps some of his secrets or another lead thereto.

'Hey, Chrom. That's a horrible way to open this, but I'm writing in ink, so you get to deal with it.

So. I'm dead. If you don't know that yet, then this will sound like a bad joke, but I am. I have no intention of ever seeing you or anyone else in the Shepherds again, so this letter will be the last you hear from me. I don't know when you'll read this, but I trust that you've waited until war with Valm is near before you've dared open it.

My apologies for that, by the way. I know there could have been actions taken to better foster a peaceful resolution, regardless of how atrocious the Valmese emperor and its soldiers are, but as soon as I heard of the possibility for another war I leapt on it without a second thought. The truth is that I thrive off of those kinds of environments, where people suffer and die and I have the chance to prove how much better I am than them. That speaks a lot as to why I'm not coming back. I'm sorry for putting you in this position, Chrom, and I'm sorry for bringing everyone into a war that didn't have to be fought.

There have been other times like that, too. Times where I've acted toward what would get people hurt or killed while knowing that a better alternative was possible, or where I've gone out of my way to make matters worse. I can't explain why. It's like I all of a sudden enter a dreamlike state that should be a nightmare but isn't, and I can't get out despite how much I see and know that what I'm doing is wrong. The only way I can guarantee that you and everyone in the Shepherds is safe is to never return. To guarantee that the world is safe, I can never again taint its battlefields or the lives of its inhabitants.

I know that you would oppose me on every single thing I've said up to this point. You're probably fuming at everything I've written, especially the stuff about myself. I'm sorry for leaving you and everyone, but this truly is for the best. I don't want anyone more to get hurt.

If you're still doubting me, thinking that I'm okay and that I'm being irrational, then I want you to think about something. I'm sorry for making you remember this, but it would have been so simple for me to save Emmeryn, Phila, and even Gangrel. Some rescue staves, maybe some wind magic, and they'd still be here. I could have used some dark magic - which is a thing I can do - to heal them when they were dying or recently dead. I didn't. All I had to do for them to die was nothing, and that's what I did. That's the kind of person I am.

It's possible that you know about my ties to the Grimleal by now, considering the people I've spoken to about it recently and those who apparently already knew. You may be thinking that I'm under the influence of evil magic or Grima itself. I'm not. I'm entirely me, good and bad, and the bad is starting to outweigh the good more with every passing day.

I've recently met a woman by the name of Kjelle. You should know of her from one of the other letters I'm having Cherche deliver. I can't begin to describe the hatred burning in her eyes when she looks at me. I know this isn't a good thing to do, but I'm going to train her to be as strong as possible and then have her kill me. That'll be how I've died. Please, don't blame her for this. She knows more than you and is completely justified. I intended for this to happen.

There's so much more I wish I had the courage to tell you, but I can't. I'm not quite there yet. I'll be certain to tell Kjelle everything, though - the truth about who I am, what I have the potential to do, this feeling of grey that haunts my every action, about everything with Grima, and what I suspect had happened in her time. She'll find out everything by the time I'm dead. All that's left is to make sure that she gets through this okay, and that she'll be able to help you through what's to come. It's going to be a hell of a lot easier for you without me around.

I haven't made a plan for engaging Valm. I've barely looked at Virion's information on the empire's forces, and when I do I can't focus for long. I'm afraid that strategies would only propel you, my friends, toward your deaths. Cordelia and Frederick should he more than capable of fulfilling the role of tactician. Knowing them, they probably have a few dozen plans already drafted.

I'm sorry you had to learn like this, Chrom. Share this letter or keep it to yourself; I care not. Please don't vilify Kjelle for what she's done. Try to get through the war as peacefully, and with as few casualties, as possible.

Goodbye,

Robin'

Anger. Wave after wave of anger washed over Kjelle as she continued to read through the letter. She never once paused to give herself room to properly process what she was analysing.

Robin was planning to die? Kjelle could scarcely believe it. There was no way he was such a fool. Kjelle could not convince herself that she had been manipulated for as long as she had known Robin and turned into a weapon intended to bring about his death.

Her head flew up from the letter midway through her second reading toward where Chrom had ventured further into the castle halls. The Exalt would depart soon, and it was clear that Robin's writings were intended for him before anyone else. It would be proper to return the letter to Chrom and allow him to act as he saw appropriate.

However, Chrom didn't know as much as her. Kjelle would be able to address whatever issues Robin was facing - that's what she had promised to do for everyone, to save them from any danger, even if that meant saving someone from their own ambitions. Robin was not yet dead. There had to be a reason. A silent part of Kjelle wanted that reason to be her.

Kjelle stuffed the papers carelessly into their envelope and made her way toward the gardens. More information she had accumulated was clicking into place. Robin had hidden his dark magic and his ties to Grima from the other Shepherds, except for when he had begun his journey to Ferox. He must have begun planning his death when he had first left Ylisstol, if not earlier. He had long prepared for his own demise. Kjelle had provided him a means of attaining his goal.

Kjelle continued to experience little beyond rage toward the grandmaster. His words of encouragement and support were all feigned at best and lies at worst. How was she to speak about her past, or train in magic, or even see his face again without feeling this selfsame rage burning inside her? Kjelle could not reconcile his heinous actions.

However, Robin had not succeeded. He had set up their final duel as a means of bringing about his own end, but he had lost that fight. Kjelle had defeated him. For some reason, he had faltered at what were to be the final moments of his life, and had now lived through the circumstances intended to bring his demise.

Kjelle had begun to suspect why. It was because they were friends. She had defied his intentions and in part his manipulations, bringing the two of them closer together to the point where Robin couldn't hope to carry out his vile plan. That's why their embrace had meant so much to him. That's why he had needed to distance himself from Chrom. Robin couldn't bring himself to face the losses of death regardless of the future he wished to bring about.

Kjelle knew this, but as she entered the soft moonlight of the castle's open-air gardens, she continued to feel nothing but anger. She had been betrayed, manipulated, lied to by Robin. Everyone had been. How could he be so selfish and stupid to do something like that?

Kjelle spotted Robin lying on the ground of the gardens, his hands behind his head. He was watching clouds dance across the night sky. A sword Kjelle did not recognise rested on the ground a short distance from Robin. He was far too relaxed for what Kjelle had uncovered. That relaxation in the face of his worst evil furthered her hatred.

"Robin!" Kjelle called out. Loud. Emphatic. She was uncertain of what she was to gain by confronting him, but she already knew she would not be doing it calmly.

Robin started before realising what was happening and returning to rest. He was near falling asleep. His face seemed more pale than it should be, even in moonlight.

"What is it, Kjelle?" Robin asked, remaining calm in contrast to her volume.

"You want to explain what the hell this is?" Kjelle held up the envelope for his appraisal.

Robin cracked an eye open to see her. Upon noticing the papers in her hand, both of his eyes snapped open wide before returning to rest. He turned his head to avoid Kjelle's gaze.

"I see you've found that. I'm assuming you've read through it, too?" Robin asked. He didn't wait for an answer before continuing, "It's true. All of it, all of my plans. It's the only way for everyone to be safe."

Kjelle's mouth twitched into a frown. Even now she was searching for some reasonable justification for his actions. "Explain. Everything." she said as she tossed the papers toward his body. She then found herself kicking the resting sword away from his reach, though she expected no physical fighting from him yet.

The envelope hit Robin in his stomach. He flinched in surprise and sat up to cradle the paper in his lap. He sighed and returned to the ground, caring not for how the envelope slid off of him onto the grass at his side.

"There's nothing more to explain than what you've read. That was Flavia's, by the way," he nodded to the sword. "It's enchanted. She's dead, too, if you haven't heard."

"How the hell are you so calm!?" Kjelle shouted, again succeeding in making him wince at her volume. "How can you be so relaxed knowing that I've uncovered all of this, and that you were so close to dying!?"

Robin took a long moment to steady his breathing. "I can't leave here, Kjelle. I had planned on dying before we came back, but I couldn't do it. I was a coward. I thought that things might be okay even though I knew deep down that they wouldn't be."

"That's why you wanted to fight me. To have our final duel." Kjelle said. "You were going to throw that match with the intention of dying. You made the entire thing illegitimate!"

"Is that what you're angry about? Seriously?" Robin questioned, though his tone remained flat. "I was going to die, Kjelle - I'm still going to. Throwing a fight with you doesn't compare to that in my eyes."

"Are you kidding me!? I may have lost that fight if you hadn't wanted to die!" Kjelle shouted. "What's the point of having a fight if the outcome was decided!? Everything I've done up to this point has been worthless! All the effort, all the training, for nothing! Beating you was meaningless!"

Robin took in a shaky breath before focusing his gaze on the sky. "You would've rid the world of a great evil. We can fight again, if you'd like, or you can kill me now and be done with it. The outcome would be the same either way."

"Even now you won't have an honest fight with me!?" Kjelle continued to shout. "Do you have any idea how wrong this is!? I'm not about to let myself be faced with anything but your best, and I'm not about to kill you! I have to become strong enough to save everyone. That includes you! I won't let you stand in the way of that!"

"Killing me would save Chrom, and every single Shepherd." Robin said. His expression had grown more pained. "I think it's time I told you the truth, Kjelle. Everything I know. I'm sorry that I hid it for so long and manipulated you. By now I can see I was wrong to do that. There's no reason to hide it. I can't face the Shepherds again regardless of whether they know the truth or not. Either way, I would end up hurting them."

"Then explain yourself." Kjelle said, her voice growing more intense for every decibel it lowered. She was impressed at her own ability to hold back the tirade of emotions assaulting her mind, though she knew she was growing irrationally angry. Kjelle did not want to be angry right now, but at the same time she saw no way to escape the rage that felt so familiar. Anger was safety. Especially in these unknown waters.

"I should have told you this long ago, when you first asked. Everything about the grey, Grima, all that I learned and all that I concealed. I know that if I see Chrom again, I'll hurt or kill him. No matter what I have to die here."

Kjelle crossed her arms, withholding her fiercely growing anger and disapproval. She was eager to learn what was hidden and about the secrets Robin held, but that fact was second to all else she felt. To learn his secrets would not outweigh the notion of his death.

Robin took a deep breath before beginning. "I have access to memories from your time, from the me who existed then and there. It's not like I know everything, but I can see the aftereffects of what they did. Vestiges of the Shepherds they killed."

"You're saying that you're not them. That you're a different, distinct person, and that you didn't kill them with your own hands." Kjelle said. "You've spent a long time proving that you're not as evil as I thought. You shouldn't loop back into that now."

"Don't speak for me. You don't yet know enough." Robin said, his tone growing venomous despite his sense of calm. "I'm the same as the other me, only younger. I would be the exact same as them if you were to give me time."

"Try me. I came back in time to change things for the better, and I'm not about to let you die. That wouldn't help anything or anyone."

"Do you mind shutting up for a minute so I can speak?" Robin asked coldly, his tone once again bounding into an oddly venomous territory. Kjelle's frown intensified and her hands balled into tight fists as he continued.

"In your time, Sumia died a while after the war with Plegia had ended." Robin continued. "I don't know if it was natural or not, but she's the one person I didn't directly cause or incite the death of. The other me used her passing as an excuse to initiate a war against Valm. I was the aggressor. Not Walhart or his legion."

"The other you was a better tactician than you are now." Kjelle interjected, causing Robin's expression to snap into a frown. "What if they saw what was going to happen and took preemptive action? It's pragmatic, sure, and ruthless, but not as evil as you're trying to make it out to be. You're exaggerating everything in order to have an excuse to die."

"What are you insinuating, Kjelle?" Robin asked, glaring at her on the edge of his gaze.

"I'm saying that you're too much of a coward to face what's coming, and that's making you look for a way out." Kjelle said. "Are you scared of Grima? Of losing people? Well, surprise, surprise Robin, but that's already happened. I've seen all of it. You all of a sudden deciding that you're too weak to face it will do nothing but hurt everyone."

"I'm not being a coward!" Robin shouted. "This is the bravest thing I've ever done. I can't begin to describe how heavy it makes my heart to know that I'll never see any of my closest friends again. Compared to the feeling of my heart ripping itself apart at the knowledge that I'll kill them, though, that's nothing. I won't let them die like that. They deserve better."

"Oh, my apologies, you're so brave!" Kjelle sneered. "I can't believe I didn't see it until now! All those people like you, the ones who run away and refuse to put up the smallest of fights, you aren't cowards - you're godsdamn heroes! How you can you handle being so brave!?"

"You mock what I'm experiencing, but you have no idea what this is like." Robin said, his voice wavering into and out of hostility. "Do you remember what it felt like to lose your father? To be powerless? Afraid? Horrified and alone? Imagine those feelings and amplify them for every Shepherd I'll kill. I don't want to hurt anyone, and this is the best way to go about keeping them safe."

Kjelle's frown deepened into a snarl. Before she knew what she was doing she had kicked out at Robin's side. The hit connected easily, making him gasp in pain and scramble to a stand. Robin's expression was more wounded than before even as Kjelle's increased in its animosity.

"I really thought that you were strong, Robin. Stronger than so many people." Kjelle said. "I can't say how disappointed I am to find out that you're this pathetic. To conflate my experiences with your cowardice, my moment of weakness that I've overcome with your-!"

"So you're going to attack me!? That's how you plan on fixing things!?" Robin cut her off with a shout of his own. "I'm afraid to die, Kjelle, but I'm willing to do what's necessary! I'm not trying to insult you! This isn't weakness! All I want is for you to understand!"

"What I understand is that you're afraid, and you're letting that cloud your judgement." Kjelle said. "You didn't plan any strategies for Valm. You couldn't face Chrom and tell him the truth. You lied to me! Is that supposed to be strength!?"

"I'm trying, Kjelle. I promise, I'm trying." Robin said. "The Robin from your time used the war with Valm as a means of systematically exterminating as many Shepherds as possible. I don't know why he did it, but I feel that he enjoyed every moment. I feel as though I would, too. I'll do everything I can to avoid that."

"Even if that means lying and choosing the path of a coward." Kjelle cut in.

Robin stared at her for a long, unblinking moment, his dissatisfaction with her interruptions written on his face. When it became clear that she would say nothing further, he resumed speaking.

"That Robin, the one I'll become, caused more death than anyone else in existence, compared even to the likes of Grima and the evil dragons of old. He destroyed the world. He killed everyone - except you and your friends, the people who came back in time to kill me."

"You're still that scared of Grima?" Kjelle asked incredulously. "What happened to defeating them and securing the future for yourself, of how we would become powerful enough to do that together? Or was that as hollow of a lie as every other piece of advice you've pretended to give?"

"The advice isn't hollow. Rather, it doesn't apply to my situation." Robin said. "No matter how powerful I become, I can't kill an enemy that doesn't exist. I can't defeat an evil that's no more than a manipulation."

He grew silent for a long moment, struggling to form words and shaking his head as if to dispel an ache. Kjelle felt sorry for him. Whatever was happening was difficult for him. It was also too complex for her to address in any way other than the anger she knew best.

After a few shaky breaths, Robin found the courage to speak. "Grima is dead."

Kjelle blinked, her immense anger giving way to confusion in an instant. "What? What do you mean?"

"Someone killed Grima before the Plegian war began. That someone also left books here for me to learn about everything. I don't know if it was one of your friends or the woman in the grey, but the woman knew about it. She told me that everything I do is on me, not Grima. That's what I hid when I destroyed sections of her journal."

"Grima is dead." Kjelle slowly repeated, and Robin nodded. "That… what kind of a joke is this? It's one of the worst you've made. Only someone with the powers of a god or a dragon's own blood can kill said dragon. None of my friends are godly or fellblood."

"Grima was born of Naga's blood." Robin explained. "Long ago, an alchemist by the name of Forneus used the corpse of a dragon, his own blood, and that of Naga to create Grima. Grima killed Forneus and seized control of the other risen he had created. He controlled them via an insect called a thanatophage that squirms into their brain and assumes control over their motor functions. This is also stuff I've researched but kept hidden, from you and everyone else."

"The risen are nothing more than a bunch of bugs?" Kjelle asked in cautious disbelief. "Bullshit. I've seen people turn into risen without having a bug crawl into their head. There's no way something like that would go unnoticed."

"Originally, there were masks made from the thanatophages that, alongside Forneus' magic, exerted control over the risen." Robin continued to explain. "They've advanced from that into no longer needing masks. Maybe they've evolved further than needing thanatophages, somehow."

"Basilio's headache…" Kjelle murmured to herself, already rationalising Robin's claims. "No, that can't be. That would mean the thanatophage was controlling his thoughts, too, unless that's how they've changed."

"That isn't the important part of this." Robin said. "What matters is that Grima shares Naga's blood. Therefore, so too does everyone who has made a pact with Grima, and vice versa for everyone who's made a pact with Naga. Those who bear Grima's blood can slay Naga, and those who bear Naga's blood can fell Grima. The pages of the journal I destroyed suggested that Naga was unaware of this fact."

"But you failed to kill Naga. If what you're saying is true, you should've been able to slay her when you tried at Mount Prism." Kjelle interjected.

"Unless Grima was already dead by that point, which would have severed its pacts." Robin said. "That's why Naga was alive when we met her. Whoever killed her wanted me to see that I no longer held a tie to Grima, and that I was too weak to kill her by way of my own power. They were strong enough, though. They've slain gods."

Kjelle narrowed her gaze on Robin, and without warning she darted her hand forward to rip away Robin's right glove. The glove strangely fell away without need for extraneous force, though she applied said force anyway. Robin's glove as well as the arm of his cloak appeared to have been sliced cleanly through. His arm underneath now bore a large bandage wrap that had stained itself red despite his use of healing potions.

"Explain this, then." Kjelle said, ignoring Robin's wound and drawing his attention toward the dormant Mark of Grima. "Pacts between dragons and gods bear marks, insignias to denote the dragon involved. If Grima is dead, you shouldn't have this."

"The mark will remain until every last person bearing Grima's blood are annihilated. That means all of the Grimleal as well as everyone who was born into a pact with Naga, like Chrom." Robin said. "You remember how the mark was freaking out when we first met, and quieted down once Flavia had killed the Grimleal leaders in Plegia? It was doing that because I was the next greatest conduit Grima's magic. Now, it's only faded lines of grey, as it'll always be going forward."

Kjelle pushed his hand away rather than let it drop amicably. "You want to leave everything behind and die because of some insane theory about a literal undead god being dead!?"

"Things will be better for everyone without me!" Robin refuted, matching her raised tone. "I can't explain it, but I can feel that things were the same in your time - that your Robin or someone overcame Grima, only for everything to be met with ruin regardless! If I live, your future will come to pass! Flavia and Basilio are already dead because of me!"

"Will you shut up about that already!?" Kjelle yelled, catching herself before she could physically lash out at him. "Flavia knew the risks of her mission! Chrom knows the risks of going to war! Everyone knows the risks of putting faith in someone else! You can't betray that trust!"

Robin hesitated. Had he not known better, he could have sworn that Kjelle's voice was near faltering, and not from anger. He dismissed that thought and continued to reinforce his decision.

"No one should be at risk of dying because they trust someone. I'm not going to be the one to harm the people I care about!" he said. "This is my choice and mine alone to make! Why can't you go back to acting like you were when we met!? Why won't you let me die!?"

"Because… because…!" Kjelle stammered, hesitating for a long second before failing to form words entirely. At that point she lashed out violently at Robin's chest. Robin winced from the hit and recoiled away from her fist before coughing into his hand.

"What the hell, Kjelle!?" he shouted through another cough, only to be punched again. "That hurts, godsdamnit! Stop!"

"Oh, so that's what hurts you!? Not dying, but getting hurt? That's where you draw the line!?" Kjelle said. "You're more prepared to die than to take a hit? You're seriously willing to do this? No - fuck that and fuck you, Robin. You can't choose to die and leave everything behind!"

Kjelle made to punch him again, but Robin backed out of her range. Kjelle's hands clenched and she seethed hatred in his direction, though she knew that she was on the verge of fracturing. She didn't want Robin to see that.

"Do you think I'm not afraid to die!? I know it's going to hurt worse than anything I've felt before!" Robin responded, matching the force behind her words. "I have to do this because if I live, more people will be hurt and killed! Why can't you see that!? Why do you care so much about keeping me alive!?"

"Because I don't want you to die! I don't-!" Kjelle began, though she soon cut herself off and squeezed her eyes shut. When she began speaking again, her voice was far quieter than her prior shouts. "There are people who care about you, Robin. Friends. People like Chrom and the Shepherds would be devastated to lose you. People like me."

Robin held his gaze on Kjelle, his mouth contorting in disgust. "How do you still not understand? I know that this is going to hurt! I know it's going to be terrible! Hell, I'm too much of a coward to do it myself for those exact reasons! It has to be done anyway!"

"No." Kjelle refuted, her tone definitive. "I won't let you. You can't die. If you try, I'll stop you. If you try to hurt anyone else, I'll stop you. I'm not going to let you give up and die!"

"You don't understand." Robin seethed. "I thought about killing Noire. And Nah. And you. I didn't want to, but I ended up thinking about it anyway. I can't escape it. I've thought similar things about Chrom for as long as I've known him."

"You don't want to hurt us, though - that's proven in you wanting to die." Kjelle said. "I'm serious about stopping you. I won't let you kill anyone, and I'm sure as hell not going to let you die."

She paused, considering what she should say next to best convey her feelings. Her considerations may have been more successful were she aware of what feelings she wished to convey.

"Everything we've done has meant too much for us to lose it." Kjelle said, her voice uncertain but trying to hold ground. "I don't… no one wants to lose you. It's something we wouldn't be able to handle. So, you aren't allowed to die. Ever."

Robin's gaze on Kjelle softened. Her words were something he had long considered and for which he had never found a perfect answer. When Frederick had long ago posed the idea of emotional damage, he had been put at an impasse. All he could hope was that his choice to protect his friends would outweigh the potential damage dealt. The excuse to live was an enticing one regardless.

"This can't happen, Kjelle. I can't live to hurt more people." Robin said. "If I see Chrom again, he'll be in danger. I may kill him. I may kill any number of Shepherds. That can't happen."

"Then I'll stop you. I promise." Kjelle said. "If I can't do that, then there's no way I could protect the Shepherds anyway."

Robin shook his head. "No, you still don't get it. Everything in my life, every single moment has been building up to this point. This is my destiny. This is how I rid the world of evil. This is how I win!"

"Bullshit." Kjelle muttered under her breath, too low for Robin to hear. She held her sight away from Robin's figure before she refocused on the man, at which point her gaze had steeled. "Tell me everything, Robin. Every lie and deception. Every shard of truth. Grima, the grey, the woman. All of it. Then, I'll make you see that it can all be overcome. If I have to, I'll force you to see. I'm not losing you - not as long as I have the power to stop this."

For an excruciatingly long period of time, Robin said and did nothing. Then, he sat himself on the ground, and patted the space in front of him to have Kjelle do the same. She refused to comply.

Robin sighed and began his explanation anyway. "The grey is a feeling. Nothing more, nothing less. There's no physical element to it, but its effects are substantial. Nausea, headaches, memory lapses, blackouts. I'm admittedly not sure how much of that I inflict upon myself to avoid responsibility for what happens. I've felt the grey for as long as I can remember - before I had learned about Grima and my own treachery. It's always been around in some form or another, and I know that I'll never be able to lose it. It's an integral part of me."

"I have no idea what the grey is beyond something messing up inside my head. I do know I'll never be free from what it causes." Robin continued. "There are the physical ailments, but those can be mitigated. The fear, though, that unparalleled feeling of horror and disgust whenever the grey pops up… it's inescapable. Those feelings make me act in the worst of ways."

"So it's this feeling of grey that makes you afraid you'll hurt people?" Kjelle asked, and Robin nodded. "What the hell kind of poetic bullshit is that? You feel sad and scared so you're going to do evil things? Come on, you of all people should be capable of getting a grip already."

"There's more to it than that. Way, way more." Robin said. "Its predominantly a feeling, sure, but I've also seen that fear. There are times where faces and shapes and voices feel like they don't belong. Sometimes people appear to me as literal manifestations of grey. I've seen soldiers look like that. I was so scared that at one point I killed an amicable soldier for appearing as a mess of grey."

"Even so, the grey is responsible." Kjelle said. "If you overcome it, then you won't be at risk of hurting anyone. You won't have to think that dying is the way to save them. So, why not try to feel better than you are now? Wouldn't that get rid of the grey?"

Robin narrowed his gaze on Kjelle in disbelief and subdued anger. "Excuse me? Why not just get better? Wow, thanks, Kjelle! I'm cured! I can't believe I never considered that before!" he said, his voice dripping with venomous sarcasm.

"How the hell am I supposed to know what to do!? I've never let my feelings get in the way of my goals!" Kjelle said, though she knew that she was lying to herself. She hoped that Robin didn't notice the same.

"Things aren't that easy. A good frame of mind can help, but it isn't a panacea." Robin said. "I'm also not in the terrible frame of mind that you think. I'm fully aware that this is going to hurt, and that other people won't fare well. I know that what in doing is horrible. At the same time, it's the only option I have left. I need to die for there to be a chance at saving my friends."

Kjelle gave a disapproving frown, though it was directed as much toward herself as Robin. She could tell that she was misinterpreting and failing to handle what Robin was saying, but she could only determine as such in hindsight.

"I don't care how many times I have to say this: you don't have to die to save people." Kjelle said. "I… I don't know what's happening here, or how I should be acting, or anything. All I know is that I won't permit you to die. There has to be some kind of way to beat this, to overpower it. We have to find that way."

"There's no overpowering something that doesn't exist outside of my head." Robin sighed, his lack of faith in Kjelle's words bleeding into his heavy breaths. "This isn't something we can fight - not like that. The only way to defeat it is for me to die."

Kjelle's frown deepened. Her mind raced to form a rebuttal, but failed. Until she recalled the pains brought about by Robin's hidden book. A pain she hoped was similar to what he had experienced, one that she wished would allow her to connect with him.

"There's a book I found today - one that was left for you in the royal library." she said, knowing that what followed would be a stretch but not caring. "It hurt to look at it, then hurt to look at anything else. That pain felt intangible, like you were saying."

"You found the books the woman left for me? How?"

"I stole a note from your cloak that day you passed out." Kjelle shrugged. "It seemed important, and so I followed it and found the book."

Robin's gaze flattened on her, though he was no longer surprised by her lack of boundaries. "Of course you did." he muttered under his breath.

"Why were you holding onto that thing, anyway?" Kjelle asked. "You had already read through the books, hadn't you? Why keep the note unless you intended for someone to find it?"

"There were numbers on the other side of the paper. Zero-five-zero-five. For some reason, that number felt more important and more grey than anything else I had beheld. I had to find out what it meant, so I carried the slip of paper around with me."

"You don't know what it means?" Kjelle asked, frowning again. "Ugh, why can't there be a straightforward response to any of this?"

"I'm trying my best to answer everything. I am." Robin assured her. "Some things are harder to put into words than others, though. I don't know how much I'll be able to tell you, even now. There's so much, and all of it is so difficult to think about."

"Tell me about the woman." Kjelle said. "She left those books for you, right? Provided that she does exist, there should be some kind of link between her, the books, and this grey of yours. Maybe she's at fault for all of this. Maybe she manipulated you like you tried to manipulate me."

"No, she would never do something like that." Robin said. "She cares about me. About all of us. She wouldn't do anything to hurt any Shepherd. She isn't at fault for this. It's all on me."

"Talk to me about her anyway." Kjelle said, rolling her eyes at Robin's incessant desire to defend the woman. "You keep forming a connotation between her and grey. There has to be a reason for that."

"There is, but it isn't what you want it to be. She isn't at fault." Robin said. "She didn't inflict me with the grey. I can't explain this part very well, but it feels like she's part of the grey, too. Like she's made of it. If there were to be anything tangible made from the grey, it'd be her."

Kjelle furrowed her brow as she attempted to understand what Robin was saying. If he was trying to make things understandable, he was doing a terrible job. "Are you saying that the woman doesn't exist? That she was in your head the entire time, too? Is that what you meant back in the desert, when you said that she spoke to you in your headaches?"

"No, she's real. She's definitely real." Robin said at haste. "She's spoken to me directly. I've interacted with a phantom of her when I had the nightmare at Mount Prism, and once more when I had a hallucination in the desert. She spoke to me once when we were travelling, right before I made the failed portal. I don't know how, or what kind of spell she may have used, but she was able to see through my eyes. She saw what I was doing. She saw you."

Kjelle's expression shifted from scrutiny to concern. "That's… disturbing. You're certain that she's an actual person, and that she's been monitoring me?"

"Not monitoring you, but she did see you. And she is real." Robin said. "One of the reasons I realised she was from your time was because she recognised you. That was when I knew she had sent Flavia the letters on you and your friends, too. I didn't want to remember what had happened then, but for some reason, I feel like I can face it now."

"You're welcome." Kjelle said cheekily, a smile matching her voice and causing Robin to roll his eyes. She then moved to sit down next to Robin, her smile dying as she lowered herself to the ground. "This woman… if she does exist and was the one powerful enough to kill Naga, is it possible that she was the reason your magic that day was so strong? That failed portal almost killed us."

"That's the best answer I can think of, yes." Robin nodded. "However, transmitting magic at such a range is itself a remarkable feat. It was still powerful enough to rend the world. She's one of the reasons I know that I'll be leaving the Shepherds in safety if I die."

"'If' is better than 'when'. It's a start." Kjelle murmured, her voice low before it snapped back to an audible volume. "What if she wasn't far away? That kind of power isn't normal, and at such a range would be god-like. What if she was in Ferox, somewhere nearby, and we didn't notice?"

Robin shook his head. "She said she was in Valm, and she wouldn't lie. She also said she wanted to help, but that Walhart required some kind of monitoring and aid. She may be related to why Valm is attacking. I don't doubt that she's doing all she can to avoid conflict, but sometimes, it's necessary."

"She's in Valm, working with Walhart? She told you this!?" Kjelle asked incredulously, her mind refusing to accept the revelation as fact until Robin verified his statement with a nod. "That means she's our enemy! She's working against us! Hell, she probably set up that failed portal on purpose to try to kill us!"

"No! She would never do something like that!" Robin leapt to the woman's defense. "She's nothing but aid us! She was taking control of risen and helping us at the Isle of Lost Souls, and she was the one who cleared the island! She isn't evil!"

"She was the one to do that? From Valm? How can you trust someone so obscenely powerful?" Kjelle asked. "It's already such a risk to trust someone who's more powerful than you, but someone you've never met? That's insane!"

"Are you still evaluating people based solely on their strength?" Robin asked, more from curiosity than judgement, though traces of the latter were present. "Didn't you get over that? People more powerful than you can be trusted as much as anyone else."

"If I'm not the one with the most power, then I don't know if the people I care for are secure. I have ti be able to protect them." Kjelle said. "I know that's not how someone like you or Lucina would think, but you have to acknowledge the truth in what I'm saying. What if the woman decides to attack the Shepherds, despite all your talk about loving them?"

"She won't." Robin reiterated, this time with more force. "If she were to, then… I don't know. I feel like it wouldn't be intentional. I wouldn't hate her for doing something against her will like that."

"Yet you would hate yourself for it." Kjelle sighed and shook her head. "Okay. Let's pretend for a moment that the woman is the source of your issues. We know she's in Valm, babying Walhart and his legion as he prepares for the invasion. Meeting her can be a goal for you. An objective that keeps your mind on track. How about it? Want to come to Valm, find the woman, and get some answers?"

"Do you seriously think that having a goal in mind will prevent me from inadvertently hurting someone? Seriously?"

"When I train, I can think of nothing but finishing my set." Kjelle said, bringing a fist to her chest in pride and as an unsubtle attempt to flex. "Once I have that goal set, I lose track of everything else until it's time for my routine to end. Maybe that kind of focus will help you out, too."

Robin narrowed his gaze, gauging Kjelle's authenticity. "There's no guarantee that the woman knows anything. She knows more than you or I, but that doesn't mean she has all the answers. Finding her may prove as useless as staying here and doing nothing."

"She knows something, though. Something is better than nothing." Kjelle argued.

"If I see Chrom again, there's a high chance that I'll hurt or kill him. There's a sickening feeling of dread inside me that's gotten worse every time I've seen him. It's now practically unbearable. If I leave this castle and go to the port, I may end up killing him before Valmese forces reach the coast."

"Except that you don't want to, and you're in control, so you won't." Kjelle said, earning herself a disapproving frown from Robin. "Besides, I was serious about stopping you. I've trained with you for so long. I think it's time I put my skills into practice. If you're ever in danger of hurting someone, I'll stop you and ensure that everyone involved comes to no harm."

Robin's expression wavered between hopeful belief and utter contempt. "Why are you trying so hard? I'm offering you the perfect solution to all of your problems. I, the liar and murderer who once destroyed the Shepherds, will be eliminated. Everyone will have a chance at safety and happiness that they wouldn't have otherwise had. Why wouldn't you want that?"

"How many times are you going to make me say this? I'm keeping everyone alive, including you." Kjelle said. "That means you can't die, and neither can anyone else."

"One day, you'll hate that you've said that." Robin muttered as his gaze lost focus. He then gave a forceful sigh, stretched back, and plopped his back squarely on the ground. "I don't want to die, Kjelle. I want to help people. I'm more afraid of dying than anything I've ever faced. If I don't die here, if you won't kill me, then I may not have the guts to try this again. I'll have to stay far away from the Shepherds. I truly appreciate what you're trying to do here by having me talk through this, but that only goes so far. I can't accompany you to the port."

"Wait, I'm having you talk through this?" Kjelle asked herself. "Huh. I guess I am. I didn't know I was doing that."

"Thanks anyway. It's helped, even if I know I can't stay with my friends." Robin said. He moved his hands under his head and stared skyward. "I should've been ready for you to kill me, but I'm still so scared. I'm sorry."

"You still don't get the point of this, do you?" Kjelle asked. "You're not dying, and you're not running away. Someone like you shouldn't be acting the coward. Don't you think Chrom deserves an explanation for what you're doing? Doesn't everyone?"

"Chrom's explanation was in that letter you stole." Robin said. "Knowing him, he would've given that same explanation to everyone else in the Shepherds."

"It's a shame you'll have to tell him in person, then." Kjelle said. She stretched toward the discarded letter and ripped it to shreds. She then stood and extended a hand toward Robin. "Come on. We have to prep for some travel."

Robin raised an eyebrow at her, then returned his gaze to the night sky. "I have an enchantment that reverses time. You haven't forgotten that, have you? Tearing the page does nothing but waste time and energy."

"Ah. Right. Forgot about that for a second." Kjelle said before reinforcing her gesture toward Robin. "Let's at least go for a run or train or something. I feel like I need to clear my head for a bit, but I'm not going to stop talking with you until I've convinced you to come to Port Ferox."

Robin continued to ignore her hand. "I'll go to Port Ferox, stay with the Shepherds, and go to Valm on one condition. If you can't meet that condition, then there's no deal, and I'm staying far away from them all. Got it?"

"What's the condition?" Kjelle asked before making any solid assertions.

"If I do anything to hurt anyone in the Shepherds, you'll kill me. No wasting time and no talking me out of dying. If I come to you and say that I'm afraid I'll hurt someone, you kill me. Understood?"

Kjelle held still for a long moment before nodding her head. She was fine with lying if it meant saving Robin. "Sounds good. You're joining me when I work out, though. I'll make sure you don't have the energy to hurt anyone, if nothing else. Apart from battles, of course."

"Ugh, that's going to be worse than Frederick's routine, isn't it?" Robin groaned through a hidden smile. "Whatever. It's a deal. I'll be certain to hold you accountable when the time comes."

"It won't." Kjelle said. Her hand remained in the air, waiting to meet with Robin's. "Come on. We have a lot to take care of, and I want to get a little training in. Especially since I'll be adding magic to my usual regimen."

"Can we not do anything right now?" Robin asked, his voice quiet. "I'll try my best in the morning, I promise, but for now I don't think I can do anything. All I want is to sleep."

Kjelle waited a moment longer before accepting that nothing would happen with a small sigh. She withdrew her hand and lowered herself to the ground next to Robin, mimicking his relaxed position.

"Fine. I'm not leaving you alone, though." she said. "I don't care if this is another breach of your boundaries or whatever; I'm staying here."

"That's fine by me." Robin yawned. "I'd grab you a blanket or something, but it's been a long day. I don't know how much I can move anymore…"

Kjelle yawned after him, shivering as she realised how cold the night was without the heat of her rage. "I'll be fine. A little cold is nothing."

"Yeah." Robin hummed his agreement, his eyes drooping shut. "Hey, Kjelle? Thanks for talking with me."

"Of course. That's… that's what friends do." Kjelle said, uncertain of why she was tripping over her own words.

Robin nodded off into sleep within seconds, leaving Kjelle to the cold of the night and her thoughts. Over time, she inched herself toward Robin, revelling in the heat he offered. She stopped when she had pressed her side against his.

"Robin… I don't want to lose you."

* * *

 **Hey, it's the second part of last chapter, AKA the one that's supposed to explain most of the story so far! Hooray. There's still a lot that needs to be explained/revealed, but that'll come in time.**

 **Robin and Kjelle are both intended to be near the end of their wits this chapter. Kjelle found out about Robin's lie after nearly dying, Robin was gravely wounded for the first time in his memory and couldn't face Chrom, and both encountered risen versions of old friends. That was all not only to support the potential conflict Robin and Kjelle could have, but also to indicate how much and how close they've grown by being able to react responsibly under their circumstances.**

 **At least, that's what I wanted to show. There's no guarantee it's what I actually conveyed, but it's what I tried.**

 **Status: As of 21-05-19, I'm on chapter 36. Not much progress has been made, sadly. I keep taking forever to work on this for no real reason.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	29. Chapter 29

Robin stirred into wakefulness before the sun had risen. Despite his tendency to wake late, he was not fond of sleeping in. Rather, he never had motivation to begin his day.

Part of Robin had hoped he would someday find a reason to wake. He knew now as he rested, with sleep once more pulling at his mind and on odd weight on his chest and side, that he had yet to find such a purpose. His search for relief in Kjelle's promises the night prior had failed. He was afraid of the future as ever before.

In his forthcoming attempt to stand, Robin found that he was incapable of moving. The weight against his body held strong, and fastened him to the ground.

As he returned to wakefulness, Robin angled his head to view what had ensnared him in his sleep. He blinked in a vain attempt to comprehend what he was seeing, though his dozing mind found no issue with the scene before him.

Kjelle had stayed at his side over the night, as she had promised, and had remained as close to his side as humanly possible. Her body was pressed against his own. She now slept on her side, her head and one arm set upon Robin's chest. Her torso and limbs were held flush against him in a way that involved too much twisting and too many personal space violations for Robin to consider comfortable.

Robin should have felt nothing at seeing anyone in such a position. There would be nothing worth feeling. However, there was now an odd welcome hum in his chest. That hum confused him for several long moments, drawing his mind to any potential number of causes and resolutions, though he decided that none were worth taking.

Any action taken would disturb Kjelle, and she was at rest. She was too peaceful to wake. Robin wanted for her to have as much of that peace as often as possible. Her breathing was mesmerising, and the areas where her head and chest lay had shifted from weighty to warm. Robin draped an arm around her as best he could without disturbing her slumber and drifted off to sleep, that persistent hum in his chest never fading.

* * *

Tharja stirred in the dreary light of her inn room. She had closed the blinds of her window, allowing little natural light to seep into her working space. Though she had invested much time in her research, none of her efforts to extract magical energy from inorganic sources had yet succeeded, but she saw no reason to stop. Robin and Kjelle had left the port a matter of days ago - there would be much time for her to perfect her process before Valm invaded.

After checking over her work from the night prior, Tharja threw on a clean set of robes and exited her room. The fact that magical energy could be derived from organic sources alone had long been known to any practitioner of magecraft. That did not stop Tharja from questioning why the laws of magic were as they are. Should her efforts to cast magic with unenchanted shards of stone, metal, and other substances fail or succeed, then that would be all the proof necessary to lay to rest decades of debate over the nature of spellcasting.

Though there were few windows on the second floor of the inn, Tharja was blinded by the bright light they offered. She grumbled choice words about daylight and made her way downstairs, only to be met with a greater abhorrence.

"My, my! The greatest beauty has awoken at last!" a familiar posh voice greeted Tharja. "Why, I was beginning to think that you had set to rot in your paltry bedspread. Consider myself glad that you haven't."

"Virion." Tharja mumbled a cold greeting.

"Truly, you should make an effort to arise earlier than hours before sundown, lest you miss all the happenings of the day." Virion said, ignoring her coldness. "You were absent for the departure of ladies Cherche and Say'ri, and you've missed a meal with yours truly. Am I that repulsive?"

"Yes." Tharja said without missing a beat, pushing past Virion's table toward the inn's kitchen. "Don't disturb me as I work, Virion. Also, keep in mind that I'll be working until we're at war, and then fighting in said war. So don't bother me. Ever."

"Alas, what more did I expect from you, my dearest Tharja?" Virion sighed. "Your outward countenance is that of ice, haggard despite your beauty, yet you care for all so sincerely. You believe your research can save lives? Ha, I envy your naivety."

His words stopped Tharja. Her expression twitched into a frown as she spun around. Her frown was met with a carefree smile.

"Are you attempting to insult my research, Virion?" Tharja asked with a forceful chill.

"Of course not - I'm insulting you, my dear. Would you prefer I use language more simplistic?" Virion smiled brighter as the intensity of her glare increased tenfold.

"What are you playing at? Is this supposed to get me to go to dinner with you? If so, you're failing." Tharja said, retaining her calm despite her building anger.

"As desirable as such an outing would be, I am not of the mind to engage in such activities." Virion said.

Tharja instantly grew concerned. "You aren't available to have dinner with a woman? You? Of all people?"

"A grave loss for the women of the world, I am certain." Virion nodded. "The conqueror will be upon us soon, my dear. All the dinners in the world, all the kind words, the allies, the enemies, the love, the hatred… all will have been for naught. He will not be stopped by any count of human ken."

Tharja's concern gave way to disinterest and she made her way once more to the kitchen. Virion had been acting much too melodramatic the past few days, and it was wearing thin. "Grow up, Virion. Fear has no place in our pursuit of victory. Perhaps if you cease your cowardice, you'll be able to defeat Walhart with the rest of us. As of now you're dead weight."

"I pray you die before me. That way, you won't live to see how wrong you are." Virion said.

Tharja scoffed and entered the kitchen, picking out as much food as she could carry. Her mind raced as she went - pep talks were not her forté. Virion's predicament was problematic, but for now, she had no idea how to handle the situation. Tharja passed Virion on her way back to her room, then stopped and spun toward him. She said nothing.

"May I be of some help to you?" Virion asked, disinterested in her stare.

"You remind me of him. Of Robin." Tharja said after a long pause. Virion raised an eyebrow, but before he could make any inquiries, Tharja spoke again. "Not your appearance, or your speech, or anything like that. There's something about you…"

Her eyes narrowed to a point on Virion's remnant smile. "You've given up. That's what I saw in him before he left, why he seemed so irrationally pleasant. You've both forfeited your hope."

"For all of our sakes, I pray our tactician hasn't given up hope." Virion said. "Alas, it is fated that we fall, Robin or not. The question is when."

"If Robin gave up hope before leaving with Kjelle… gods, I can't believe I didn't see this!" Tharja hissed, and with a shake of her head she stepped again toward her room. "He… he'll be okay. It's Robin. He'll always be okay."

"Or not." Virion piped up. "Perchance he seeks death? Why, wouldn't that be a fanciful escape from Valm's terror! If only such a means was as swift as facing the conqueror in battle."

Tharja stopped in her tracks again to look back at Virion, concern now written across her face. "Virion… don't die." she murmured quietly, then returned to her room. She had no idea whether or not Virion had heard her plea.

In the dark confines of her room, Tharja once again set about drawing magic from inanimate objects, snacking on her acquired food as she went. None of her experiments yet bore any fruit, and she went to sleep more disgruntled and annoyed than when she had awoken.

* * *

The next morning was similar to the first. Tharja's materials sat unchanged and in need of replenishing, and so she set out into the harsh light of midday to find more food and supplies. Virion was no longer lazing in the inn. The innkeeper allowed Tharja entry into the kitchen and access to all manner of foodstuffs thanks to the Khans who had arranged her stay.

Upon exiting the kitchen, Tharja was met with the sight of Olivia and Lon'qu resting at and near a table, respectively, with an Anna sitting across from Olivia. Much to Tharja's chagrin, Olivia spotted and waved her over to the table.

"Thank goodness you're here, Tharja." Olivia said as the sorceress took a reluctant seat. The Anna across from them waved, an innocent smile plastered on her face. Some form of official parchment from Ylisse sat atop the table. "I'm sorry to drag you over, but I don't have the authority to handle this. I mean, neither do you, but…"

"What is it?" Tharja asked icily, her voice more hoarse than she had anticipated. Staying awake for long hours through the night was doing her no favours.

"I'm a Shepherd!" Anna announced happily, her smile brightening. She tapped the papers sat atop the table, which Tharja was now able to recognise as completed acceptance documents for the Shepherds. No one but Robin or Chrom could have given her such papers.

"The innkeeper told us she was looking for Shepherds, so Lon'qu and I met with her." Olivia explained. "I didn't expect her to have something like this… are they legitimate? We should wait for Robin or Chrom before doing anything, right?"

"Did you receive these from Robin? Is he well?" Tharja asked Anna, ignoring the dancer at her side.

"Yep and yep!" Anna beamed. "He and that time traveller lady met me at a village in eastern Ferox. Er, wait, that was supposed to be a secret, wasn't it…"

Tharja raised an eyebrow, but quickly lowered it back into place. "Nevermind; all that matters is Robin's safety. Now, though I-"

"Khan Flavia told me! She hired my family and I to find weapons and do some other business here in Ferox, which is why I'm here now. Robin gave me these papers after we fought some bandits. Now that Khan Flavia has her weapons, and now that this Gaius friend of yours has found the rest of the time travellers, I should be all set to quit Anna-ing and join you!"

Tharja blinked, stupefied that an Anna would surrender so much covert information without prodding. "Okay, I don't care. Welcome to the Shepherds. Don't impede any of my work." she said, then left for her room, leaving Olivia to fail to understand what had happened.

"Hooray, I'm a Shepherd!" Anna cheered. "To commemorate this monumental event, meals and drinks are on me tonight! Trust me, I've got more than enough cash!"

Tharja raised an eyebrow at the new Shepherd but continued walking. She was stopped by Lon'qu before she could ascend to her room.

"I believed you to be over Robin. Your obsession hasn't died." the swordmaster quelled a tremor in his voice.

"You're wrong. I'm expressing mere concern." Tharja said. She brushed past Lon'qu, who offered no resistance beyond a shuddering sidestep. She paused and turned back to the swordsman.

"Did you notice anything odd with Robin before he left? Anything hopeless?" she asked.

Lon'qu narrowed his gaze, an expression that would imply scrutiny for anyone other than him. "I know not what you mean."

"My apologies. Goodbye." Tharja ended their conversation with a wave of her hand.

Lon'qu's gaze narrowed further. He refrained from stopping Tharja, and instead lost himself in thought before returning to his distance from Olivia's side.

In Tharja's room, the sorceress set out once again on her experiments. She retained hope that she would make a grand breakthrough. When her test were set into motion as with each night prior, she again never attained her desired results but never halted her efforts.

Tharja fell asleep in the latest hours of night and woke once more into the bright light of midday. She repeated that process without fail for many days. Her schedule rarely brought her into contact with others. There would be much for her to attend in time, but for now, she was content to focus upon her study.

* * *

Several days later, Tharja was once again securing food and supplies from the storehouse of the inn. Anna and Virion were sat at different tables on the main floor. Virion claimed he had nowhere else to be, and Anna had returned from a successful selling spree to count her gold, despite her claim to have forfeited the life of a merchant for Shepherdry.

The door to the inn burst open as Tharja was exiting the kitchen, supplies and food stacked high atop her arms. Out of the corner of her eye she could make out a young woman with white hair and a bow slung over one shoulder, though she appeared too gaunt to be a threat. Tharja dismissed her and moved toward her room.

"Ah, such a frail beauty you are, my sweet." Virion said on instinct, ignoring how the woman's ragged breaths made her sound as though she had run a marathon. His words stopped, though she refused to believe she was the least amount jealous. "I would love to invite you to stay with me, as you are in clear need of a room, but alas; such efforts stand for naught. May the conqueror find you last, my dear."

Tharja rolled her eyes and maneuvered over to Virion, shifting her goods into one arm to tap the sniper's head and scold him. "Stop your nonsense, Virion - and don't share military secrets with a civilian."

"Hey, you have a weapon! Wanna fight a war with us?" Anna piped up from her table. Tharja turned to her, her mouth curled open in revulsion, her head jerking from side to side to dispel the woman's enthusiasm. Anna nodded her head at an equivalent pace.

"Thank goodness, lady Anna!" the woman erupted in joy and dashed over to the merchant's table. "Oh gods, you have no idea how many places I looked trying to find the Shepherds! I should've started with the inns, but I was scared that something bad would happen if I wasn't fast enough, and I haven't slept for a while, and… y-you are with the Shepherds, right?"

Anna glanced between the woman, Tharja, and Virion, then shook her head. "Nope, sorry. I think they all went on vacation to Tellius. Wanna try following them?"

Tharja sighed and approached the woman. "You. What business do you have with the Shepherds?"

"Huh?" The woman spun around. "I need to find them, so I can save-!" she froze, her mouth dropping open as she stared Tharja and Virion. "A pompous archer and a cold but beautiful sorceress… Virion? Mother!?"

"I beg your pardon?" Virion spoke up, raising his eyebrows at the woman.

Tharja shook her head and made for her room. "Anna, here's your first mission as a Shepherd: remove this woman from my vicinity."

"Wait! Don't go! I'm Noire, your daughter!" the woman cried, reaching out and grabbing Tharja by her wrist. "I mean, I never knew you before you died, and I guess the you here doesn't know who I am, but…"

"Ah, another time traveller! Of course! Isn't that the most rational explanation of all?" Virion said, his tone decisively mocking.

"Hm… come with me, now." Tharja ordered, glaring at where Noire had grabbed her before pulling the girl in to the kitchen.

"Thank you, mother!" Noire smiled, keeping pace with Tharja without question. "I promise, I'll only need a few minutes to explain everything. Kjelle has a bit of a loud mouth, but I guess that ended up being useful… er, I may need a few hours to explain everything in full, but a basic summary should be fine for now, right? Is father here with you? Have you met any of my other friends?"

Tharja whipped Noire forward into the kitchen, flinging the gaunt girl with a negligible amount of strength. She then slammed the door to the kitchen shut. Then, she placed a magic seal over the door's lock, ensuring that Noire would have no means of escaping and disturbing her further.

"Tend to that mess when you have the time." Tharja said to both Anna and Virion, who raised an eyebrow and shrugged, respectively. Neither cared much for what had happened despite Noire's urgency, and Tharja felt the same. All she wanted was to work in peace, not to be disturbed by a vagrant.

"Mother? Mother!?" Noire called out from the sealed kitchen. "Hey, I think the door got stuck! Mother!? Virion, Anna!? Hello!?"

Tharja ignored her cries and returned to her room without a second thought. She once again set about performing her experiments and yet again made no headway.

* * *

The next morning, Tharja arose as before, her routine mimicking that from each day prior. When she made her way downstairs, Anna was sitting alone at a table near the kitchen with another pile of coins. Tharja approached the kitchen, but was stopped by Anna before she could open the door.

"I'd be careful about going in there." Anna said. "In case you didn't catch it, her name is Noire and she's a time traveller. As far as I can tell her story checks out. She's unusual, though."

"That woman's still in there? Didn't you let her out?" Tharja asked, surprised at Anna's apparent incompetence.

"I did - several times." Anna said. "She kept closing the door and saying that you wanted her to be in there, and that she wasn't able to leave as a result. I don't know how bad her life was up to this point, but I'm assuming it was awful for her to be this fearful of someone like you."

"Someone like me? You are aware of how intimidating most find me to be, yes?" Tharja glared.

Anna shrugged, refusing to be rattled by the sorceress' demeanor. "Eh, you seem like a softy."

Tharja scowled at Anna for a long moment before shaking her head and moving back to the kitchen door. Anna had dispelled the weak magic she had applied, leaving the door free to open and close without issue. Tharja pushed the door open, in part expecting Anna to have lied for some idiotic purpose.

Her suspicions were crushed when Noire sprang up from the floor and yawned before snapping to attention. The large bags under her eyes indicated that she had yet to rest.

"Mother! Er, I mean, lady Tharja!" Noire bowed. "Um… can I call you mother? Haha, sorry, not important, ah, ha… a-anyway, may I leave yet? I know I shouldn't be asking, but…"

"Gods, what is wrong with you?" Tharja remarked as she appraised Noire. "Are you so damaged a person that you would express no agency?"

"Damaged? No, not at all!" Noire defended herself, gaining a shred of a backbone that endeared her to Tharja. "It's only that… well… you were supposedly a scary person in my time. Father was nice, but he used to say that you would hex people at the drop of a hat. I-I don't want to be cursed like them, not when I have the chance to get along with you."

Tharja narrowed her eyes, then closed them and took a deep breath. "Permit me a moment to understand this." she said, and Noire held silent.

After a long pause, Tharja reopened her eyes, though her gaze was no less cold. "I can tell you now that you'll be hexed if you continue to whimper like a wounded pup. If you seek any form of care from me, earn it. If not, then leave my sight."

"Yeah, that's about what I should've expected." Noire sighed and hung her head low, but then popped back up with an uneasy smile. "So, you, ah… you haven't taken to the idea of me being your daughter yet?"

"I'll subscribe to no such nonsense." Tharja said. "Were there another version of me in another time that birthed you, their death would be that of your mother. I am unmarried. Your mother is not in this time. She and I are not the same."

"Ha, haha, ha…" Noire laughed through a tremor in her voice. "That… that's okay! You'll come around! Everything will fall into place once you meet father!"

"And who might that be?" Tharja asked, intent on putting an end to Noire's ramblings.

"Er… I don't know if I should…" Noire mumbled, though she succumbed to a strong glare from Tharja. "His name is Henry! He's another Shepherd, one who was supposed to join during the war with Plegia but didn't in this time and oh gods now we'll never find him and you'll never fall in love and I won't be born meaning I'll fade from existence oh gods please no!"

Tharja groaned. Noire's personality was wearing her on patience. The archer was beginning to shudder at a hazardous pace. Tharja exited the kitchen and closed the door behind her, leaving Noire alone in the room to hyperventilate. She paused for a moment upon exiting before committing to her actions and heading for her room.

"Wow, seriously? You're going to leave her in there? That's cold." Anna commented from her table.

"She can stay there until she learns to stop being a waste of space." Tharja said. She knew she was being too harsh on the girl, but also refused to accept any of her tall tales.

"You know she's not gonna leave." Anna said.

Tharja tilted her head back and hissed a breath through her teeth. Another groan escaped her lips, and she whipped around to once more open the door to the kitchen.

"Get out of there. Now." she ordered to Noire, who had returned to the floor after Tharja's departure.

"Thank you, mother!" Noire beamed. She stepped out of the kitchen with a renewed sense of freedom.

"Have you any knowledge of magic?" Tharja asked, ignoring Noire's shifting composure.

"I can't cast spells well, but I know my way around enchantments." Noire confirmed. "You weren't there to teach me, and father was always being sent off on missions, and…"

Tharja raised a hand to stop her from speaking. "I don't need your life story, only an answer to my question. Have you any information that would be worth sharing? Since you're a time traveller and all." she said, her voice carrying as little faith as she put in the assertion.

"Um… people die if you try to enchant them."

"Yes, of course; no living being can be enchanted by a novice. Should a master attempt such a thing it would only be in the form of a blood pact. I'd be surprised if there's a mage in the world who doesn't know as such."

"You'd have been surprised, then." Noire muttered and regained her less certain composure. "Um… oh, I know an enchantment that somewhat reverses the flow of time! That one belongs to father - Henry, so you probably don't know it yet."

Tharja raised an eyebrow at Noire. "Show me this enchantment. It may be of some use."

"Right now?" Noire asked, concerned by the prospect before another sharp glare silenced her qualms. "Er, right, of course! I'll do it right now!"

She snatched a bag of flour from a shelf at her side and shook it in the air before her. The kitchen entrance and Tharja's front were promptly covered in white powder. Tharja glared in silence at Noire.

"Sorry, that was… an accident…" Noire apologised. "I'll clean it up right away! You'll see!"

Noire closed her eyes to focus on her magic. The bag in her hands began to glow in a pale light, which soon spread to the flour coating the kitchen and Tharja. The flower left Tharja's body without sensation or sound. The light encompassing the bag in Noire's hands faded. When it disappeared Noire lurched forward, all of the weight she had emptied from the bag returning at once.

"Remarkable." Tharja breathed. Her gaze locked on Noire. "Write the incantation down and give it to me. You may have proven your worth."

The bag of flour hit the ground as Noire gasped for air and brought her hands to her knees. "I-I'm sorry, that… that took a lot out of me. I don't think I can… can do anything quite yet…"

"There are potions in my room upstairs - third door on your right as you arrive at the top of the second floor. Go there, await my return, and touch none of my equipment beyond what is necessary." Tharja ordered.

Noire nodded and squeezed out of the kitchen, then made a dash for the staircase, ignoring Anna. Tharja filled her arms with as much food as possible and followed Noire.

Before Tharja could enter her room, Noire poked her head out from her door, a quizzical expression on her face. "Hey, sorry to ask, but what are you doing with this?" she brought out one of her hands, in which was a small cluster of stones on which Tharja had experimented.

"I told you to touch nothing!" Tharja scowled from behind her stack of food. "If you must ask, I'm attempting to extract magic from inorganic materials. Now return that before the experiment is ruined!"

"What, are you serious? Even I know that's a dumb idea, and I'm me!" Noire said. "If you want to be able to store magic in them, you have to at least enchant them, like so…"

"You fool! I already have enchantments in place to monitor them! Someone as incorrigible as you will only destroy them!" Tharja hissed, dropping her food to dart her hands out toward Noire.

Much to Tharja's despair and Noire's confusion, the stones began to vibrate against one another. Tharja whipped them away from her, throwing them at speed toward the closed room opposite hers. The stones seared through the wooden door and into the room as though nothing had stood in their way. An instant later, a massive explosion sounded in the room and shook the inn, with a trail of dark vapour beginning to seep out from the holes in the door.

"Wait, so bad stuff happens whenever you mess up an enchantment? It doesn't have to be on a living subject?" Noire observed in awe. "Wow. I had no idea that would happen."

Tharja stared at the ruined door before turning back to Noire. Her face now bore a scowl more harsh than any other. "What did I tell you!? I said not to touch anything! What about that was so difficult to follow!?"

"Haha, about that… we should close this…" Noire laughed weakly. She stepped out into the hall and closed the door to Tharja's room behind her, then took several steps further down the hall away from the room.

"What did you-!?" Tharja managed to get out before another explosion shook the inn. This one brought her to her knees through the force of several successive shockwaves. As if on cue, Noire's time reversal wore off, and Tharja was coated once more in a layer of flour.

"Godsdamnit! Did you time that!?"

"Please don't yell at me! I-I was trying to help!"

* * *

Kjelle awoke to the warmth of the sun on her skin and another, more alien warmth around her. She tensed her muscles and grumbled to herself, regretting that she had to wake from a pleasant rest. After several long minutes she sighed in resignation, accepting her need to face the day as she made to stand from wherever she had made her bed.

Some form of restraint held her in place, preventing her from rising with ease. Kjelle tensed further and prepared to force her way out of her unknown restraint. Only then did her vision sharpen enough to see Robin lying on the ground beneath her, asleep and at peace. She knew in an instant that she would do nothing to disturb him.

Then, she began to realise how close they were, and how she had rested her head atop his chest. Her face turned a deep shade of red as she opened her mouth to shout on instinct, though she held silent. Her face continued to hold its flush red hue as she struggled to move around.

Somehow, she had wrapped one of her legs over Robin's, who had then snaked his arm around her back. Kjelle was truly restrained in her entwinement with Robin, lest she rouse him with enough force.

Despite her embarrassment and their unusual compromising positions, Kjelle had no desire to wake Robin. How could she want to disturb anyone so peaceful?

If she were to be honest, Kjelke was also enjoying Robin's resting embrace. There was something calming to it, something warm and inviting. Something wonderful. She didn't want to disturb him for fear of disturbing those welcome sensations.

And so, Kjelle swallowed her uncharacteristic embarrassment. As her blush died she began to move her head close to Robin's chest once more. She settled into the same spot she had awoken in, listening to the calming sounds of his breathing. The arm and leg she had laid over him tightened by the smallest of amounts before relaxing. They were safe. She was happy and relaxed. She could ask for nothing more.

The day was far too old for her to fall asleep again, but Kjelle was content to lay in relaxation for as much time as possible. Nothing could ruin the moment she was experiencing.

 _I can just pretend that I woke up later_. she thought to herself. _I can act embarrassed, feign anger… er, no, that'll happen anyway. As soon as I'm thinking properly again. I'm too tired to do that right now. Of course. I should rest more_.

Robin stirred in his sleep. His breathing shifted enough to give Kjelle reason to fear that he was waking. He soon calmed back into his regular rhythm.

 _Yeah, I should definitely rest more. While I can_.

* * *

An orange haze spread over Plegia. So long as the unnatural storm of dust causing the obscuration did not impede his movements or that of his crow friends, Henry could care less about the weather. All he cared about was the towering temple before him - the grand pride of the Grimleal, the Dragon's Table.

A strange lady by the name of Flavia had insisted upon the significance of the structure, and upon the necessity of Henry not being in Plegia in the days to come. Of course, that meant he needed to stay and observe whatever was happening, as he had done. The scent of drying blood wafting in Henry's direction was enough for his imagination to run wild on the subject of the Khans' arrival.

The scent of death grew stronger near the Dragon's Table. Henry's crows had dispersed into the sands of the surrounding desert to scavenge from the numerous corpses they had passed. That concentration of bodies grew the nearer he came to the table.

Flavia and her companion Basilio had long departed the structure. Henry had been certain to stress as such in the interest of preserving himself. He could outmaneuver the Khans with the help of his crows, but Henry suspected he would have more fun in their aftermath than in conflict. The Khans had disappeared with their soldiers into a sandstorm, leaving Henry to sift through their carnage.

Henry was able to spy no Ylissean or Feroxi bodies among the corpses, as he had expected. Instead, he found only the bodies of Plegian Grimleal among the corpses that had not been rendered ash.

As he ventured further into the unwelcoming confines of the Dragon's Table, Henry came across a row of bodies. They had been aligned before the altar central to the main room, their faces angled skyward and no care taken to handle their grievous wounds.

The first body in the line was that of a woman, her dark skin marked numerous times with purple runes that heralded some form of pact with Grima. She wore gratuitously little black clothing, with her silver hair contrasting against the rest of her appearance. Henry recognised her as Aversa, the woman who had fought in the war against Ylisse as a strategist for Gangrel.

Aversa had long disappeared from Plegia after her strategies had failed. Apparently, she had made quite the eventful return. Her death here was expected for Henry; who else but the dead king's right hand would be targeted by a foreign power? He wished he could have seen the renowned dark flier in action, but he would settle for her risen form.

Henry moved to the next body, one of sickly pale skin covered in heavy purple armour. The person's wrists, ankles, and neck were shackled to the floor, with a faint hum notifying Henry that magic was at play in the bindings.

Henry kneeled down next to the body's upper half and brought his head toward their own. His smile never dampened as he tried to place their identity. A flash of red from beneath the risen's helmet met his gaze. The undead jolted and strained against its confinement.

"Nyahaha! I was right - this is going to be fun!" Henry laughed, his head remaining in place as the risen began to groan. He had anticipated finding stragglers in the aftermath of the fighting, and a large number of powerful risen ripe for his examining, but this was beyond his wildest expectations. He rose from his kneel and cast a glance out over the remaining bodies, his smile widening as he went.

The general before him. A dark knight. A bow knight. A swordmaster. A war cleric. Seven more.

Someone had captured each of the legendary twelve deadlords.

"Nyahaha! This is the best!" Henry sang, jumping in excitement as he skipped down the line of bodies. Flavia, Basilio, and their soldiers had exceeded his expectations. They had left him the greatest unintentional gift imaginable - the twelve strongest risen in existence, as well as Plegia's greatest soon-to-be-risen tactician.

"Now, the only question is, what should I do with you…" Henry muttered as he reached the end of the body line. He snapped his fingers and broke into a wider smile. "I know! Why don't you help me out a little bit in battle? That'd be nice, don't ya think?"

Flavia had offered him a position among the Shepherds, after all. He had coveted such standing since the turning point of the war, but now that Flavia had mentioned a conflict with Valm, he was all the more excited to join their ranks. The Shepherds seemed like the kind of people he could always have fun around. As a result, he wanted to show up with a gift.

With a clap of his hands, Henry set about securing the deadlords with magic of his own. Doing so would ensure that they remain under his control, which would allow him to keep them a terror amidst enemies. In theory. Henry had never succeeded in casting such a spell, even on common risen.

Upon further consideration, Henry decided that optimisation of his techniques would be best before he attempted to control a deadlord. So, he sat himself beside the line of bodies, awaiting the revival of more risen. He would soon have a surplus of training dummies. Once the dead began to turn, he may have to go so far as to cull the number of those lining up to volunteer.

Henry's research was by no means a slow process. He had realised within days of monitoring the risen how they came to exist through the reanimation of the living. It had taken him a matter of hours to understand the Grimleal's reeking boxes and how Aversa had utilised them during the war. To tame the deadlords would be not much more difficult a task.

A crow flew into the altar room, some fresh fruit from gods know how far away in its talons. Several more soon followed. Henry couldn't bring himself to abandon his new test subjects in waiting. He resolved to wait a few days before heading to the port Flavia had mentioned.

The deadlords screamed wordlessly as more crows flew into the altar room. Henry's smile continued to grow. This was set to be the best few days of his entire life.

* * *

Three full days passed. No risen reanimated from the bodies in and around the Dragon's Table. Henry had taken to pacing around the building as he waited for anything to happen, his characteristic smile sometimes twitching into a venomous frown. Something, anything should have happened by now, yet nothing had.

Henry was growing impatient. Too much time had been wasted waiting for risen to appear; based on his observations, most people would have turned undead in a matter of hours to days. The notion that none in so massive a sample had turned was a statistical improbability at best.

He had already torn apart a few corpses to examine them, thinking that they had been too damaged in their unknown battle to rise, but his autopsies had revealed them all to be in perfect lifeless conditions. There was some other factor in play.

It was during one of these examinations that Henry was interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching the Dragon's Table. He had snapped his head up with a bright smile, anticipating that a risen had appeared. That smile faded when he was met with a living woman sporting long blonde hair and impressive red armour.

"Henry, I presume?" the woman approached him and bowed, remaining several metres from the deadlords near which he was performing his examinations. "I was told you were here."

"Yep, that's me!" Henry laughed, though the sound was strained with his frustration. "Were you looking for me? People do that sometimes, but it doesn't end well for them!"

"That I was." the woman confirmed, her head remaining low. "You are to leave this place at once. Khan Flavia requested that you go to Port Ferox. You should listen to her."

"Ooh, that sounded threatening! I like threats!" Henry grinned. "Sorry lady, but I've invested too much time in these risen to abandon them. Maybe you'd prefer to come back in a few days? Or, maybe, you want to be escorted away from here?" he said and began to charge dark magic in his hands, more to intimidate her than initiate a battle.

"I don't wish to fight you, Henry." the woman said. "All I must do is deliver that message and ensure you leave here before late tomorrow. I will wait here until I am certain my objective has been met."

"You'll be waiting for a long time." Henry smiled. "You should leave. If not, things may become a little less happy for you, and I'd hate to see that."

"I see. I was told you may be difficult." the woman rose from her bow. She moved a hand to rest on a tome on her hip, though she remained relaxed. "I will not fail to complete my ordinance, even if I must drag you to the border myself."

"Nyahaha! I wasn't expecting to have this much fun!" Henry burst out in laughter. His magic flew free of his hands toward the woman. He had no real desire to kill her, but he also couldn't resist.

Rings of runes appeared around the woman, heralding Henry's preferred ruin magic. The woman drew a powerful bolganone tome and made no effort to dodge his attack. She bore the same confident, imposing air that had disturbed Henry when he had met with Flavia.

Henry's smile twitched into a frown before snapping back into place. The woman before him was proving problematic.

Bars of dark magic erupted out of the rings of runes, slamming into the woman at incredible force. She failed to so much as flinch. Henry's smile again broke into a frown. It remained in place as he tried to understand how she could shrug off so powerful an attack.

"I was told you were among the more powerful spellcasters of the Shepherds. I must say, I am disappointed." the woman sighed and opened her tome. Her armour retained no damaged.

"Oh, so your armour's enchanted, huh? That isn't very fair!" Henry's smile returned.

The woman paused, then bobbed her head in agreement and returned her tome to her side. One of her hands shifted up to her shoulder and began to pry the painted metal plating away. "That much is true. I, too, prefer a level playing field, regardless of how meaningless such a sentiment will prove."

"Nyahaha! Be warned, lady, I don't always play fair! If you want to fight, you may have to face my deadlord servants, too!" Henry bluffed. He would much prefer to avoid conflict, considering the confidence of his opponent.

The woman tilted, then shook her head as she removed her armour, leaving herself in uniform red clothing. "You had best come up with another lie, Henry. The deadlords aren't under your control - they're under mine."

Henry froze for an instant. That revelation was as unexpected as the woman's impromptu arrival. "Oh yeah? Prove it."

"Gladly." nodded the woman. She waved her hand at the line of bodies. The ties in place over the armoured deadlord, Mus, lifted in a wave of light. Mus sprung up from its position on the ground, defying the weight of its armour as its wordless screaming reached a new crescendo. The woman then promptly brought her magic shackles back down on Mus.

"Nyahaha! Neat trick, but any mage can dispel and manifest magic! Watch this!" Henry said. He waved his hand and channeled magic toward the next deadlord, the bow knight Bovis. His frown returned when none of the bindings showed indication of breaking.

"It's okay to fail here, Henry. There's nothing you need to prove. I won't blame you for leaving for the port." the woman said. "I will not kill or pursue you. For now, you cannot hope to defeat me, and should you by some miracle do as such, there are many who will take my place. You must leave here before tomorrow evening."

Henry narrowed his gaze on the woman. If she had been present at the battle that had transpired here, he was glad he'd decided to sit back. "Ha, I can't leave until I've made progress. Who are you? How do you control the risen? Tell me and I may consider leaving."

"My true name is for now to be concealed to you, but you may call me Proteus. It's an alias I was instructed to use should I ever contact one such as you."

"Huh. Cool name." Henry said. "Kinda defeats the purpose of having an alias if you tell me it's fake, though, no? Why use that instead of your actual name?"

"I don't know." the woman not named Proteus admitted. "I would like to tell you my real name, but I was informed that it would be a sensitive matter. I suppose it must have to do with the fact that we may one day be enemies."

"I'll look forward to it." Henry continued to smile. "What about the risen? That's some impressive magic you've got. Is it keeping others from turning, too?"

"Alas, I am not that capable a mage. I've learned from the best, but I have limits where they do not." Not-Proteus said. "The deadlords are constrained, but I do not control them. Only the dead woman, Aversa, knew of the vile incantations necessary to do so. I am confident in the ability of my allies to reverse engineer such magic. As for the bodies here, they fail to become risen due to the annihilation of Grima and the Grimleal, not due to magic."

Henry raised an eyebrow, though his smile refused to fade. "You're trying to tell me you killed Grima? Ha, I'd never have thought you to be so crazy!"

"Not I, but another." Not-Proteus said. "She enchanted my armour, she sent my allies and I here, she's the one who wants the deadlords… and she's strong enough to best he who would become as a god. For now, at least."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" Henry asked. "'Cause I'm pretty sure it doesn't! All I took from that is that you aren't any closer than me to controlling the risen."

"That much is true, but I guarantee you that no new risen will appear from this moment in time onward. Now then, since I've answered your questions, will you depart for the port? Or must I trouble myself further?"

"Hm… one more question, and I think I'll be good." Henry said. "My crows claim that a massive army fought the Grimleal here. Were you part of that army?"

"That I am. I would advise you to keep away from our forces, though - our commanders wouldn't take well to interference."

"Okay! Thanks, crazy lady!" Henry laughed. He began to walk toward the building's single exit, his crows flocking to his side "Guess I've got to go to the port now, huh? Tell me if you find out how to control the risen!"

"You are an odd one, Henry. I'm glad we haven't yet had to fight." Not-Proteus said. "If we meet again, and if it should be as allies, I vow to share all that I know, and hope you will do the same. If we meet as enemies… then I hope I have the opportunity to kill you."

"Nyahaha! I hope I get to kill you, too!" Henry cackled. His crows enveloped him as he exited the Dragon's Table. "Goodbye, Not-Proteus!"

"Goodbye, Henry." the woman bowed to him. In a flurry of crows, Henry disappeared.

* * *

Late at night, Henry's murder of crows touched down at Port Ferox. At a silent command, they flew out once more in search of the Shepherds. After under a minute of waiting, a group of crows returned to Henry. One landed on his shoulder and cawed its findings, and Henry pat its head in thanks.

Stacks of building materials - slabs of stone and planks of wood - were stacked on the street beneath a massive hole in the side of the inn Henry's crow had designated. Rubble had been swept to the side of those piles, with the charred remains of what had once been an inn room remaining on the building's upper floor. Henry sidestepped and ignored the rubble as he progressed toward the entrance of the inn.

Voices could be heard from within. A woman was crying about something, and though he could not hear them, Henry's crows assured him there were two other people speaking with the woman. Henry entered the inn, leaving his crows to fly free outside.

The woman's wails were silenced as he entered. Henry had no time to process what was happening before the woman who had been crying bolted away from her table and pulled him into a suffocating embrace.

"Father! Oh my gods, father! I didn't think we would find you, and now mother's been talking about cursing me and leaving me on the street, and she keeps insisting that she isn't my mother and that she'll never want to see me again, but now… f-father!"

"Sorry lady, but that's not me!" Henry laughed. Noire's actions failed to throw him off balance, both literally and figuratively. As her embrace froze, her eyes widened in horror, and her face drained of colour, Henry pushed Noire away and advanced further into the inn.

"Gods, she's having a rough few days." lamented a beautiful pink-haired woman. She sighed, shook her head, and turned to her more intimidating companion. "Do you think she's going to catch a break anytime soon?"

The loud caw of a crow from behind one of the inn's windows informed Henry that the woman before him was none other than the renowned dancer Olivia. Henry was amazed that his crows knew such a thing, and displeased that they had yet to obey his order to disperse. He would be certain to resolve their eavesdropping tendencies later.

"She's yet to drop her fanatical tale of time travel. I see no reason as to why she would be deserving of relief." said the intimidating man next to Olivia. One of Henry's crows cawed that his name was Lon'qu, and that he was another Shepherd. Lon'qu had narrowed his gaze on Henry as the sorcerer had entered the building, but Henry found no reason to fault the man's scrutiny.

"I know it's far-fetched, but it's better to believe her than not, right?" Olivia asked. "Kjelle was a time traveller, too, and Noire claims to know her. We should trust her."

"You revealed to Noire the entirety of Kjelle's questionable identity before we could extract any-" Lon'qu began to say, then cut himself off when Henry drew too close. "This is a sensitive matter. It wouldn't do to have vagrants interrupt us."

"A vagrant? Me? You're too kind!" Henry laughed. He raised a single finger in the air as he corrected the Shepherd. "My name is Henry. I'm a dark mage from Plegia. Also, I'm here to join the Shepherds!"

"Father…" Noire whimpered. "I knew you wouldn't remember me, and I thought that forgetting some of it would be for the best, so why is this so difficult? Why does it hurt to see you introduce yourself to your own friends?"

Both Lon'qu and Olivia stared at Henry for a long, silent moment. Then, Olivia tilted her head and gave a brief hum.

"Noire did say that her father's name was Henry before this Henry introduced himself." she mused.

Lon'qu gave an aggravated sigh in response. "As if that proves such an absurd claim? Hmph. No matter. We can discuss her further after we finish dealing with this." he said, and gestured toward Henry.

"Hello!" Henry greeted them both again in response. "A scary lady by the name of Flavia told me to come here and join you guys! She said there was gonna be a big war and lots of killing!"

"You were sent here by Khan Flavia?" Olivia took a moment to process his statement. "I haven't heard anything from her since she disappeared and left Robin that note. Is she well?"

"Don't know! She might be dead!" Henry smiled. "There was a big battle at the Dragon's Table, and my crows weren't able to find her and Basilio afterward. They were probably blending in with the massive army that was leaving the place. That army seems nice, too! One of their soldiers and I are gonna try to kill each other!"

"Why on earth did Flavia go out of her way to recruit you?" Lon'qu asked, his voice conveying his disdain.

"He's a powerful sorcerer - the best in Plegia." Noire spoke up through choking breaths. "Please, let him join. You won't regret it, and… and I can't bear to lose him again."

Olivia watched Noire break into another bout of sobs before turning her head toward Henry. "Okay. We won't have the proper paperwork until Chrom or Robin get here, but nobody really cares about that stuff anyway. We're glad to have you."

"Yay! When does the killing start?" Henry asked with his enthusiasm retained in full, earning another disdainful groan from Lon'qu. Olivia's smile twitched into a frown before reappearing with far less certainty.

"What was that about an army?" Lon'qu asked, biting through his discontent in having to deal with the eccentric sorcerer.

"Oh yeah, a military outfit like you would care about that, huh?" Henry smiled. "My crows saw them leaving the Dragon's Table - a couple thousand people, give or take. Most on mounts. Some on foot, but those later took to flying with wyvern riders. They killed a lot of people, too - I'm willing to bet they erased the entirety of the Grimleal! Well, save for the less devout, like myself. Nyahaha, isn't that lovely?"

Olivia's eyes widened at the news. Lon'qu remained unchanged in his skepticism. "Well, it looks like you were right about Flavia wanting to target the Grimleal hierarchs." Olivia muttered to Lon'qu.

"Yes, but for her to initiate a genocide? That's absurd." Lon'qu said. "Henry. What proof do you have that any such event has taken place, beyond your word?"

"Nothing!" Henry said gleefully. "If you want, we can swing by the Dragon's Table and you can see the bodies for yourself. There's a lot of them, and they aren't turning into risen!"

"All people become risen in death. Not a person on this planet could be so ignorant as to have overlooked such a simple truth." Lon'qu said. "To state that the Grimleal were eliminated without becoming risen is ridiculous."

"I don't know how, but their killers stopped them from turning." Henry clarified with his same smile. "The lady I met said that someone had killed Grima, but that's what's preposterous. Gods can't die! Especially not an undead one! She was a strong mage, though - she was keeping the twelve deadlords under confinement!"

Noire took in a sharp breath that halted her sobs. "About that… Grima definitely isn't dead, as long as Robin-" she caught herself, remembering her half hearted promise to Kjelle. The absurdity of her friend's faith in Robin was almost enough for Noire to reveal everything in that moment.

"Grima isn't dead." she concluded anyway. She was not about to defy her friend's trust. "The reason I came here, why I had to find my family and ensure that they were okay, was because the risen changed. They somehow knew what I… what I had… what happened to…" her voice fell apart, her composure reducing once more to bouts of sobbing. "Father…!"

"Nyaha, she's a mess!" Henry remarked before turning back to Lon'qu and Olivia. "So, what do I have to do to be a Shepherd? Train? Kill people? Experiment? I'm good with all of the above!"

"We haven't yet properly addressed the fact that there's a military force engaging Plegia." Lon'qu said. "We have no verification that a genocide has occurred, but we have reason to believe that Khan Flavia held interest in eliminating members of Plegian authority. Can you verify that the forces she used were Feroxi? Were there any Ylisseans among them?"

"Nope! Not a Feroxi, Ylissean, or Plegian in sight!" Henry affirmed, causing Lon'qu's gaze to narrow on him further. "As a matter of fact, my crows had no idea where any of the soldiers were from! That means they weren't from this continent, at the very least. Maybe they're Valmese? Magvellian? Ooh, maybe they travelled here from another dimension!"

"There's no way Flavia would cooperate with a Valmese invasion, we still don't know where Magvel is in the world in relation to us, and that last option is less believable than time travel." Olivia said. "Though, you did mention that Valm's new tactician uses some crafty tactics." she muttered, tilting her head toward Lon'qu.

"We have no verification that Aversa serves Valm." Lon'qu reminded her. "This is all such a mess. Once Chrom and Robin return, we'll have to-"

"Aversa? She's dead, too!" Henry piped up, cutting Lon'qu off. Noire's sobbing stopped once more as she snapped her head up to stare at Henry.

"Explain yourself." ordered Lon'qu.

"The people with Flavia killed her! They lined her corpse up next to the twelve deadlords. Something was going to happen today, and they were gonna try to control the deadlords. That'd be quite an achievement, if you ask me!"

"I didn't." Lon'qu said, his tone remaining cold as he sighed in frustration. "No more tales of time travel, other dimensions, and fairytale deadlords. Understood?"

Henry found that he both liked and disliked the man at the same time. That confusing feeling made him all the more likeable. "Nyaha, you got it! I'll stick to talking about the real deadlords!"

Lon'qu groaned, but accepted the response nonetheless. "Am I understood?" he reiterated, this time turning to Noire.

"I…!" Noire began, ready to defend what she knew to be truth before she withered under Lon'qu's gaze. "Yes. Understood."

"Good." Lon'qu closed his eyes and took a long moment to gather his thoughts. He then focused his attention on Henry. "These crows of yours, you control them somehow, yes? Can they scout for the military regiment you observed and carry messages? We can't have them interfering with the missions Robin set out for the Shepherds, or acting against us in the war to come."

"Yay! There's going to be a war!"

"Can they scout and carry messages to Ylisse?" Lon'qu restated, this time with far more force behind his words.

"Sure thing! You'll owe them a lot of treats, though!" Henry smiled. He turned to the windows where his crows continued to eavesdrop.

"Caw-caw! Caw! Caw, caw-caw!" Henry said to the birds. Both Olivia and Lon'qu raised their eyebrows in concerned skepticism. Neither could believe that Flavia had recommended such a person for the Shepherds, or that they themselves had been willing to share sensitive information in his presence.

"Caw!" replied one of the crows.

"What? What do you mean you can't? Caw caw caw!"

"Caw, caw-caw!"

"Yes, but I'm telling you to leave! That means you should leave! Caw!"

The stairway to the inn's second level creaked. Tharja emerged from the room she had acquired after the destruction of her first, and made her way downstairs.

Noire's expression lit up at the sight of the sorceress, but soon succumbed once again to sadness. Her parents were no longer her family. Her life would never be as she had desired. The mighty Aversa had been felled by some unknown force. Everything was going horribly. She had no idea what to do but cry.

"Those crows have begun to invade the damaged room, and are scavenging the remains of my experiments." Tharja informed Lon'qu and Olivia as she arrived on the main floor. "If one of you doesn't take care of them, I will, and you won't be happy with- oh gods, why is this freak show here?"

"Nyahaha! Nice to meet you, too!" Henry waved to Tharja before returning to his rebellious crows. "Come on, I'll be fine here! Do as the scary guy says! Caw, caw!"

"You know who he is?" Olivia asked Tharja, who had begun to shake her head in derision as she observed Henry.

"Everyone in Plegia has heard of him." Tharja confirmed. "A white haired sorcerer who commanded a ruthless regiment of the Plegian military, before it was absolved in the aftermath of Emmeryn's sacrifice. Soldiers were often sent to him as punishment for misconduct rather than necessity. His magic also destroyed one of Plegia's most prominent private mage academies when he was enrolled there as a child. Why the hell is he here?"

"According to his word, Flavia wished for him to be a Shepherd." Olivia informed her.

Tharja stared at Henry as he communicated with his crows, his legendary status doing nothing to help his image. Then, she turned to Noire, who failed to conceal her sobs over the abrupt realisation that her family was gone.

"In hindsight, I should've stayed in Ylisstol." Tharja sneered, and made to return to her room.

"How would it be dangerous for both of us? You'll be flying around Ylisse, and I'll be surrounded by Shepherds! That's perfectly safe! Caw-caw!" Henry continued to argue with his crows through the inn windows, growing frustrated as they refused his requests.

"Caw!"

Henry's expression turned to stone as he stared at one of his crows, expecting them to burst out with another caw and tell him they were joking. No such caw sounded. "What? What do you mean they're dead? They flew me out here, I sent them out to scout and roam half an hour ago! How could they be dead? Caw, caw!"

"Caw!"

"You don't know? How do you not know? Didn't you see anything? Caw!"

"Caw!"

Henry's pained expression dissolved into relief. "Oh, it's a feral animal? Why didn't you say so? I'll go clear things up with it, and if it did hurt any of you, I'll be sure to put it in its place!"

He began to move toward the exit, leaving Olivia and Lon'qu to watch him in confusion. The crows began a cacophonous collective caw, drowning out all ambient noise remaining in the inn and causing Henry to frown once more.

"I won't be in danger! Animals love me!" Henry reassured the birds, but their noise refused to quiet.

"You should listen to your crows, fath- uh, Henry." Noire spoke up. "You didn't have them in my time - they followed you everywhere, and most died before you. Maybe, if they were still around, your crows would've warned you of what was to come…"

"I'm still amazed that he can communicate with birds." Olivia said, though both hers and Lon'qu's expressions remained rooted in doubt.

"Caw!"

"What, now you're saying that it's not an animal? What does that mean?" Henry asked one of his crows that managed to rise above the clamour of its fellows. "If it's an animal, I'll talk to it. If it's not, I'll kill it. Simple as that."

He opened the door to the inn and moved to step outside, but was battered inward by a horde of crows that pushed him to the ground in their frantic screeching. A horde of crows flew and claw their way into the inn, soaring toward any perch they could find, be it on tables and chairs or on the heads and shoulders of the Shepherds within. Olivia and Lon'qu instinctively raised their arms to protect their heads, on accident giving the crows more of a surface on which they could perch. Noire was unmoved by their frantic actions.

"Hey, what are you doing!? That hurt!" Henry shouted to his crows.

Soon, all of the crows gathered outside were present within the inn. More appeared outside the glass windows, called by the loud screeching of their fellows. As crows continued to trickle into the building, their caws hastening as those within grew silent, a group that was sat atop Henry's body flew up and began to ram themselves into the open door, slamming it shut despite the crows remaining outside.

Another distinct caw sounded within the inn, and every bird fell unnervingly silent. Lon'qu and Olivia's bodies cascaded with feathers as a few birds continued to nestle against their arms and head. Lon'qu jerked his arms to dispel them while Olivia remained still. The crows made no noise beyond the flapping of their wings as they settled on what little space remained available. Some pigeons, songbirds, and seagulls had entered the inn in addition to the crows. More were appearing from the upper level. Their utter silence put Lon'qu on edge, and he began to reach for the sword he always kept at his side.

The crows outside continued to screech, their noise growing louder to compensate for the silence within the inn. Lon'qu silently drew his sword. From the corner of his eye, he could see Noire shaking as she tried to not disturb the birds atop her head. Olivia was staring petrified at the windows through which the exterior crows could be seen. Henry had begun to rise, and Tharja could be heard cursing the crows from the remains of her room.

"What have you done, sorcerer?" Lon'qu asked Henry. A group of crows flew toward his mouth and attempted to smother the noise, but he swatted them away with his free hand.

"I don't know! They've never disobeyed-" Henry began to reply, then froze, his gaze locked on the same windows as Olivia's.

Lon'qu shifted his attention toward the windows. His grip on his sword tightened. Blood and feathers had splattered against the panes of glass.

The crows outside the inn continued to shriek as they flew toward the next window, their wings slamming into the glass as desperation overtook them. Then, with a final shriek louder than any other, they fell horrendously silent. Four unnatural blades gouged four horizontal grooves into the window at a blinding speed, and then that window too was coated in an impenetrable layer of blood and feathers.

Henry gawked at the sight. "What the… what the hell!? It's killing my friends!" he shouted, and moved to open the door to the inn, his hands flying to his tomes. His crows pushed him back and flew toward his mouth, forcing him to be silent.

"That… that didn't seem human." Olivia said, her gaze locked on the bloodied windows.

Lon'qu cast his gaze over his companions as he assessed their situation. Olivia had no weapon on her. Henry had tomes at hand. Noire had never left the first floor of the inn, meaning that her bow had to be nearby. Tharja was upstairs. Virion and Anna's locations were unknown. Lon'qu knew that he had to act.

"You, Noire. Find your bow and prepare for combat." he ordered the woman in question, his voice held low to avoid the interruption of the crows. "Henry, get a tome and do the same. Olivia, alert Tharja, get a weapon from our room, and join us as soon as you're able. This threat must be addressed."

"Oh, it's gonna be addressed!" Henry grinned before anyone else could reply. The sorcerer pointed his hand at the door to the inn, trying to prepare magic as his crows scurried to avoid his spell.

Noire nodded to Lon'qu, then picked her way through the crows to access the inn's kitchen. She emerged an instant later with her bow and quiver. Olivia opened her mouth to protest Lon'qu's ordinance, but then whispered for him to be safe and ran for the building's upper floor.

Lon'qu and Noire braced for Henry's spell, their weapons clutched in their grip to avoid losing them to the horde of agitated crows. Henry leveled his hand with the door. Nothing happened.

"What? What is this? Why can't I-?" Henry questioned as no crows dared to silence him. He retracted his hand and thrust it toward the door once more, but again, nothing happened. On his next attempt, a massive stream of fire erupted from his hand and annihilated the door and surrounding wall, exploding open a scorching hole laden with embers.

"Why the hell couldn't I…!?" Henry shouted to himself in agitation. "I've never failed a cast before! I was using dark magic earlier today! Why wouldn't it work!?" With a frustrated grunt, Henry pushed through the damage he had caused and into the open night.

"Follow him!" Lon'qu shouted to Noire, and they both dashed toward the wall of ashes and smoke that obscured their view. As they pressed forward, Henry was launched back into the inn, forcing them to grind to a preemptive halt. Specks of blood stained the ground over which he had flown.

Noire took in a sharp gasp and dashed to Henry's side. Lon'qu cursed and took up a defensive stance within the wall of smoke, waiting for something to emerge through the clutter of debris before him.

"Olivia! Finally!" Tharja's voice sounded, carrying through the street from the gaping holes opened on the inn's second floor. "Take care of these crows before I turn them into ingredients!"

The air around Lon'qu grew silent. The sounds of crows flapping upstairs to silence Tharja failed to break the tense atmosphere. Silence then gave way to a distinct sighing of muscles, one similar to how the warhorses of Ylisse would tense before a charge. Then, a deafening shudder shook the ground, and whatever had tensed jolted in some unknowable direction.

Lon'qu brought his sword up to his chest, defending himself from an attack that never arrived. The wall of the inn above where he stood was smashed by something heavy. Debris showered down on his head. Two more crashes sounded in short order, each a short distance higher than the last. Lon'qu sprinted outside, no longer caring to wait for the enemy beyond his sight, but instead hoping to confront the opponent.

A torrent of crows screeched and flew free of the hole on the inn's upper floor, obscuring a large, hunched, lean form as it slipped into the damaged room. Lon'qu caught a glance of the being's shadow before spinning in place and dashing back into the inn, making his way for the stairway to the second floor.

"Get to the upper floor, now!" Lon'qu barked to Noire and Henry as he passed them, not daring to slow his pace.

Noire refused to respond. Her hands remained in place over Henry's chest, stemming the flow of blood from a deep set of wounds. Henry attempted to stand and follow Lon'qu, but was brought back to the floor by a series of sharp pains. Lon'qu pressed onward without their aid. He pushed up the stairs to the upper floor multiple steps at a time, ignoring the crows that flew out of his path. No noise could be heard beyond the frantic calls of the birds Henry had summoned.

Tharja stood outside the open door to her new room, a horde of crows sitting on the floor about her feet. She scowled at both them and Lon'qu.

"Your little lover says we need weapons. If it isn't to get rid of the crows, I swear I'll-" Tharja began to say, but was cut off when the door to the room opposite hers began to shake and crack. Her frown turned toward it and grew concerned when the harsh noises refused to fade.

"I take it this is why I needed a weapon?" Tharja asked Lon'qu, her tone uninterested. Lon'qu gave no reply beyond shifting his stance for imminent combat. The beating against the weakened door continued.

Olivia popped out of the undamaged room beside Tharja, where she and Lon'qu had made their residence, a sword in her hand. Without hesitating, she took up a stance beside Lon'qu, shuddering whenever their unknown opponent threw itself against the closed door.

"Ugh, I've had enough of this." Tharja groaned before raising her hand toward the offending door. "Whoever thinks they can impede my work and target my allies is-" she began before cutting herself off, blinking as she raised her hand to her face and flexed it in concern. "What? Why can't I-?"

The bashing against the damaged door intensified at the sound of her voice. Something struck the door once, rattling the knob and shaking the frame, then again and again. An inhuman cry sounded within and the pattern of attack changed, shifting toward long, interchanged swipes against the centre of the blockade.

Another short cry heralded a more powerful strike. Wood splintered into the hall as a long claw emerged through a hole in the door, with several small bulging punctures appearing in a crescent around that point. The claw retracted away from the door before more long and meticulous strikes slammed into the surface of the wood.

Lon'qu locked his gaze on the door and gestured toward the flight of stairs down the hall. His strategy of charging whatever sat beyond the door had to be reconsidered, and the main floor of the inn would give them the space to do exactly that. The being was thankfully proving incapable of bypassing something as simple as a locked, damaged door.

Olivia complied with Lon'qu's silent direction and, after a moment more of staring at the door, Tharja followed suit. Lon'qu followed after them, his gaze remaining on the door to ensure his preparation should it be knocked down.

As soon as Lon'qu set foot on the lower floor, he turned to address Olivia and Tharja. Olivia was knelt at Henry's side, helping Noire tend to his wounds, while Tharja stood in the centre of the room, her arms crossed.

"I don't know what that thing is, but we can try to-" Lon'qu began to speak, only to be cut off.

"Augh! Ah-ah-aauugh!" a harsh scream sounded a great distance from the inn, one that tore at the lungs and throat of the screamer. A scream born of ungodly pain.

All colour drained from the faces of Tharja, Lon'qu, and Olivia. The latter two shared a horrified glance, their eyes widening as they realised they had both recognised the voice.

"Was… was that Stahl!?" Olivia voiced their collective concern, her voice shaking.

"I don't… he shouldn't be here! Why would he be in Ferox!?" Lon'qu replied, though his voice bore an uncharacteristic tremor.

"Haugh! Augh!" the screaming continued to echo throughout the city, reaching to and reverberating within the inn.

Lon'qu heard the same springboard jump of heavy muscles, and he knew that the being on the upper floor had leapt away. He ran outside to follow it, with Olivia and Tharja doing the same despite their senses of self-preservation.

The being scurried over rooftops, kicking shingles to the streets below as it grappled with overhangs. Lon'qu pursued this trail of damage through the city, only catching glances of the hunched form a select few times. His sword remained tight in his grip. He no longer held doubts that his foe was inhuman.

"It's headed for the screaming - for Stahl!" Olivia shouted as she pushed Lon'qu into speeding up. "We need to reach him before it can!"

Together, the three Shepherds sprinted through the silent streets of Port Ferox. Few people were outside, giving the pained screams sourced beyond the city's limits adequate space to be heard by all.

They ground to a halt at the edge of the city. The screaming continued at a greater distance than before as the tracks of their foe shifted into clumps of thrown dirt. Lon'qu set about following the tracks as Tharja and Olivia ignored them to move in the direction of the weeping screams.

"Stop!" a voice cried out from behind them, forcing them to a halt once again. Olivia spun around to see Anna running up to them. Tharja and Lon'qu held their attention on the direction of the screams.

"Anna? What are you doing here?" Olivia asked. She was as surprised to see the new Shepherd as she was thankful that she was unharmed.

"You can't fight that thing! It's already entered its second phase!" Anna said as she caught up to Olivia.

"Second phase? What does that…? Do you know what this is, Anna?" Olivia asked.

"I've been helping people track and try to kill it for days." Anna explained as though it was obvious, though the expression of confusion she received reinforced the contrary. "Did you not notice that? I've been supplying weapons, doling out information, setting up hunts… I've been making some sweet money off of it. Turns out I'm an amazing merchant if my mind is focused on something else. Weird, huh?"

"That screaming-" Tharja said, stopping to wince when the shout in question sounded once more. "That's Stahl - a Shepherd. It would be beyond irresponsible to abandon him to whatever that thing is."

"Really? Your friend's been screaming like that since day one?" Anna asked in surprise, her words again being met with confusion. "Did you not notice that, either? What have you been doing these past few days?"

Olivia blushed and averted her gaze, as did Lon'qu. Tharja raised an eyebrow at them, as did Anna, though neither bothered to press further.

"Anyway." Anna spoke up once again. "As I said, this thing - beast - hunts in phases. In the first, it attacks someone, then the screams call it away. That's the start of phase two. As far as I can tell, the screaming is to stop the beast - it lures it further and further away, and whenever there's been someone foolhardy enough to draw the beast back, the screaming gets… agitated. It doesn't like that the thing gets pulled away."

"How do you know any of this?" Lon'qu asked as he shifted his weight from foot to foot.

"Conjecture, mostly." Anna shrugged. "The first attack was a little after I arrived. A caravan struck on a road through the forest east of here. The horses spooked and ran, and the driver caught sight of something chasing after them. Then the driver heard screaming. The next day, when Noire arrived, a hunter found the horses' bodies, mutilated. Something had dragged them south - the direction the screams sounded from, as they do now."

"It's following the screams. It leapt for Tharja after it heard her speaking, the crows were keeping us silent, and it followed the panicked horses." Lon'qu said, his train of thought having long ago arrived. "It's navigating by sound. What manner of predator does such a thing?"

"Bats." Olivia suggested, realising afterward how such an eventuality was improbable. "Er, you know, like… a giant one, or something. They can be pretty spooky."

"It's not a bat." Anna shot the idea down as soon as she could be bothered. "Four legs. A quadruped. It's strong, fast, quiet, and a lot more. Trust me, if that screaming is your friend - which I doubt - they're doing you a massive favour. Fighting it now would be a death wish."

"In other words, we're to do nothing, and this was a waste of time." Tharja said, scowling as she turned back toward the port city. "Marvelous. If that thing does show up again, though, I won't hesitate to tear it apart."

"Aw, she's scared! That's kinda cute!" Anna cooed, and Tharja turned her coldest glare on the merchant.

"We can't do nothing!" Olivia said. "Someone's screaming. That can't be a good thing! How do we know they aren't in need of help? How do we know that Stahl, or anyone else, isn't somehow already here and in danger?"

"Whoever's screaming is in control of that thing. They don't fear it. They need no help." Anna argued. Olivia frowned all the same.

"What about how it got so far into the city? The inn is close to the outskirts, yes, but you made it sound as though it lives in the forest." Lon'qu said.

"Henry's crows." Tharja said before Anna had the chance to form an answer. "Henry flew here, no? He was known to do that in Plegia. You heard as well as I did how loud those birds can be."

"That thing's still a danger. We can't leave it to hurt more people." Olivia said.

"I promise, I'm this close to a breakthrough." Anna said, holding her fingers a short distance apart to demonstrate her claim. "Once I've done that, this place will be as safe as usual! No harm to Shepherds, nature, or civilians!"

"That thing didn't seem natural…" Olivia muttered, her gaze lingering on the forest outside the city.

"Eh, semantics don't matter." Anna shrugged. "What matters is that there's a better way to go about this than hunting it down. The thing's a natural predator; fighting it on its terms is tantamount to stupidity, if not suicide."

"We're done here." Tharja announced, and turned her back once more on the other three Shepherds. "There's a mess to clean up at the inn, and I need to check on some matters regarding my magic. We have no reason to waste time here chasing the ghost of a voice. Not to mention that we still don't know the location of Virion…"

"Are you wanting to go check up on him?" Anna asked with an aggravating lilt to her voice. Her tone being mired in illicit suggestion gave Tharja reason to pause and turn yet another glare on the woman.

"Don't move." Lon'qu commanded, his hand never having strayed from the hilt of his sword. His gaze remained locked on the forest.

"Enough of these idiotic games! I was foolish to chase after this thing for so great a distance. For now, I'll be returning to my room at the inn." Tharja said.

"Virion was watching the sunset by the docks, last my information network heard. In case you want to find him." Anna said, her tone remaining suggestive and therefore aggravating.

"I said not to move!" Lon'qu hissed, his voice far quieter than any other. He brought his sword up to his chest and relaxed into a combat stance. His actions caused Anna and Tharja to follow his gaze back to the forest.

Two tiny points of red glinted in the darkness of the tree canopy. Lon'qu and Olivia had both frozen in their lock on the two points, though Anna remained unaffected. Tharja, too, stared at the lights for a short moment before scoffing and raising her hand, her palm pointed to the being lurking in the dark.

"This is no time to have to bother with risen." she said through another scoff. "I'll handle this one, then you lot can bother with any more that dare to appear. They wouldn't be worth my time."

Her hand remained locked in position with her palm facing toward the set of glowing red eyes. No magic manifested. Tharja cursed and swapped from dark magic to a fire spell.

"That isn't… that's…" Olivia stammered, her gaze never wavering from the set of eyes. "I-It's the giant bat!" she shouted.

At the raise in her voice, the eyes lurched forward, and a shadowed being darted forth from the tree line. Tharja fired off her magic, casting a stream of flames toward the beast. The light from her spell illuminated the hunched form of a large animal, its dark fur matted and in most areas burned. Its eyes drooped as melted skin hung down from its forehead. The beast's jaw and nose were little more than a charred, pulpous mess.

Before Tharja's flames could connect, the being was screeching and clawing backwards. It managed to turn and scurry away into the forest once more without contacting the fire, with the occasional shake of distant trees indicating that it would be making no swift return.

Anna's face lit up as she watched the being run in desperation. "Fire! That's it! That's what we need! Tharja, thank you so much for doing this! I promise to pay you back for the info you've given me!"

"Don't mention it." Tharja said without a thought, her focus remaining on her own hand. She then tore her gaze away and began walking back to the city. "If you need me, handle whatever trouble you've caused yourself. I have better things to do tonight."

"Eh, I wouldn't call Virion better than this." Anna muttered. She then had to avoid a haphazard fireball that was Tharja's response.

"That thing is gone?" Olivia asked no one, having to confirm the fact for herself. "Gods, what was it? I've never heard of a risen like that before. Or a living being, for that matter."

"All that matters is that we know how to get rid of it." Anna shrugged.

"By utilising fire? Does such a method not pose significant risk?" Lon'qu spoke up. "The amount of torches or mages needed to keep it out of the entire city would be immense. It'll go somewhere else if it's driven away from here. And what if there were to be, by some miracle of nature itself, rain?"

"Don't worry! Things are gonna be fine, so long as the great Anna is here!" Anna smiled. "Come on, let's get back to the inn. I've got some materials to invest in, and though that risen's unlikely to return, it'd be best if you two don't wait around to find out."

Olivia remained rooted in place, her gaze locked on the trail of embers left by Tharja's magic. "Was that really a risen? I've never seen anything like it before… the way it behaved was so un-risen-y."

"Noire did mention that they had changed." Lon'qu said. "Perhaps we'd be best off asking her what she knows, before we make any decisions of our own."

He placed his hand on Olivia's shoulder and, after a long moment of silence, Olivia nodded. The two began making their way back to the inn. Anna followed behind them, her mind swimming with ideas for how she could dispel the new risen while ensuring that her coffers were stocked.

* * *

True to Anna's word, Tharja was able to locate Virion at the docks that composed much of Port Ferox's west side. When she found him, the sniper was laying on one of the piers, his arms behind his head and a pleasant smile on his face. He seemed carefree. That made Tharja uncomfortable.

"Virion." Tharja said, broaching her presence as she neared the Shepherd.

Virion popped his head up, a quizzical expression on his face at her unexpected appearance. He made no attempt to greet or welcome Tharja.

"You missed quite an ordeal." Tharja said, stopping at his side to speak.

"I presume it had to do with that ungodsly cacophony of crows?" Virion asked.

"A new Shepherd has been added to our ranks, provided that he yet lives. A powerful risen has also appeared nearby, though I trust that someone else can be bothered to handle it." Tharja informed him.

"Ah, the risen! The wondrous spawn of demise itself!" Virion sang. "Were they not such frightening creatures, I may be inclined to call them a gift from the gods!"

Tharja frowned, his words proving as disturbing as when he had first begun his little onslaught of hopelessness. She hated to see him despair.

"I was worried, you know." she said. "About you. I thought that you might've been hurt. I can see now that my worry was misplaced."

"The conqueror's arrival grows nearer every day. He is more powerful than any of us could hope to be. Worry, as with my fear, is deserved."

"This conqueror is human. He can be overcome." Tharja said, and Virion subdued a laugh. "We'll succeed where others haven't. Our own strength, the bonds between us that Chrom never shuts up about, Robin's strategies… they'll outmatch anything Walhart can throw at us."

"You have no idea how I wish for that to be true." Virion said with a wry shake of his head. I've borne witness to the conqueror's might. You rely upon speculation. He is a terror. He will destroy more than you anticipate. I wouldn't be surprised if Ylisse was already on its path to destruction."

"You're a fool, Virion. A coward who's given up hope. Perhaps that's why you failed to best Walhart in the past."

Virion laughed. The sound was genuine. "Another thing I wish to be true! Alas, my failure was due to my own inferiority. Rest assured, I shall try with all my might to eliminate Walhart, but I doubt my chances of success."

"Will you stop with this despairing nonsense yet?" Tharja asked, her frown nearing its maximum intensity. "It's getting you nowhere. It won't help."

"Tharja… come, watch the stars with me." Virion said as he patted the dock to his side.

"Get back to the inn, Virion. More importantly, get over yourself and start preparing for the fights to come. If your word is anything to go by, this won't be easy, so you're not going to be allowed to drag others down into your mess of hopelessness."

Tharja waited in place to see if Virion would move. The sniper remained still, his gaze never wavering from the sky.

"I've enjoyed watching the sunset today." Virion said, breaking the silence he had himself created. "I know that Walhart will claim victory, but I cannot ignore the beauty in this world. I don't want to give up on it. Walhart, though… Walhart won't give time to appreciate beauty. He'll crush every piece of it beneath his boot and claim the act as righteous. He's a monster."

"Fight for that beauty, then. For something more than disallowing conquest." Tharja said, pleased to have made progress on Virion's condition.

Virion sighed and closed his eyes for a long moment. He tapped the space next to him once more. "Please. Sit with me."

Tharja narrowed her gaze, skeptical of whether or not Virion was attempting to make progress on his hopelessness. She soon found that she did not entirely care and sat next to him anyway. She turned her gaze to the sky to match Virion's, waiting for him to say something more.

"You know, perhaps there is-" Virion began to say before cutting himself off and pointing toward the western sky. "Ah! A shooting star! Fortune does smile upon us!"

Tharja followed his indication and saw a shooting star tracing a uniform path through the sky. "So there is. Hm. Are shooting stars always so large? I'd thought them to be small streaks of light, though I suppose I've never seen any."

"As with much of nature, shooting stars may take whatever form is most beautiful to behold." Virion said. "Mayhap the gods themselves have decided to make this star a thousand times more splendid, to remind us of the hope in this world."

At that, Virion rotated to face Tharja, a small smile devoid of despair on his face. "There exists much beauty in this world, as I'm certain you are well aware. I may have lost my way, and for that I sincerely apologise, but I assure you that I can now see how that beauty must be protected. I vow to protect beauty at any cost, be it even in the face of the conqueror's might. Would you be so gracious as to accept my promise, and to forgive my transgressions?"

Tharja scowled to hide an unwanted blush and rose from the dock. "Sure, you're forgiven and accepted. Now get back to the inn so I can stop wasting time away from my experiments."

Virion's smile flickered into a frown as he scrambled to a stand and followed Tharja. "Er, that's not how I pictured… ah, pay me no mind! This is as much as I could ask for."

His smile returned as they made their way back to the inn, Tharja was beyond pleased that he had emerged from his self-imposed prison of despair, though she would never outright state such a thing. All she could do was revel in her own contentedness.

She remained so enraptured in her happiness, and Virion in following her back to the inn, that they failed to see their shooting star freeze in place above the sky of northern Ferox. They failed to see it swell in near unbridled power, its hues of green growing more intense than any star before calming, and they failed to see it erupt at speed toward the west from where it had arrived.

* * *

Ylisstol was a bustling city, betraying the quiet that had permitted Robin and Kjelle near unopposed entry to the castle the day before. Robin had awoken for the second time at midday and had been forced to make a difficult decision in waking Kjelle, though that potentially explosive matter had been handled with little more than a small amount of awkward interaction between both parties.

Kjelle, eager to conceal that she had awoken some time before Robin, had proposed plans for lunch. Robin then, mimicking her state, accepted. They now waited in the outdoor seating of a restaurant Robin had claimed to be exquisite. Kjelle had paid little attention to the matter; she had been far too focused on obscuring her sleep schedule.

"I don't think I've seen this many people in one place before." Kjelle eventually said to Robin. The grandmaster had remained silent since leaving the castle. Even the servers at the restaurant who had recognised and seated him without a word. Kjelle could tell that Robin was in no way happy.

"Mm. Ylisstol has the highest population of any single location on the continent. It beats out the Plegian capital by a few hundred thousand." said Robin. "It's a grand place, so much so that it boggles the mind. I'm sorry you didn't get to see as such in your time."

Kjelle cast a wary glance over her shoulder, away from the city's streets and toward the servers and patrons that were directing curious glances toward their table. "You seem popular here. It'd be best not to talk too openly about sensitive topics."

"They're surprised I'm not with the other Shepherds, nothing more." Robin dismissed her concern.

Kjelle's gaze lingered on the people monitoring her and Robin before she returned to watching the people of Ylisstol. She was fascinated by how people lived without an apocalypse looming over their heads, though she had yet to witness anything remarkable. Humanity was a surprisingly reliable constant.

"I really am sorry about that, you know. About your time." Robin said. "I know that, in some way, I was involved with its demise. I don't know how to solve that, either, beyond-"

"That's all the more reason to fight like hell against fate and find another way, then." Kjelle cut him off, not wanting him to finish what she knew would be a gruesome statement. She turned away from the street and toward Robin, facing him directly over their table. "We should stop people watching. Thinking about their lives… that's not good for you. There's got to be something better for us to do."

Robin sighed and turned from the street to face her. "I'm sorry, Kjelle. I know you're trying to help, but you can't. That's not an insult; it's simply not an option."

"I've told you about the kinds of things I've done with my friends, and what happened to my father. There's a lot more that happened in Ylisstol, too, especially on the day I left for this time." Kjelle said in indignation. "I know you're not insulting me, but there's no way I can't see helping you as a challenge to be overcome. If there's anyone who knows what to do and how to help, it'll be me! I understand hardship better than anyone!"

She knew she sounded certain. That was what she had intended. She was not. All Kjelle knew was that anyone else in the world would be more capable than her in dealing with what had occurred, but she refused to leave Robin in the path of potential harm.

"Knock yourself out." Robin sighed and sagged into his seat before straightening his posture. "I'm trying to fix things, but it's difficult. There's a lot that needs to be done, and I don't have any real idea of where to start. It feels like I'd be better off doing nothing."

"Pick anything and start there, then. It's not like you won't have fixed everything by the end." Kjelle tried to encourage him and provide guidance, though she had no idea if her efforts were successful.

"I suppose that's as good as anything else." Robin said, giving Kjelle a brief spark of hope. That spark was snuffed out with the knowledge that something so serious would not be so easily corrected.

"Hey, why don't we do something after this?" Kjelle suggested to push their conversation along, and to keep them both from their inevitable duties a while longer.

Robin had settled his administrative matters at the castle, thanks in no small part to the arrival of a capable relief shift of prepared knights. That meant that their journey to Port Ferox would be made all the more soon. Kjelle wanted to ensure that their travel was uneventful. They would both soon have far too much to deal with; none of their precious remaining free time could be wasted on anything extraneous.

"I don't think I want to put effort into anything right now." Robin said. "What would we do?"

"I don't know. Work out? Shop? Drink? Something we can do together." Kjelle shrugged.

"You're trying to keep an eye on me." Robin narrowed his gaze. Kjelle couldn't understand why he was acting wary. Had her intentions not been clear?

"Yeah, no shit." Kjelle said. "Until the Shepherds are around to make sure you don't act the fool, that duty falls to me. I'm not going to let you die."

"I'm not going to do anything like that! I'm… I don't know what I'll do. I'll try to make things work out, okay?" Robin said, all intensity leaving his gaze. "You don't have to worry. I appreciate the sentiment, but it isn't worth the trouble."

"This isn't troublesome, not for someone like me." Kjelle said. "I'm doing this because I'm your friend. I don't want you to be hurt."

"You-" Robin began before stopping himself with a sigh. "Thanks, Kjelle. My point about what happens if I ever hurt someone stands, though. If anyone I care for comes to harm by my hand-"

"Then you have to die, no questions asked." Kjelle finished the statement for him. "I know. Let's get our lunch already so we can go train. I've missed too much over our travelling. Come to think of it, I'd love to see how a trained Shepherd keeps up with me. Maybe training will be good for your mind, too."

Robin blinked, in no way liking the sly look Kjelle was directing toward him. The expression told him he would in no way be able to keep her pace. "I think I'll take the option for shopping. I've got, um… tactical supplies to buy. You know, pending intercontinental war I haven't planned for, and all that."

* * *

"Two missions in Plegia? In which you're looking for time travellers?"

Cordelia nodded, confirming once more what she had conveyed to the general before her. "Yes, Kellam. I know it sounds absurd, but Robin must have some reason to send us out to Plegia. I doubt there are actual time travellers - perhaps it's code, or he needs us out there and thought this was an adequate way of ensuring our presence. Either way, I've yet to see any reason to refuse these peacekeeping missions."

"And you're saying you don't want me to come along?" Kellam asked, stifling what little surprise he felt. He was saddened but understood what Cordelia was saying, and agreed with her.

"It's nothing against you, but you're a general." Cordelia said. "Heavy armour weighs you down, and we're navigating a desert for days on end. Our marching time would be lessened by not having to wait on an armour unit."

"Okay. I get it." Kellam agreed, leaving Cordelia surprised. "I've considered how slow I am compared to the rest of you. Even if I were to share a mount with someone, I'd only weigh the thing down. Frederick would at least have a horse to himself. Guess it'll be best to meet you at Port Ferox, huh?"

Cordelia smiled to her friend. "That's what I'd hoped for. Thanks for understanding, Kellam!" she said, her smile remaining as she stepped away and waved goodbye. Her limited time before the Shepherds' departure had drained from speaking with Kellam.

"I'm slow, huh?" Kellam wondered to himself as the vast majority of his friends made to depart. "Is that why people act like they can't see me? Do I lag behind them that much?"

* * *

Several days of marching passed as the Shepherds traversed the sands of Plegia. A proposition Robin had long ago drafted and Chrom had approved permitted the Shepherds access to the nation on the grounds of assistance. That treaty was intended to deal with risen, but the current circumstances of the new missions called for some bending of the rules.

Both Frederick and Cordelia had assumed the positions of leaders. Robin and Chrom had both given permanent as such in the last war. The Shepherds' march was therefore organised by the day Cherche had delivered Robin's letters.

Sumia had elected to remain at the castle with Chrom in anticipation of meeting with Robin. That left Cordelia alone to perform reconnaissance, though she now had newfound aid from Cherche. The wyvern rider was proving to be an incredible asset, scouting flawlessly and adhering to extra duties in her downtime despite having joined a matter of days ago. Her companion Say'ri was also fitting in well, though she had yet to prove as capable as Cherche.

Throughout their long hours of soaring above Plegia and intermittent reports, the two fliers agreed above all else that something was wrong. Minerva had been first to point out the unusual silence that hung like a shroud over the desert sands. Cordelia and Cherche had both later felt the same unnerving sensation as they monitored the movements of caravans and towns passed on the march.

Something had happened to the desert nation. It was wordless, and it yet bore no form, but something had happened all the same. The people saw as they traversed Plegia were the same as ever, yet the world was silent. It was full, yet possessed a creeping emptiness.

Neither Cordelia nor Cherche voiced their concerns to anyone but one another. None of the other Shepherds shared the same lingering sense of dread.

After several more days, the Shepherds arrived at the first of their destinations - a forested series of villages bearing the unwelcoming name of Law's End. There, to the amazement of all present, the Shepherds happened upon a Taguel.

A young man, who Robin had identified as Yarne yet had failed to mention was a Taguel, readily joined their ranks and was then beset upon by an intrigued Panne. The two had spoken at length after the battle, with Panne later reporting that Yarne possessed a scent similar to her own. Robin had also failed to mention that Yarne was in all likelihood Panne's son.

As absurd as the claims of time travel were, they were gaining traction amongst the Shepherds. Panne had been convinced entirely by Yarne's appearance alone. Others grew curious of their own futures as a result.

After eliminating both mercenary forces occupying the area of Law's End, as per the requirements of Robin's ordinance, Cordelia and Frederick urged the Shepherds on to their second destination. A boat was sailed to an island west of mainland Plegia and arrived at a second mercenary-riddled locale. At this Mercenary Fortress, they set about finding the second person Robin had indicated would be involved with the Shepherds.

On that day, the silence looming over the world grew deafening.

* * *

Cordelia touched down near the entrance of the fortress, landing next to Frederick and being followed by Cherche. "Over twenty confirmed foes, but the closed roof prevents accurate numbering. All we have to go off of is the info from those villagers." she reported to Frederick.

"There appear to be no entrances beyond this and the path to our east, but Minerva warns of imminent reinforcements within." Cherche, too, provided her report. "I regret to say that we were unable to scout the enemy. Though that won't make this dread dissipate…"

"A young woman was spotted at the eastern entrance." Frederick gave his own report. "She disappeared inside before we could make contact, but we so far suspect her of being the soldier Robin indicated - Severa. Panne and Yarne have been dispatched to pursue her."

"I'll accompany them." Cordelia said, kicking her pegasus in the direction of the second entrance. "Should she prove to be one of these special cases, it would be wise for one of us to be present. More so, I wish to evaluate Yarne. I hadn't expected him to be ready for combat so soon."

"So be it. I shall remain with the main body of our forces." Frederick nodded, and after flashing him a small smile Cordelia took off toward the eastern entrance.

Cherche maintained a level face, ignoring entirely the quaint display of affection that had elicited a blush from the knight commander before her. To disregard such matters had been a requirement when working under Virion.

Minerva growled beneath her, shaking their bodies. The noise soon devolved into a pathetic whimper. Cherche frowned and caressed the side of her mount's head, hoping to eliminate her friend's unease.

"Will you fight alongside us?" Frederick asked, his lance drawn in the short time Cherche had diverted her attention to Minerva. The Shepherd forces had begun to rally behind him.

"Of course!" Cherche reassured him with a smile. "We'll never abandon friends to fight on their lonesome. What horrid beings would we be then?"

"Quell your unease. The enemy's equipment and numbers are unknown, but you stand with the most capable faction of soldiers on the continent, if not the world. We intend to claim victory here today without any loss of life among our own."

"I was there for the last battle, Frederick." Cherche reminded him. "I'm fully aware of the limits of everyone here, and of myself. However, there's something unusual in play. Can you not feel it? A looming silence, a dread encroaching upon the land? Minerva feels it, as do I and Cordelia."

Frederick shook his head. "I am aware of no such silence or dread. If you hold any information as to why we shouldn't engage the enemy, speak now."

Cherche laughed, the sound devoid of all the unease she felt. "Nonsense, Frederick. It's a feeling. Nothing more."

"In that case, we advance." Frederick said with a curt nod. "Cordelia, Panne, and Yarne will be requiring our aid, as will the woman we believe to be Severa."

He kicked his horse around to face the Shepherds behind him, saying no more. Cherche allowed him to depart without issue. Mages, riders, footsoldiers, and a young girl who could transform into a dragon were all drawing their weapons. That last one had given Minerva quite the surprise in their previous battle.

Cherche smiled as she made one last survey of her surroundings. She liked these people, though they were ill prepared to face down a force as great as Walhart. Their numbers were low, but she had seen how capable each and every Shepherd had proven themselves to be. Perhaps they would be the greatest opportunity to defeat the conqueror.

Minerva emitted another low rumble of a growl, and Cherche's smile faded into a frown. A dust cloud was building on the horizon. It was massive. Unnatural.

She glanced back to the Shepherds, then returned her gaze to the dust cloud. There was no way she could bring herself to abandon her new friends and allies, but the cloud merited observation. She could check on it and return in time to engage in the battle proper.

After a moment of hesitation, Cherche and Minerva flew into the air toward the storm of sand. Their dread built itself higher as they approached, and as it approached them. The cloud radiated silence.

Cherche and the cloud were upon one another within a minute of her approach. The sounds of early battle faded behind her, growing fainter with every passing moment. The sounds were being silenced.

As Cherche had suspected, the storm before her was far too large to be natural. Rather, she was able to determine that constant streams of wind magic were being pushed toward the ground and arching around in the air, shielding those within from sight while carving a path through the desert. That same wind was keeping all movement, even that of the sand, silent.

Part of the shell of wind opened, as though a stick had been placed in the middle of a stream. The opening released an atrocious noise of whistling sand and wind. Cherche and Minerva winced at the sheer volume of the screaming air. An object shot up from within, propelled by successive bursts of wind magic, and then the noise and the gap in the shell disappeared.

The object, a cramped and irregularly shaped ovoid, leveled out at the same altitude as Cherche. She drew her axe to combat whatever it may be. All she knew was that it was part of what had brought upon her dread.

A faint trail of sand followed the object as it levelled with her flight path. Cherche did not intend to make the first strike, knowing that she was not necessarily an enemy of whatever was before her. Her grip nonetheless tightened on the hilt of her axe.

The object unfurled itself, revealing a large wyvern at least the size of Minerva and an armoured rider. All armour on both the mount and rider was painted a fierce red. Trails of sand continued to cascade off the wyvern's tail and wings. Only then did Cherche realise that both she and the new rider were being pushed away at speed from the dust cloud. Despite Minerva attempting to fly forward, they were propelled back.

"Identify yourself!" Cherche shouted to the rider. She'd never seen a wyvern knight propel themselves with wind magic - the wyvern appeared to have no damage from the magic, either. Cherche had never encountered such an unnerving person as the one flying before her.

"My identity is of no significance to you." the person said. Their voice was masculine but young, a small amount older than Cherche herself. His speaking carried far better than Cherche's. He was trained to accommodate this silence. "Please, return to the Shepherds and await the arrival of our commander. We intend no harm to anyone. In fact, we're here to help."

Cherche's grip on her axe remained steady. "I'm to simply believe you? Identify yourself."

"You may call us the remnants of the Plegian royal military. Identify us as such to your commanding officer and inform them that we wish to aid your efforts. Have you yet found the time traveller?"

"I beg your pardon? Time traveller?" Cherche feigned ignorance, her expression masked with no smile, frown, or facial tells. Everything about her situation was rubbing her the wrong way.

"Have the Shepherds not told you?" the man asked, muted surprise working its way over his masked features. "Severa, the daughter of Cordelia and Kellam. Red hair. Abrasive personality that gives way to caring. You'll know her soon."

Cherche's expression remained measured despite her confusion. "Cordelia and…?" she muttered, knowing her voice was quiet enough for none but Minerva to hear.

"Kellam." the rider finished her statement. Cherche's confusion cracked through her mask, as the rider let out a confident, low rumble of a laugh.

"You're not used to this yet. Don't worry, you'll get there." the rider assured her. "If you don't… well, you'll die out, like all the rest. That's okay. I do hope you survive though, Cherche."

At that, Cherche allowed her surprise to play out across her face. Robin and Kjelle were able to leak information on time travel as they pleased. No one on this continent but the Shepherds were supposed to know her identity. "You know me, soldier?"

"Of course! We wouldn't permit an addition to the Shepherds go unnoticed." the man laughed again. "Is that such a surprise?"

Cherche narrowed her gaze on the man, then on his wyvern. Such mounts could be found in two locations of the known world, Plegia and Valm. The man was speaking with no accent whatsoever. His voice was practiced.

"I had heard tale that the Plegian royal military was disbanded, its members either dead or abandoned." Cherche said. Virion had reported as such in his correspondence.

"You heard well." the man said. "I told you that we're remnants. We seek to help you, so why do you question us? I promise, we intend no harm."

"How do you know my name? Where did you get the wyvern, and learn tactics unheard of?" Cherche asked, waving her axe toward the cloud of wind beneath them. "How do you know information to which you shouldn't have access?"

The man leaned forward on his wyvern, crossing his arms on the beast's armoured neck as he cast his gaze beneath Cherche. A smile spread across his face beneath the cover of his helmet. "Doesn't matter. We're here. Thanks for being so easy to stall."

Cherche directed Minerva's gaze toward the ground, not daring to look away from the potential foe across from her. The more relaxed he became, the more on edge Cherche grew. Minerva confirmed with a snort that they had been pushed all the way back to the fortress where they had first taken flight. Cherche cursed and refocused her intense gaze on the other rider.

"Like I said, we don't want to hurt you!" he laughed again. "We don't want unnecessary problems, either, though. Ah, and to answer your question…"

His wyvern flapped once, and was beside Minerva. Small jets of wind pulsed out from the armour on its back and wings. The armour itself glowed, telling Cherche's practiced gaze that it was enchanted, though with what she had no idea.

"You don't know about all of the time travellers." he said, his voice lower and all the more menacing. There was nothing hostile in his tone itself, but Cherche interpreted it as such.

She whipped her head and weapon arm toward the angle from which the rider had spoken, but he had begun his descent toward the fortress. The wind magic pulsing out of his wyvern's armour continued to propel him as he dropped.

Cherche turned her expression to stone and redirected Minerva, intending to pursue the man. She refused to believe a word he said. The dust cloud beneath her was dissipating. Ten more wyvern riders soared out from holes that appeared as the wind deteriorated and made their way toward the Shepherd ranks. A fleet of riders followed, ranging from armoured great knights, to valkyries, to a titan of a warhorse and rider charging at the forefront of the troops. The fact that she saw none of Valm's signature dark knights put Cherche's mind somewhat at ease.

The bulk of the supposedly Plegian army waited in place. Cherche began to see them set up tents and improvisational structures. Several hundred people milled about the desert beneath her without intent to join the battle at hand.

Cherche frowned and performed a rapid scan of her surroundings. Her frown deepened, and she made another, slower scan. Minerva's wings were beating and she could feel the rush of wind against her skin, but they were making no movement on any axis. She and Minerva were being held in the sky.

A wyvern screeched beneath her, and within moments Cherche could hear intense cussing. A new wyvern rider appeared on the same plane as her, with Sully clutched by the arms in the beast's large rear legs.

"You think you can take me!? You'll see who's boss when you go plummeting to the ground with my fist down your throat!" Sully roared at the wyvern and its rider. The rider was in possession of Sully's weapons, a sword and lance both held in their arms.

"What have you done? How on earth have you done it?" Cherche asked the new rider, now knowing that her voice would carry through the still air around her. To disarm Sully, perhaps the most volatile Shepherd, was a feat in itself.

"Some of you may cause problems." the rider said although her words were an answer. Her voice carried despite Sully's stream of cursing and repeated attempts to punch her captor.

Within seconds, more wyverns screeched and brought Shepherds skyward, some hostages single and others in pairs. All had their weapons taken by their respective captors. Vaike, Nowi, Sully's pissed off horse, Say'ri, Gregor, and Gaius were brought into the air.

Cherche looked around at the growing number of her allies in the sky, her concern building with each new member. Several wyverns were unaccounted for. Cherche settled her gaze on the rider nearest her, the one whose wyvern gripped Sully.

"You've abducted our forces." she stated plainly, knowing that she could not express her full concern.

"That we have." the rider across from her said. "I'm certain you've been told this, but we intend no harm. This is a precautionary measure."

"What could you hope to achieve by removing so many capable combatants from play?" Cherche asked. She managed to keep her voice measured, though she feared what would soon happen between this unit and her allies.

"We seek the annihilation of those unfit to live in this world. Nothing more, nothing less." the rider stated, her voice as level as Cherche's.

Cherche raised an eyebrow,. "You seek annihilation, yet claim to be allies of the Shepherds? Your ideals are incompatible with the peace they seek."

"We've all realised as such. However, only a fool would grasp for peace when the world begs for war." the rider said. "Futile peacekeeping versus a conflict to end all conflicts… isn't the correct path obvious?"

"Your ideals are similar to those I had the displeasure of encountering in Valm. They're as idiotic, too." Cherche said. "Your armour has been painted over, you ride on wyverns, your speech was practiced rather than learned… dare I ask who you are?"

The rider laughed, an easy sound that was more melodious than Cherche could have anticipated. "The Valmese empire was pathetic - a bed of corruption and idiocy unmatched the world over. In its state, it was unfit to reach the end. It was faced with an ultimatum: evolve, or die out."

Cherche's gaze remained narrowed on the rider as she tapped Minerva, urging the wyvern to analyse the other woman's scent. "And they chose what, since you seem to be such an expert?"

"Both." the woman said, then laughed. "Ha, kind of ruins the point of an ultimatum to take a third option, doesn't it?"

Minerva let loose a low growl, though not one of hatred or fear. Rather, she had failed to identify the rider's scent. Her senses, too, were being blocked by their magic.

Cherche held her attention on the wyvern rider, her fury at having been rendered powerless breaking through onto her expression. She seethed in place, knowing that she could not move without the modified armour of the other riders.

Her suspicion was that the riders and military were Valmese - forerunners for the main force that would soon invade. The woman's answers, the small size of the army that Cherche could see, and the lack of several key classes of soldiers called that view into question. Granted, the woman could be lying, but even then the tactics this force utilised was beyond the scope of Valm. They were beyond the scope of anything Cherche had seen.

A sharp cracking sounded far beneath where Cherche and the other Shepherds were being held in place. The groaning rumble of a building's collapse sounded soon after. Cherche risked a glance downward and saw that the entire eastern wing of the Mercenary Fortress had crumbled inward. Her masked expression flashed into a frown for a split second. She knew that Cordelia, Severa, Panne, and Yarne were all in the area.

Before she could return her gaze to the wyvern riders, Cherche saw two shapes erupt forth from the debris below her. Both shapes ascended to the same height as each of their compatriot wyvern knights. In their talons were gripped two forms, Panne and Yarne, both of whom were in their beast form. Both seemed powerless to stop their abductors.

"Ah, more troublemakers." the wyvern rider nearest Cherche commented, her voice light.

"Unhand me, vile man-spawn!" Panne shouted, her voice carrying far in her altered state.

"Please! I'm sorry I was fighting, so please let me go!" The other Taguel, Yarne, pleaded. "I don't want to fight! I don't want to die!"

"Panne, Yarne. Smell the air - identify your captors." Cherche ordered, her calm disposition breaking through the calamity of their circumstances.

Yarne continued to panic, his limbs flailing for purchase against the wyvern holding him in place. Panne remained focused. She was the one to hear Cherche, and she attempted to identify the people carrying her and the Shepherds. Her nose twitched as she sniffed at the air time and again. Her confusion was written plain on her transformed face.

"I… smell nothing." Panne admitted. "No locations, no people, no wyverns, not even Plegia itself. What is this? What have you done to me?" she asked the rider whose wyvern held her in place.

"Their scents and identities are being concealed - part of their stupefying magic, no doubt." Cherche informed Panne. "They wish to hide from us, for they know that if we were aware of their true status, we would be enemies."

"We've assisted you and your friends today, Cherche." the female rider said. "Perhaps there would've been complications in securing victory without us, and perhaps not. Regardless, aren't we deserving of a little thanks?"

Cherche glared at the wyvern rider and said nothing. Her friends continued to struggle against their captors' grips, but never to any avail. More of the fortress continued to collapse below.

* * *

Cordelia slammed her shoulder into a wall, avoiding an arrow from one of the three enemies standing before her. Severa had somehow pressed on ahead without confronting these foes. Over the clamour of battle Cordelia could hear her shouting. She was conversing with someone, albeit with a fierce anger.

The fortress proved cramped despite its high roof and open halls. Cordelia had made the judgement call to leave her pegasus outside to better maneuver through the building. The archers she now faced justified her choice.

Panne and Yarne stalked behind Cordelia, remaining transformed but avoiding the incoming arrows. Cordelia cast a glance back to the two Taguel in time to see the ceiling behind them crash inward. Two massive wyverns descended into the fortress, spotted the shapeshifters, and swooped with their rear legs outstretched. Cordelia gave a double take, by which time the Taguel had been abducted through the hole in the ceiling.

The fortress shook as fissures of green light raced across its walls, sending torrents of dust cascading into the air. Cordelia froze in place as she struggled to retain her footing. Chunks of stone split off of the ceiling, only to be suspended in the air by an unseen force.

Two silent forms passed Cordelia as she stood amongst the levitating stonework littering the fortress hall. One paused after passing her and waved the other ahead to strike down the archers without issue. Both people rode horses, with all of their armour painted the same sharp red as the wyverns from moments ago.

The stopped rider did nothing as Cordelia approached him. She needed to pass him to reach Severa. A massive axe bearing an alien glow and intricate carvings whirred and hummed in the rider's grip. Cordelia tightened her hold on her silver lance.

"Halt." the man atop the warhorse commanded as Cordelia made to pass him by, his weapon arm extending to block her path. Cordelia leapt away from him and raised her lance, and did not dare risk her life by approaching further.

"Hmph. Cordelia." the man said. His voice boomed through the fortress' shattered halls. He wore no helmet, his firm frown, white hair, and blazing gaze clear for all to see. "You're a disappointment."

"We'll see about that." Cordelia replied, concealing how her nerves frayed further with every spoken word. The fact that this man so much as knew her name set her on edge.

The rider's frown twisted into a pleased smile. He dismounted his horse in a single swift movement. He stood taller than his accompanying warhorse, his heavy armour and formidable weapon causing him to appear as more of a threat than the beast. His stature was closer a titan than a human.

His hand tightened around the hilt of his axe. The ruined sections of building near him that had been made to levitate floated toward the axe at varying speeds, swirling around the weapon as its humming grew intense.

The second horseman galloped back into the scene with two unconscious forms on the back of his horse. He nodded to the giant of a man challenging Cordelia. The man gave no reply, his gaze and smile fixated on his target.

"Sir!" the second horseman shouted. "I have the targets! We're to exit immediately! Commander!"

The titan's smile faded back into a fierce frown. His weapon quieted. The stonework he had summoned lazily descended to the floor. As the weapon's hum grew silent, the structure of the fortress deteriorated, losing its shape as more of the ceiling caved inward.

"Go." he ordered the other rider without turning to face them. "I'll follow behind you in a short moment."

The other rider did not move. They stared at the intimidating titan, no fear or hesitation showing on their face.

"Are you attempting to defy me, worm?" the titan fumed, turning to face his companion as his gaze blazed into a new level of unwarranted fury.

"You know our directive." the second rider said. Cordelia was amazed that they were holding themselves together so well in their commander's scorching presence.

The titan's fist tightened on his weapon and his muscles tensed, the entirety of his focus shifting toward the other rider. If there were ever an opportune time to attack either soldier it would be now, but Cordelia could not bring herself to move. She could tell that any attempts at attack would be shut down as soon as they could begin. The commander radiated an experienced terror she had never before encountered.

With visible reluctance, the titan relaxed his tense muscles and shifted his weapon to a holster on his back. It continued to hum, keeping the fortress from outright collapsing.

"So be it." he said in as reluctant of a tone. "Now go. I will follow with this one." he gestured to Cordelia, who against all of her better judgement had remained rooted in place.

The second rider nodded and set his horse at a trot out of the fortress. He passed within a metre of Cordelia, and she was able to see how his body shook in his armour. He was terrified. Cordelia gave him no blame.

As the rider passed, Cordelia was brought within reach of Severa and an unidentified young man. The rider passed by and before she could move to rouse either of the unconscious forms. They exited the fortress without issue.

"Cordelia." the commander's voice boomed, ripping her attention away from the other rider. His hand opened and extended toward her. "Come with me or die in this barren tomb."

Cordelia wasted no time in reaffirming her combat stance, holding her lance high toward the titan's head. Her opponent's smile returned in full.

"Ah, such bravery. How I wish I could break you." he said, radiating more menace with every word. "I intend you no harm. We're to leave this place."

He took a step forward, and this time Cordelia found the courage to hold in place. The man's smile grew. He broke into a deep laugh and advanced on Cordelia at a greater speed. His hand no longer remained outstretched. The horse he had ridden into the fortress followed obediently behind him.

Cordelia adapted her grip on her lance to strike out at him, and did so in the form of a rapid jab. The man flat out ignored the strike, allowing the armour on his chest to suffer the blow. Cordelia's hit failed to slow his gait.

Before Cordelia could attack again, the man's hand burst forth at unnatural speed and planted itself at the base of her throat. Cordelia managed to strike again, but the commander brushed the attack aside with his free hand. All of his movements had become fast to the point of impossibility. A flash of green told Cordelia that he was somehow using wind magic to propel each action he made.

The man's grip then tightened around her throat, shutting off her flow of air with little effort. He lifted Cordelia into the air to be level with his face, leaving her legs to kick helplessly as her weapon clattered to the ground and she struggled to rip away his hold.

His grip lightened, allowing Cordelia to gasp for breath. Despite that leniency, his hold remained tight enough to keep her in place above the ground. He held her in that same pose as he swung around toward his horse. He threw Cordelia with little care onto the mount's back, picked her lance up off the ground where it had fallen, then mounted the horse himself and kicked it into motion.

The horse was larger than any Cordelia had seen. She could feel every movement it made through its heavy armour, and she could tell that it had been bred to support its current rider. One of the hands of the man in question raised into the air and glowed green as Cordelia regained her breath, and before she attempted to jump from the horse she was buffeted back down by a stream of wind magic.

Cordelia, the warhorse, and the commander soon broke free of the fortress walls. The building behind them deteriorated at a greater pace the further from it they moved. A stark silence from the titan's axe heralded the collapse of the fortress.

"I'm given to understand that you are in a position of power over the Shepherd forces." the commander said. He threw Cordelia to the ground and stabbed her lance into the sand at her side. "The other commander, Frederick, has been notified of a summit within our encampment. You, too, are welcome to attend. All enemy forces within the fortress have been eliminated. We seek now to deliver unto you a gift, then be on our way. Follow me or do nothing."

At that, the commander spun his horse around and moved toward a large encampment that had not been present minutes ago. Cordelia watched him leave, uncertain of how she should respond to such an unforeseen development. At the very least, Ricken and Miriel were conversing with some figures at the edge of the encampment, suggesting that the Shepherds were safe.

Miriel gestured several times toward the sky as she spoke to a group of what appeared to be mounted mages. Cordelia made to approach them, then paused and looked up to the sky where her friend had indicated, her brow then furrowing in confusion. Some of her fellow Shepherds were being held by wyvern riders in midair.

The new forces had yet to release them despite the end of the battle against the mercenaries. These forces seemed organised enough that such action could not be a bureaucratic error. They were holding the Shepherds hostage on purpose. Cordelia frowned, stood, and made to follow the commander.

None of the red-armoured soldiers attempted to stop Cordelia as she advanced despite her visible weaponry. Not so much as a curious glance was cast in her direction. They were much too at ease for her liking.

A melodious laughter stopped Cordelia as she navigated through the camp. On a side path occupied by few tents, she spotted Libra and Lissa engaging in conversation with yet another mounted unit. Cordelia could not help but wonder how these forces had arrived without warning, and how they had navigated their horses en masse through the deserts of Plegia.

As she passed by the two Shepherd healers, the mounted unit let out a short laugh and handed a staff to Lissa. Lissa smiled and jumped at the action, taking the staff in a reverent grip Cordelia had never seen from the petulant royal. The girl was amazed by the staff. By Cordelia's judgement, it was a sleep staff, and she deflated somewhat at knowing how many pranks of which it would soon be part.

Libra said a few short words of thanks to the rider, who smiled and waved his thanks away. The three were getting along well. Cordelia remained on edge nonetheless.

The commander's warhorse stood outside a massive tent central to the encampment. Frederick's horse stood next to the commander's, dwarfed by its monstrous size. Cordelia pushed forward and entered the tent, again without inspection by any guards.

Inside the tent, Frederick stood in place with his arms crossed behind his back as he stared at the titan of a commander across from him. He nodded to Cordelia as she entered, but refused to shift his gaze. His tension matched Cordelia's. A large, circular wooden table separated him from the commander.

"May I request that you identify yourself, sir?" Frederick asked the other man, beginning his proceedings now that his other behalf had arrived.

"No." the commander answered without hesitation, his deep voice shaking Frederick and Cordelia both. "I have arranged this meeting to grant you a gift, one you may require for the war to come. There is no reason beyond that for us to not be on our separate ways."

"You've captured our forces - you've stolen them away to the skies and have taken their weapons." Cordelia said. "If you desire peace between us, you must release them. Anything less will be seen as an act of aggression."

"Ah, capturing. A timeless tactic, yet one you seem all too fond to forget." the commander grinned. "It sounds as though you are in no position to make demands. However, you will be reunited with your forces and equipment after we have adjourned this summit, and we will return to our regular action."

"What is your regular action?" Cordelia interjected.

The nameless commander ignored her as he dragged a container out of the edge of the tent. "We are remnants of the royal Plegian military. One of your own was intended to convey that information, but she has proven problematic. She will be detained until the end of this meeting."

Frederick and Cordelia shared a quick glance before returning their gazes to the commander. He was lying. The Plegian military in all forms had been disbanded following the war against Ylisse - that was the entire reason the Shepherds had planned peacekeeping missions in the nation.

"Your troops and tactics, they bear little semblance to anything I have seen from Plegia." Frederick said. "I studied the Plegian forces to great extent during our war. May I add that you resemble none of their commanding officers?"

"You doubt me?" the commander asked. He somehow gave off more dangerous of an air than before. He slammed the case he had dragged out on the central table, causing Frederick to flinch.

"Er… no, my apologies. I was merely surprised." Frederick said in the hope of avoiding confrontation. "I am certain that you will cause for us no issue. There is little we cannot reconcile."

"Defending a nation is difficult when there exists no ruler to hold order." the titan said. "Plegia has suffered in the aftermath of your war. It failed to resist your might. It would be better utilised as a vassal of Ylisse and Ferox than as a nation of its own."

"I've never heard such an unfavourable view of Plegia by one of its own residents." Frederick noted. "Regardless, a new king is to be appointed soon, as I'm certain you're aware. Plegia will soon regain its full autonomy, as desired by both its people and those of Ylisse."

"A king? No, what this land needs is a true leader. One of merits, not a birthright." the commander said. "The king was to be a cultist and a madman, which is why he's been dead for the better part of two years. He would have set his sights on reviving Grima and annihilating the world. We were certain to dispose of him long ago."

"You killed Gangrel's successor?" Cordelia asked, surprised that this was the first she had heard of such a matter.

"Indeed. Validar. He who guided the Grimleal in worship for decades. Worry not, Shepherd, for my forces have tied up loose ends of which you've been too fond of ignoring. The Grimleal will cause for us no issues."

Frederick narrowed his gaze on the man. He had been aware of the potential threat the Grimleal posed to his lieges, but had never considered the plausibility of neutralising them. This man and his forces were proving to be as valuable of allies as they were dangers.

"I suppose I should thank you for your aid?" Frederick said in uncertainty. "As much as I wish we could make proper thanks, we must prepare for a greater altercation. A force of invaders is set to arrive in Ferox soon, and we must be present at the western port city for a short time. Would your forces be interested in aiding us then?"

"After you shun us and request our departure? Alas, I believe we have other matters to which we must attend." the commander said.

Cordelia coughed, bringing attention back to herself. "Frederick is correct in that we must soon depart. We always maintain a tight schedule with little room for unanticipated interruptions. Regardless of whether you wish to assist us, I request that we make this meeting brief."

"Ha! Such curt nonsense!" the commander laughed, but then nodded his head. "So be it. Accept this gift, and we may all be on our way."

He reached forward and unclasped the sealing locks on the weapon case before him, then opened the container and retrieved a weapon sheathed in cloth. He grabbed the weapon's hilt and began to unfurl its wrappings.

Frederick tensed almost to the point of popping blood vessels the wrappings fell away from the weapon, revealing an unmistakable silver and gold blade. He drew his lance from his back and pointed the weapon at the commander. The titan slowed his movements to a stop and smiled.

"What have you done!?" Frederick roared. His grip on his lance was shaking. Cordelia moved her hands to her own weapon, ready to draw it in the event of combat as she too recognized the weapon before her.

The commander let out another unsettling laugh as he grabbed the exposed head of the blade in his gauntlet. He swung the sword free of its remaining wrappings and then returned his grip to normal with a toss that flipped the weapon end for end.

"Falchion, the divine blade borne of Naga's fang." the commander spoke as he ran his free hand over the blade. "It holds insurmountable power, and the ability to fell dragons of her divine blood. There existed but one in the world until a few short years ago."

"What have you done!?" Frederick shouted again at the commander, demanding an answer for how he was in possession of Chrom's unique weapon. The titan and his forces could not possibly have overthrown Ylisstol since his departure, let alone kill Chrom. Such an event was impossible to consider.

The commander said nothing. He pointed the sword toward Frederick and then Cordelia, his face twisted into a sinister smile. He was willing them to attack.

Cordelia realised this and, to Frederick's complete dismay, lowered her weapon. The commander had no wish to bridge peace between them; he sought conflict. However, he was refusing to initiate combat. An attack now would cause unbridled retaliation. Such an outcome was unacceptable when over half the Shepherd forces were airborne hostages.

"If you would please explain yourself, sir?" Cordelia asked as politely as she could, though the waver in her voice was clear for all to hear. She motioned for Frederick to lower his lance. He refused to do so.

The commander stood silent for several moments that stretched on for an eternity. He then tossed Falchion onto the table toward Frederick.

"Your Exalt is safe." the commander said, spitting out the word Exalt with great distaste. "I have not laid hand or eye upon him, nor have any of my forces. There are those in this world who have travelled through time. This is the signature weapon of their leader, Lucina. Return it to her."

Frederick froze in shock, all that the commander was saying forcing his mind into a halt. "You know about…!?"

Cordelia, too, was flabbergasted by the information to which this unknown commander had access. "That's… those tales of time travel, they're not…"

"In time, you will see the honesty in my words. Doubt me if you must. My statements will be made no less true."

"This cannot be…" Frederick said, his gaze lingering on Falchion before snapping up. "This is impossible! What did you do!?"

"Chrom is alive. So too is his daughter from the future. You are bound to meet her soon, and when you do, I would request that you return that Falchion to her. She would fight better with it than without. I long to see how strong she will become."

"How on earth did you…?" Cordelia began to ask before trailing off, still mired in doubt over the claim of time travel. There was no way something so absurd could be true. The blade in Frederick's hands had to be Chrom's Falchion.

"You may utilise anything that remains in this camp after our departure." the commander brushed past Cordelia and made to exit the tent. "We will no longer require our lodgings. Use them as you see fit, or leave them here to waste away. Goodbye, Shepherds."

With that, the titan stepped out of the tent and began to shout orders. Both Cordelia and Frederick made no moves to follow him and instead remained transfixed on Falchion. The weapon's mere presence should be impossible.

A fierce wind began to pick up outside, thrashing against the tent and throwing sand into its open flap. Cordelia took note of the disturbance and moved to shield her face, then close the tent flap. Frederick remained stationary as his upper body began to tremble. Cordelia pushed herself outside the tent and left him to his thoughts.

Sand blew in all directions, smothering air and light in an impenetrable haze. As Cordelia struggled to make headway in any direction, muddied forms descended from the sky, which in turn dropped off other forms before disappearing into the sandstorm. Cordelia soon realised that her fellow Shepherds were being gathered and returned to her position.

She attempted to combat the artificial storm to check on the well-being of her friends, and search for any trace of the soldiers who had once patrolled the encampment. All of their tents remained, but without people or mounts.

After ineffective shields of wind had been constructed by Miriel and Ricken to spare the Shepherds' skin and eyes from the flurry of sand. After Cordelia had been able to scout much of the large encampment despite fighting against nature. Only then did the storm lift. It was present one moment, then gone the next. Cordelia found that the camp was barren and returned to her friends near the summit tent.

Every Shepherd that had been present on the mission was accounted for with all of their equipment. Furthermore, the young woman who identified herself as Severa found her way to the Shepherds. Her friend Holland accompanied her only to be dismissed within seconds.

Severa claimed to have no knowledge of the forces who had captured her and the Shepherds. Panne, Yarne, and Minerva all attested to being incapable of discerning the soldiers' origin on the grounds of scent. In fact, none of the Shepherds had any idea as to the true identity of the new forces. Cordelia could not help but note how Yarne and Severa recognised one another. Both were more than prepared to join the Shepherds despite refusing to acknowledge their supposed time travelling.

Inside of the summit tent, Cordelia found Frederick standing in the same place as when she had left, Falchion now clutched in his hands. He had yet to move.

"They're gone, Frederick." she said without bothering to introduce herself. "The soldiers. They disappeared during the storm. Cherche claims that the sand was their doing, and that she was suspended in the sky with similar magic. Their storm has gone quiet. They've disappeared."

Frederick said nothing. He remained locked in place.

"Whatever happens next, we can't stay here." Cordelia continued. "There remains the coming invasion at Port Ferox, and the presence of these new forces somewhere on the continent. I admittedly hold little trust for them. That said, I believe we should return to Ylisstol. We should check on Chrom, and once we're certain he's okay, we should escort him to Ferox."

"Nonsense!" Frederick piped up, his voice too cheery to be natural. "Chrom will arrive at Port Ferox in a matter of days. We must meet him there. Come, now, we mustn't dally. The sooner we reach the port, the sooner we may be reunited with him."

Cordelia regarded Frederick carefully. His inability to cope with Falchion's appearance was plain to see. "Frederick, that's…"

"If this is Chrom's blade, if something unthinkable has happened… we'll hunt down those forces and slaughter them."

Cordelia shivered. The conviction in Frederick's voice was genuine and beyond negotiable. Frederick attempted to move past her and exit the tent, but was stopped when she pushed against him with one hand.

"Falchion, if I may?" she asked, her other palm opening to accept the weapon.

"Treat it well. Even false replicas may hold some value." Frederick advised as he passed her the weapon, then left the tent.

When she exited the tent, Frederick was engaged in conversation with several of the Shepherds, his tone pleasant. Half the people he spoke to nodded before breaking away to perform a given task, while the remaining half shared looks of justified concern. Cordelia ignored them and combed over the Shepherds until she found her desired target.

"Severa." Cordelia said, amazed by how calm her own voice sounded. As long as she could retain some semblance of hope, there was no reason to panic.

"Hm? Oh, it's… Cordelia, right?" Severa greeted, looking up from the nothing to which she had pretended to attend. Cordelia could tell that the woman was on edge, and that she was choosing every word she spoke with the utmost care. "I suppose we'd have to have proper introductions sooner or later, huh? So, yeah, I'm Severa. I'm a mercenary from around here, and I'm interested in helping you lot out."

"A pleasure to meet you." Cordelia smiled, maintaining her facade of calm. She held Falchion in front of her, giving Severa time to see the weapon.

"Er, why do you have Chrom's…? I was told he was at Ylisstol?" Severa asked after a long moment of silence.

"That he is. This Falchion is not his, but Lucina's." Cordelia said. Severa's eyes widened at the drop of the woman's name, but she then returned to her more regular irritated expression to conceal her surprise.

"Never heard of 'em before." Severa said in forced disinterest. Cordelia could tell that she was now more focused on their conversation than ever. "Are they supposed to be important, or is there some other dumb reason they're running around with a Falchion knockoff?"

"Please, Severa, be honest." Cordelia urged. "Is there a woman named Lucina who has blood ties to Chrom? Is she a time traveller? Are you?"

Severa blinked, struggling to understand how Cordelia could have come across Falchion and something as concealed as Lucina's identity. She sighed and resolved herself to sharing a small fraction of truth. "Lucina wouldn't be caught dead without Falchion. She had it when we were last together. I don't know what's happened, but… I don't know. Is that good enough for you?"

Cordelia's expression remained level as she nodded. "It will suffice. I hope that you'll come to tell me everything soon enough, as right now, I'm not certain of what to believe. Thanks for your help."

"How did you know about her?" Severa asked before Cordelia could leave. "About Lucina? Where did you get Falchion?"

A low growl interrupted Cordelia before she could provide an answer. Minerva strode into their conversation, standing between the two women. Cherche sat atop her back and leaned forward to berate her mount.

"Minerva! Don't intrude on conversations like this! It's rude!" she hissed into the wyvern's ear. Minerva was unmoved by the scolding.

Cherche then raised her head to smile her innocence at Cordelia, then Severa. "Well, since we were eavesdropping anyway…" her smile brightened despite how Severa glared at her. "One of the soldiers of that Plegian regiment mentioned time travel. They claimed that we had yet to learn of all those from the future. If there are time travellers, I believe one or more may be assisting them. That's information of which we should all be aware before moving forward, no?"

Cordelia raised an eyebrow at the new information. The claim of time travel was intriguing, if not easy to palate. The fact that the unknown military had accepted it as gospel was troubling.

"My apologies for my absence." Cherche angled her head back to Cordelia, her smile growing strained. "I made an error and was subdued. It was as though they didn't want me to interfere… or, perhaps, get too close."

"Thank you for sharing this, Cherche, and please don't fret over what happened during the battle." Cordelia said. "Their forces routed the mercenaries on top of capturing half of our soldiers. They've proven to be a formidable unit. I'm glad we never had to face them in the Plegian war."

"Wait a second!" Severa demanded. "They have one of my friends working with them? That's impossible! We promised to help the Shepherds directly - what good could we do through a proxy?"

"You're saying that you do have friends who possess valuable information, and that you were always intent on aiding us?" Cordelia asked instead of providing an answer. Though a ridiculous prospect, the event of time travel held an inkling of believability.

"I, ah…" Severa stammered, uncertain of what kind of grave she had dug for herself. "Yes, okay? Satisfied? There's a lot of us, and we always wanted to help out. We care about everyone here." She sighed and continued, "Lucina was so set on concealing our identities. I have no idea who would've defied her and spilled everything, and to someone outside the Shepherds, no less."

Cordelia smiled to the apparent time traveller before her. "Thank you, Severa. It's a relief to know that Chrom is safe. There should be no issue with us proceeding to Port Ferox." she nodded to Cherche.

"We should be making preparations, then." Cherche said. "Frederick has given orders to depart. He seems set on reaching the port, and made certain that no one was to return to Ylisstol. Seeing him so pleasant is disturbing "

Severa spoke again before Cherche or Cordelia could leave. "Did the soldiers mention who they contacted? Or how they got my friend's sword? She would be as unlikely to part with it as Chrom with Falchion. I doubt she's in any trouble, but still, I want to know what's happened. This isn't as it should be."

"We'll be able to settle all that needs to be settled at the port where we should have access to more information." Cordelia said. "We must focus on getting there for now. There's no telling when Valmese forces will arrive."

"Can I stay with you for a little while, Cordelia, at the very least?" Severa asked. All of the conviction she carried had vanished.

Cordelia blinked as she processed the request, then waved for Cherche to leave them. Severa's expression lit up in response. "Of course. My apologies if I'm cold right now; I'm still not certain of how to act given these recent developments."

"It's okay. You're doing well." Severa smiled. Cordelia could tell that the expression was unpolished and therefore rare.

"Is there something specific you require my help on?" Cordelia asked. She had no desire to push Severa away, but she also did not wish to waste time with anything needless.

"Um, not really, I…" Severa said, and her expression fell to dismay. "I thought that talking with you would be good for me. That you'd be able to fix everything wrong and comfort me. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be doing this. We can talk at the port like you wanted. Sorry for wasting your time."

Cordelia tilted her head, noting Severa's displeasure but having no way of understanding its cause. "Severa? If you tell me what's bothering you, I can help."

Severa kept her gaze locked away from Cordelia, focusing instead on the ground. "Have you found or heard of someone - another one of my friends - by the name of Kjelle?"

Cordelia raised an eyebrow and nodded. At least their shared story of time travel was well interwoven. "Yes. She's with our grandmaster tactician, Robin, in Ferox. They were going to come find you, but in the interest of time, Robin requested that we come instead."

Severa in turn raised her eyebrows. "She's with Robin? Yarne told me that he wasn't here with you, but for the two of them to be alone together… that doesn't bode well."

"Is there something of which I should be aware?" Cordelia asked.

"Hm? Ah, no, no, it's nothing. Nothing at all." Severa smiled, and Cordelia knew it to be illegitimate. "They, ah, might have some heated interactions, is all. Difficulty getting along."

"I'm certain they'll be fine. Robin isn't a hostile person, and I doubt anything could cause them to fight, even if Kjelle is aggressive."

Severa gave a bright but hidden smile. "Thanks for talking to me, Cordelia. I should thank you more, a thousand times over, for everything you've done… but, I guess you haven't done much of anything yet. Still, I didn't get to say it before, so thank you. For everything. You have no idea how much it matters."

Before Cordelia could respond, Severa stepped forward and pulled her into a tight embrace, squeezing the other woman as though she would disappear at any moment. She buried her head in Cordelia's shoulder, and was soon on the brink of unbidden tears.

"It's alright, Severa." Cordelia wrapped her arms around the sobbing woman, consoling her without knowing why. The sole explanation she could form relied on accepting time travel as fact. Despite all evidence she had at her disposal, Cordelia did not yet want to accept such a theory.

* * *

Kjelle washed her touch over the array of tomes before her. She had no business of her own in this quaint Ylissean bookstore, but Robin had been adamant about dropping by to pick up several tomes. Kjelle was therefore searching for his desired volumes while the man himself was trying on new cloaks in a nearby shop. His current marvel of enchantments had received damage in his battle against the risen Khan Flavia. Kjelle had mocked that fact relentlessly.

All Kjelle and Robin would have to do after this was return to the castle to get armour, and then they could depart without issue. Robin had been certain to give her enough funds to procure the tomes he sought, considering Kjelle's lack of funds. He wished to rejoin the Shepherds soon despite his forthright objections.

Though Kjelle had not wished to leave Robin alone for even a short walk, she believed that he would be safe. Nothing significant could happen in the crowded streets and stores of Ylisstol.

A firm hand placed itself atop Kjelle's shoulder as she examined another row of books. She sighed in partial disgust, preparing herself to dismiss a passerby. Perhaps it was someone who had seen her with Robin and thought her famous, or someone who sought a less cordial approach. The thought of meeting force with greater force excited her.

"Um, hell- okay, you are… large. Holy shit." Kjelle turned to face the person who had approached her, with her retorts and hidden desire to fight withering alongside her ability to form a sentence.

The man before her laughed, an unsettling noise when coming from him. He towered above Kjelle - above everyone gathered in the store. His muscles were easily visible beneath his large yet tight clothing. His eyes and hair both blazed a fierce white, highlighting his experienced yet unscarred face. In an instant Kjelle wanted to see him flex.

"I suppose I should consider that a compliment?" the man grinned. His voice was deeper than his laugh. For some reason, his laugh bore a tinge Kjelle thought to be feminine, though she was uncertain how she had noticed such a thing. "Ha, or perhaps it was in jest? I've been told I need to laugh more."

"No, you're pretty godsdamn massive." Kjelle said, not realising how intimidated she had allowed herself to become until she spoke. The man's mere presence was enough to put her on edge.

"My apologies if I fail to register such a statement as a compliment." the man said, his expression turning into a menacing glare then reverting to a smile, as if the first change had been on accident.

Kjelle blinked. Her mind was slowing in his presence. "Er, no, I didn't mean it like that. It's… you're… sorry, but how much do you weigh? Most of it is pure muscle, right?"

The man's smile widened, making Kjelle feel no more at ease than we he had glared. "Ha! I do pride myself on my routine. Regrettably, I know not my metrics - as long as I can emerge victorious, I have no need to pay mind toward such trivial matters."

"Yeah, you seem like you'd win a lot of fights." Kjelle said. She wanted to fight him on instinct, but also feared that doing so would be a horrible idea.

The man's smile grew intense. "I can see the fire in your eyes. You wish to fight me, don't you? To defeat me? I share such a sentiment, though I regret to say that it will yet go unfulfilled."

"Aha, ha, no, not quite." Kjelle said, using a smile to close her eyes and conceal her competitive intent. She hated how meek she was pretending to be in this man's presence. "Er, no actually, I… uh…"

"Ha! You would allow my mere visage to intimidate you? Pathetic!" the man laughed. Kjelle opened her mouth to protest as she found her confidence, but could not bring herself to speak before the man continued.

"I had heard such grand tales of you, Kjelle. Such great reasons to anticipate this meeting." he said. "Are you not a knight who desires to be stronger than any other? One who seeks power above everything? I had hoped that the fire in your soul would eclipse all else, but now that I see you…"

"How do you know who I am?" Kjelle asked, allowing his insult to pass by unchecked. None of her friends would reveal her identity, Robin had no reason to do so to anyone outside the Shepherds, and the Shepherds themselves had no reason to reveal confidential information.

"I have my methods. Rest assured, the accompaniment of Robin is well known to me, as with many others." the man said, and Kjelle frowned. "I desire to tell you a short story. Perhaps that will help you understand."

He held out his hand, his bare palm facing upward. Kjelle hated how the palm dwarfed her own. The man before her was nothing short of a titan.

Flames flickered into life on the man's palm. Kjelle's eyes widened at the magic; she had believed herself to be one of the first people in the world who cared so much for their physical self while studying the arcane. She had in no way expected someone as muscular as the man before her to be a mage.

"You know magic?" she asked in her moment of surprise. Only then did she realise that the man had yet to introduce himself. "Who are you? Why are you here?"

"Such worthless questions during a time of recounting." the man said, silencing her. Though Kjelle had found her confidence, she by no means wished to anger this man.

The flames the man conjured trailed upward, taking form from the bottom up. Within seconds there existed the clear image of two people standing in the man's palm. One wore heavy armour. The other wore a cloak of such absurd detail that Kjelle knew it could be none other than Robin. The man's magic was so well controlled that such details were clear to see, without fear of brightness or heat.

Kjelle's brow furrowed as she took in the two small, glowing figures. There was no way to interpret the scene except as her meeting Robin. She was afraid to ask how the man had come across such information as to recreate their first moments together.

Without any tension or muscle movement, the man changed the image in his palm. Not only was he a mage, but he was more adept at the practice than Kjelle - she still had to rely on extraneous physical movement and verbal incantations to cast anything.

The two figures shifted into different poses, one drawing an axe while the other prepared to counter them. Then the axe lay broken. Then another weapon, and another, and another, until the armored figure sagged their shoulders in defeat. The image of Robin brought his hand out to assist them. They both then stood tall, side by side, and Kjelle knew they were happy.

"Remarkable, isn't it?" the man said, allowing the final image to linger. "Such animosity, broken apart by something other than power and domination. Defeat meant nothing, and so kindness found hold and forced itself to bloom."

He curled his hand into a fist, extinguishing the flames. "If only such an ideal could last. If so, there would be no need for rivalry, war, or conquest. Alas, paltry ideals of peace and love will never be made true without great bloodshed."

Kjelle straightened her posture. She had not realised that she had leaned toward the man to better interpret the scene in his hand. "What was that? What were you showing me?"

"Could you not tell?" the man asked with a ruthless smile. "You witnessed my comprehension of ambition. You share my vision. I had hoped to cross blades with you for that reason."

"What?" Kjelle asked as she failed to process the man's words. Her eyebrows reached high up her forehead as she understood his statement. "You… want to fight me? Right here, right now?"

The man shook his head, and Kjelle berated herself for not accepting his challenge the moment it was made. "We cannot battle, as of yet. Perhaps one day. I hope you survive until then."

Kjelle blinke, but regained her ability to speak. "Okay? You too, I guess? I mean… yeah, definitely! If you're trying to be the strongest person in the world, too, then there's no way I won't beat you! I'll kick your ass as soon as I get the chance!"

The man laughed. Kjelle could not determine whether she had made the right call in challenging him back. "So, you've found your bravado! If only you hadn't made such a laughable first impression!"

Kjelle frowned and narrowed her gaze. "Disregarding that, how did you get info on me? I've been rather secretive about it for most of my life - at least, as far as you or anyone else should know."

"I know more than you could believe." the man said in his deep, level tone. "I approached you due to your connection with Robin, but my intentions to defeat you remain true nonetheless. You are best off considering me no more than a fanatic."

"Yeah, that's one way of putting it." Kjelle mumbled. How else could someone know so much about her? "So, ah, you wanted to find Robin through me?" she asked, displeased that the man's fame was eclipsing her own in spite of her desire for secrecy.

"Not quite." the man said. "I believe it unwise to meet with Robin. However, you travel with him."

Kjelle's face wrinkled into muted disgust at the prospect of the man before her having studied her routine. She kept it from disturbing her too much, for she had come to know of the fame Shepherds' fame and the fanaticism that followed.

"There's something I wish to be delivered to Robin. A gift from a fan." the man said. He reached into a bag on his side that Kjelle had failed to notice in her awe of his stature, and from it pulled forth a pale blue book. The man held the tome out to her, and Kjelle took it from him without issue.

"The… 'Book of Naga'?" Kjelle read aloud, struggling with the cover's archaic text. She opened the book to read a passage, and in an instant knew that any spells within were far beyond her ability to cast. "What is this thing? None of this seems like anima magic."

"Show it to Robin." the man instructed. "I'm certain he will be elated. It's a marvel of magic."

"A marvel?" Kjelle repeated after him, turning the tome over in her hands as though doing so would help her understand its contents. "Huh. I suppose I should thank you, or something?"

"No thanks is needed. I am well aware of how beneficial my actions will prove to be." the man said with a smile nothing short of ominous. "I would have provided you, too, with aid, but I would hope for you to not require such things to be powerful. The gifts I myself have been granted are extraordinary, but they are nothing compared to my raw might of will."

"Er, right." Kjelle agreed, more enraptured by the unusual tome than his words. "Thanks anyway. I'll be sure to bring this to him."

"Don't bother attempting to use it for yourself. You won't be capable." the man said, shutting down the vain idea Kjelle had begun to form. "Deliver it to Robin and allow him to do as he pleases. Grow strong on your own. Then, return here, and we may determine who among us stands stronger - which of us will be able to shape the world, be it myself, you, Robin, or another. I'll await your return."

"Right, right. I'll be certain to kick your ass as soon as I-" Kjelle began, then found herself narrowing her gaze on the man anew. "How do you know I'm leaving? Is that public knowledge?"

"Have not all of the Shepherds left Ylisstol?" the man asked in turn without missing a beat. His answer sounded too prepared to be natural.

"And you believe me to be a Shepherd?" Kjelle asked next. She had yet to officially join their rank, at least if the tales of a written requirement held any merit.

The man remained silent for a long moment, staring at Kjelle in a silent fury. A smile then broke out over his expression, and it was no more welcoming than his anger. "I know that you travel with Robin. Is it wrong to assume that you are acquainted with the Shepherds? I believe not."

"Well, you're lucky that your assumption turned out to be correct." Kjelle said. "I know Robin; I'm… I'm close to him. I'll give him the book, the two of us will go complete our mission with the Shepherds, and then I'll come back here to beat you into the ground. Count on it."

The man's smile widened, and this time held a genuine excitement. "I will count the days. For now, though, I must be on my way. It was a pleasure to meet you, Kjelle. I hope it will be more of a pleasure to fight you."

"Yeah, okay. Sure. It will be." Kjelle said, remaining somewhat uncertain of how to conduct herself in the man's presence.

"Farewell, Kjelle." the man said, and with a curt nod he made to exit the bookstore. Kjelle found herself doubting his ability to fit through the door without contorting his massive body.

"Goodbye, uh… guy?" Kjelle said in turn, realising once again that she knew nothing of the man's identity.

Within seconds the man was lost to the crowds of Ylisstol. Kjelle thought it amazing that someone as large as him could be obscured by ordinary people, before then wondering if he intended to be lost. The covert manner in which he had approached her in no way quieted her sense of unease.

Kjelle returned her attention to the shelf of the bookstore. She located the tomes Robin desired within a few short minutes. When she made to buy them, she noticed how the shopkeep eyed her gifted pale blue tome, though they made no comment on the book.

She exited the store, and soon found Robin standing in the alcove of a clothing shop's entrance. The grandmaster waved to her as she approached. Kjelle felt as though the expression were forced.

"Did you find a new cloak?" Kjelle asked.

Robin shook his head. "None that caught my interest. Did you find those tomes I wanted?"

Kjelle nodded and handed him the three books she had purchased: high-class tomes on wind, fire, and thunder magic. She kept the Book of Naga in her off hand, waiting for Robin to appraise the first three tomes before she provided the unknown man's gift.

"Awesome, thanks!" Robin smiled. Again Kjelle feared that the harmonious sound was falsified. Robin placed the tomes away within his cloak, and Kjelle wondered where his other volumes had gone, only now realising that he was without some of his signature weaponry. His eyes then caught the remaining pale blue tome. "Did you pick up a fourth?"

"It was gifted to me by… someone." Kjelle explained and held the tome out for Robin to examine. "I didn't get their name."

Robin's eyes widened as he snatched the tome from her grip. His mouth fell open as he read the cover and the first pages of the tome. "Where… who gave you this!?" he asked in amazement.

"I told you, I don't know." Kjelle said with a hint of frustration at having to repeat herself. "It was a big guy. Like, really big." she explained, holding her arms out from her sides and puffing out her chest in the hope of better conveying the man's absurd size.

Robin's gaze rested on her for a moment, during which time Kjelle could see his confusion. He had evidently not seen the same giant as her.

"This is light magic!" Robin announced with his most passionate voice.

"Isn't that insanely rare?" Kjelle asked, her own surprise muted.

Robin nodded in further fervour. "We're now in possession of a magic thought extinct. Whoever gave this to you deserves high praise!"

"Huh. He seemed nonchalant." Kjelle remarked. She turned to the streets at her back, almost expecting to see the titan of a man again through the din of Ylisstol. "He said that he was a fan, but to gift you forgotten magic is something else entirely."

"Yeah, it is." Robin agreed as he continued to analyse the tome. Kjelle was fond of the way Robin's eyes lit up when he read over the magic. He was absorbed in a world of his own, one without strife. The man's gift was perfect. That fortunate light soon dimmed as Robin sighed and closed the tome. "I'll have to thank this man when I get the chance. As much as I'd like to examine this, we should be making for the port. I'll have enough time to check it out soon enough."

"Let's get to the castle, then. We can pick up the last of our stuff and depart." Kjelle agreed, more ready than him to put the matter of the tome on a backburner. She appreciated the existence of the light tome, and of how it elated Robin, but saw for it no practical use.

Robin nodded and slipped the Book of Naga into another compartment of his cloak. "Let's go. Sorry for freaking out over that."

Kjelle shrugged and began walking toward the castle. She was happy that Robin had become so excited. That light in his eyes was intoxicating. She, too, would have to thank the man for his gift when next they met.

Far from them, on the divide between royal and public grounds, Walhart stood in wait for his lieutenants. Their conquest of Ylisse was near completion. He despised the manner in which he had given away Robin's gift, but was glad to have met with Kjelle all the same. He truly anticipated their coming fight.

Then, after that battle, after all that had strengthened him, Walhart would show the world who deserved to decide its future.

* * *

 **You may be wondering why I was talking before about splitting large chapters up, only for this one to be the (second) largest in the story. That's because I wanted to keep the pacing of this chapter steady. I also wanted to get through everything with the rest of the Shepherds at once. I'm also inconsistent.**

 **There's a weird concept I want to pull off with Walhart where, even though he's going to be strong and is one of the two main antagonists, he's not at some untouchable level. His soldiers are willing to stand up to him for that reason. I like having big over the top dramatic battles, but I still want them to have some kind of grounding and feasibility.**

 **This was supposed to be out a few days ago, but I got caught up on how to break apart the sections. I of course ultimately decided to keep it all in one chapter.**

 **Status: As of 16-06-19, I'm on chapter 36. Much to my regret I've been barely able to work on anything story-wise for the past few weeks. That should be better now, though! I have time to actually get things done!**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	30. Chapter 30

Robin and Kjelle's horses trotted along the path from Ylisstol to Ferox in silence. The only sounds either rider made was the rhythmic clangs of Kjelle's heavy armour and the occasional hum from Robin as he interpreted the Book of Naga. They had departed Ylisstol late in the evening, after having concluded their shopping and Kjelle's procurement of new armour.

Robin had yet to make much progress in interpreting the Book of Naga. The writing bore no unusual diction that would differentiate it from any other tome, yet Robin found it difficult to read all the same. It was as though something in his mind was preventing him from making progress.

He sighed and closed the tome, placing it away within his cloak in the hopes of better understanding it at a later time. It was clear to him that no progress would be made toward using the tome until he was able to put his mind at ease. To do that, he would have to meet with the Shepherds.

"You're done with the tome already?" Kjelle asked, taking note of how he had removed it from his attention.

"For now." Robin confirmed with a nod. "I doubt I'll be able to do much for a while, but that's okay. I'm at least positive that this is the Book of Naga - a true light magic tome, and a rare one at that. It's amazing that I'm able to study it."

"Mm. I should think so." Kjelle agreed, though Robin could tell that her mind was lingering elsewhere. "You mind if I check it out sometime? It'd be worth learning some different magic than fire alone."

"Knock yourself out, so long as I or one of the other Shepherd spellcasters aren't trying to analyse it. We tend to get carried away at times."

Kjelle nodded her head in rhythm with the steps of her horse, again paying little mind toward the action. She then refocused on Robin, and in her eyes he could see a familiar determination, one he had come to know well from their travels together.

"Do you mind if I talk about my time for a bit? About Ylisstol, my friends, and… and how everything went to shit." Kjelle asked. She waited for Robin's curious nod before steeling herself with a deep breath.

"I'm here to listen to everything you have to say, Kjelle." Robin reassured her in a calming tone she enjoyed hearing. It made him sound so kind, so unlike who or whatever it was that had destroyed her world.

"You might not enjoy this story." she warned him. "How Ylisstol fell, and everything that happened to my friends and I… you won't like it. That being said, I think it's important to know, and I want to tell you. I want to work through it."

Robin smiled and nodded once more. "That's good. I'm glad. Please, speak about anything you want, and I'm sure that together we can work through it." he said. As this memory would surely involve him as Grima destroying the world, he did not have to guess as to what made her uncomfortable.

Kjelle took another deep breath, strengthening herself one final time. She then found herself seeking out the image of Robin's face, knowing that it would be able to tether her despite all that she would he recalling, and that it would be the perfect reminder of Robin's true identity.

"Seeing Ylisstol again yesterday, and the day before… it was surreal. It was nothing like my time. No ashes clouding the skies, no waves of heat rolling over the land, no threat from risen that forced the entire city into regular lockdowns. I can barely see it as the same place."

* * *

The sun was beginning to set over the Ylisstol of Kjelle's future past. She remained in the castle that loomed over the city, alongside the rest of her friends and those who remained of the Shepherds. It had been recently that she was forced to relocate to the castle following the death of her father, at which point she had been comforted by Severa and Lucina. Those events would be with her for a long time, regardless of how many months passed.

Chrom and Robin had both left Ylisse on a mission to Plegia. The event had been well known to the remaining Shepherds and their children. It was supposed to bring about an end to the risen, to the constant warring, to all of the evil that had befallen humanity. More people should have been aware of how hilariously optimistic such an ambition would prove. Robin knew of the mission's details, with Chrom being strung along on his blind trust.

Of all the Shepherds alive, Frederick alone had followed them. His departure was unknown to them both, and for a short time went unnoticed by those in Ylisse. At first, he had formed the mission with the aid of Yen'fay, Say'ri, Phila, and Cordelia, leaving others to tend to domestic matters, but Frederick had accelerated his plans for fear of what would happen in Plegia. His worry had never been better placed.

Kjelle stood in the castle courtyard armed with a lance and in the full armour her mother had left for her before dying in Valm, as was to be expected of a dedicated knight extraordinaire. Lucina alone was willing to combat her. Everyone else had retired for the night or had refused to face her one-on-one.

Lucina squared her stance and raised her sword, waiting for Kjelle to make an attack. Her posture and grip on her weapon were so refined, so well practiced, that Kjelle refused to be put off by the level stare on the princess' face. Lucina was prepared to fight at any moment. Kjelle liked that about her.

"Your win streak isn't gonna hold up forever, you know." Kjelle attempted to taunt before they began - that Lucina could win against her with ease was nothing short of aggravating.

"I should hope not. If it did, that would mean that you aren't improving." Lucina said without any of the aggression Kjelle had wished to impart.

Kjelle frowned, but then returned her expression to one of pleasant contentment. All she wanted was to keep fighting like this without end, always improving and never once fearing that she would be too weak.

"Well then, let's see what you think of this improvement!" Kjelle shouted, and charged toward Lucina with her lance raised. There was no limit to the number of times she could throw herself against Lucina's blade, always bouncing back and having the opportunity to refine her attacks. Training against Lucina was the perfect form of combat she sought.

Lucina remained steadfast in her stance until Kjelle was upon her, then darted to the side with her sword extended toward Kjelle's core. Lucina twisted her blade so that only its flat side would make contact.

Her steel hit Kjelle hard in the ribs, and the knight collapsed to her hands and knees. Lucina was always able to hit harder, faster, and with greater accuracy than any other.

"Ha… okay… that one hit hard." Kjelle wheezed as she brought a hand to her armour. She found it to be imperceptibly dented and the skin underneath sensitive to her touch. Those dents now composed more of her armour than unmarked metal. She liked that Lucina could defeat her, in some unusual way. It reminded her of all the progress she would be able to make.

"Unless I'm mistaken, that's the fourth time today you've tried to charge me." Lucina commented without a hint of distaste. As soon as Kjelle had fallen to the ground she had moved to pass the knight a vulnerary, knowing her friend to be too proud to request one and too headstrong to bring a potion of her own.

Kjelle took the vulnerary with a grateful smile. She drank what little of the healing liquid remained and stood. Lucina nodded to her as she did so, verifying that she had sustained no significant damage.

"Damn, what number does that make this?" Kjelle sighed as she hefted the emptied vulnerary.

"If you're referring to the vulnerary, that was your third one." Lucina said. "If you were referring to our duels, that was my twenty-first win, with that same number representing my streak for today."

"I was referring to the vulneraries." Kjelle said. She then sighed and tossed the vulnerary toward the path inside the castle doors. "We should stop wasting them. Er, I should; I don't think you've had to use any today. Gods know how rare they've become."

"Too rare." Lucina shook her head, though Kjelle could not place her tone as melancholy. Any emotion was rare from someone so stoic. "Would you like to call our dueling here for now? We may continue training through different means, or retire for the night - either path is agreeable to me."

"Yeah, but which is more agreeable?" Kjelle asked with a sly smile. Lucina's answer to that question had already been made, time and again. After all, she was the sole person Kjelle would admit to being more driven and more capable than herself.

"Training." Lucina said with a small smile. That same smile always came with her answer. It was perfectly practiced and perfectly applied, as with every action she performed.

Kjelle's smile brightened and she gestured toward the castle, wherein the more typical training grounds could be found. "Let's go, then. There's still more than enough time left in the day to knock around some training dummies!"

Lucina's smile remained unchanged on her face as Kjelle moved toward the castle. It then faded, and she craned her head toward the castle gates. The sound of wings beating against the fall of night stopped her from moving.

"Wait, Kjelle." she commanded, and Kjelle stopped to face her in confusion. "A flier, approaching from somewhere outside. They sound rushed. Frantic."

Kjelle frowned, seeing no reason as to why a flier would be approaching the castle in a hurry, even in the case of an unexpected risen attack. There should have been nothing the Shepherds or knights of Ylisse could not handle.

She strained her ears the same as Lucina, and enough heard the same hurried beats of wings from a single pegasus rider nearing the castle. Her expression grew all the more confused as she began to doubt her faith in the forces protecting Ylisse.

"Keep your weapons on hand, and be prepared to run if necessary." Lucina ordered. "We know not who this will be, and if they're a risen that's managed to breach the city…"

"Ha! You expect me to run?" Kjelle scoffed. "Please! If it's a risen I'll pound it into ash! No foe will be able to stand against me!"

"Whatever you say, Owain." Lucina said playfully, causing Kjelle to frown. "If I give the order to retreat, you listen. Understood?"

Kjelle sighed but nodded her head. "Understood. If anyone knows how and when to fight, it's you."

"Thank you for your trust, Kjelle. It means the world to me." Lucina said. Kjelle could not help but feel uncomfortable at knowing she held so much of her close friend's reciprocal trust. She wanted people to trust in her only after she was irrefutable in her strength.

Black wings soon crested over the top walls of the castle, with a rider dressed in an equivalent amount of dark clothing arriving atop the blackened pegasus. Lucina and Kjelle both placed their weapons away. The sheer amount of black on the rider, not to mention her dark skin, was enough to identify her despite her tendencies toward being an aloof vagabond.

"Lady Aversa." Lucina greeted the rider as she touched down. "It's been some time since you last visited us. To what do we owe this pleasure?"

"Hey, lady Aversa." Kjelle greeted in turn, without Lucina's proper air. The dark flier was an old enemy-turned-friend of the Shepherds, and while her sudden appearance in no way reassured Kjelle that all was well, her presence was welcome all the same.

"Save it." Aversa said in her usual cold, brusque manner. She was breathing heavily. Her skin was dry and her makeup irregular in its lack of extensive care. She had been flying for a considerable stretch of time. Dread was beginning to build in the pit of Kjelle's stomach.

"Is something the matter?" Lucina asked, growing closer to Aversa's laboured tone of voice as she spoke.

Aversa nodded and took a short moment to catch her breath. Her pegasus wobbled in place, standing on the verge of collapse from exhaustion.

"You're leaving this place immediately - all of you." Aversa said, leaving no room between her words for Lucina or Kjelle to interject. "Shepherds and children alike. I don't care where you go, but it can't be here. This entire place will be rubble in hours."

"What? The hell it will!" Kjelle said as soon as she had room to speak. "What's threatening us? Risen, right? We'll take them down!"

"It's not risen. I wish it were." Aversa lamented with a shake of her head. "Kjelle, gather everyone here, now. Frederick will be upon us soon, and Robin's bound to be right behind him. There's no time to waste. If people won't come here, tell them to flee Ylisse."

"No! Why would I do that!?" Kjelle protested. "I'll take on whatever's coming by myself if I have to!"

"You said that Frederick and Robin are returning?" Lucina asked Aversa, her voice remaining level.

Aversa nodded. She then winced as she realised that Lucina had reached a conclusion she had not yet intended to make known. "Chrom… Chrom won't be with them."

Lucina's expression refused to change, her mouth a thin line and her eyes unburdened by tears. She nodded a single time in acknowledgement. Kjelle thought it amazing that Lucina was able to maintain her stoicism despite such horrific news.

Aversa narrowed her gaze on the princess. "Do you understand what I said, girl? Your father is-"

"Dead." Lucina finished for the dark flier, her steadfast demeanour unwavering. "I understand. Thank you for informing me, lady Aversa."

Aversa's gaze remained on Lucina for a long moment, her expression morphing into one of confusion and wariness with a hint of disgust. Kjelle could not understand why she was having such an ugly reaction toward Lucina's showing of emotional strength.

"May I ask what happened?" Lucina prompted when Aversa fell silent. "Is the threat that killed my father coming to Ylisse? Is that why you're here?"

Aversa regained control of her expression and turned toward Kjelle with a disapproving snarl. "I gave you my orders. Fulfill them - we have little time to dawdle about. Go now, and give me privacy to speak with Lucina."

"Go to hell." Kjelle shot back without hesitation, causing Aversa's snarl to twitch in derision. There was no way she would leave one of her closest friends after something as massive as her father's death had been dropped into conversation.

"I'm fine with her staying here." Lucina said before Aversa could protest. "It's best she knows what happened, as we'll then be able to inform everyone else. Everyone here should know about a threat that claimed the life of their leader and friend."

Aversa blinked before adopting a confident smile. "My, my. I had expected a much more violent response. At the least, I suppose you're more rational than that father of yours."

"The details of the threat, if you would?" Lucina persisted.

Aversa hesitated for a split second, offset by Lucina's lacklustre reaction. Her smile then returned. "Of course. Since you seem so capable of handling it, I suppose there's no reason to hide anything. Robin killed Chrom and is going to try to kill everyone else in the Shepherds."

"What?" Kjelle coughed out in surprise, though her shock was mixed with worry. "Wasn't Robin one of the original Shepherds, one who was with them through all of their wars? Why would he betray his closest friends and allies?"

Aversa shrugged in response. The gesture was infuriating as a means of avoiding a respectable answer.

"There's a high probability that Robin was responsible for the multitude of deaths in Valm." Lucina reasoned, her voice somehow still devoid of shock or sadness.

"He was the head tactician of the Shepherds." Aversa added on.

"Do you have proof that he was the one to kill my father, and proof that he wishes to target us in Ylisse?" Lucina asked Aversa.

"All I know for fact is that I heard you lot were having another mission, decided that I might lend a hand, then saw Frederick fleeing the Dragon's Table as fast as his horse could carry him." Aversa said. "I intercepted him, and he told me that Robin had murdered Chrom. He had little proof beyond his own word - and this." she reached behind her to a carrying bag on her pegasus, and pulled from it Falchion.

Aversa grabbed the sword by its blade and held it out for Lucina, who took its handle in her grip. She swung the sword once as if to test it, its sharp whistle through the air satisfying her verification of authenticity. Even now, she showed no signs of breaking her emotional fortitude, of crying or paling.

"I see." Lucina said, and removed her training sword from its scabbard to be replaced by Falchion. She kept the spare blade in her hand, and after Kjelle was courteous enough to pass her an extra scabbard, sheathed the weapon and slung it over her shoulder. "This evidence is sufficient. Thank you, lady Aversa."

"You know, I don't think it's considered a normal response to thank someone for informing you of your father's passing." Aversa said with an unusual amount of sensitivity. "Are you okay, Lucina? I understand that you've lost your mother and countless surrogate family figures in the Shepherds, but this…"

Lucina smiled, the same practiced smile she had shown Kjelle after and throughout their training. "I assure you, I am well. Death and loss are factors of this world which we must face on a daily basis, and I believe it unwise to allow them to impair our regular action."

Aversa narrowed her gaze on Lucina, but made no effort toward confronting her again. Kjelle, meanwhile, was grinning with untold brilliance at her friend. Hers was the strength that needed to be embraced. Lucina was the pinnacle of power she wanted to replicate. No sadness, no fear, nothing crippling her ability to act.

If Kjelle had been as strong as Lucina, she knew that her father would still be alive. Countless people would be safe from the risen. Were everyone to be as strong as Lucina, there would be nothing wrong with the world.

"If I may ask one more question before we carry out your orders, lady Aversa?" Lucina began again. "When precisely, or to the best of your knowledge, did my father perish?"

"As if that matters?" Aversa asked. Lucina nodded, and Aversa then shrugged. "This morning, I believe. Before dawn broke over Plegia."

"I see." Lucina nodded to herself, then addressed both Aversa and Kjelle. "I was awoken this morning by a voice who identified herself as Naga. She claimed a pressing need for my friends and I to abandon this world, and stated that annihilation would be at our heels."

Aversa raised an eyebrow at Lucina's claim, defying Kjelle's awe at the prospect of having spoken to Naga. "A fever dream isn't the best means of predicting the outcome of the day, but if it works, what should I care? As long as you leave this place."

"She ordered us to leave this world entirely - to travel close to two decades into the past and right every wrong made up to this point." Lucina said. "A portal is set to open in the southernmost point of the city by nightfall, and every child of the Shepherds is to use it to depart from this world."

Aversa shook her head. "Never mind, don't listen to your fever dreams. I don't know if that was born of desperation, or an inability to cope, or something else, but don't listen to the whispers of gods in your sleeping mind. There's no running from this threat."

"If Lucina says that it's true, then it's true!" Kjelle leapt to her friend's aid without a second thought. Lucina was not the type of person to misuse power. Whatever she claimed, regardless of absurdity, had to be true.

Kjelle turned toward Lucina and flashed her a confident smile. Lucina reciprocated with a confident smile of her own alongside a short nod. The same smile as always.

"You're kidding, right?" Aversa asked Kjelle in deadpan surprise. "She tells you about a god telling her to do something insane, and you believe her? There's no doubt in your mind whatsoever?"

"Not a trace." Kjelle replied with her same confidence. Lucina would never do anything that was not for the absolute best. That was the kind of person the princess was. The kind of person Kjelle hoped to be.

"Naga has helped humanity in the past." Lucina said. "Perhaps she's deemed this as another time worthy of her intervention. If Robin seeks to destroy Ylisstol, he would be seeking to destroy the last bastion of human life. Saving us and having us in turn save the world would avert that."

"You don't doubt yourself, or what Naga said to you?" Aversa asked.

"I doubt myself, but not her." Lucina said. "She claims there will be a portal in Ylisstol, and so there will be a portal. I had feared that I was hallucinating, but knowing now that my father is dead and that Robin wishes to destroy humanity? That's justification enough for Naga speaking to me."

"Right." Aversa said, her skepticism maintained in full. She then shook her head and began to scowl. "Gods, we've wasted far too much time! Go now, fetch everyone you can and gather them here! Robin will be upon us soon!"

Lucina nodded and dashed away in the direction of the castle halls. Kjelle lagged behind for a moment in incertitude before following after Lucina. The princess' speed never allowed them to travel at an equal pace.

Within a minute, Lucina was sliding to a stop outside the first of the doors to the Shepherds' rooms. Many of their children, Kjelle and Lucina's friends, had been granted the lodgings of their parents or whatever other space was available in the Shepherd wing. Kjelle slid to a stop after Lucina in a less graceful manner, heaving from their sprint. Lucina showed no signs of slowing and began slamming her fist against the door before her.

"Wait, Lucina!" Kjelle breathed, and made to bar the door from her reach. Lucina ignored the gesture and rapped her fist against the wooden surface all the same. "Are we going to believe what Aversa says? That your father is gone, and that Robin not only killed him but is going to try to kill us, too?"

"I'd like to think it isn't true either, but I believe what Naga has said." Lucina said. "We must prepare for the worst."

Kjelle paused for a second, then nodded and gave Lucina space to operate. They both moved through each room in the hall, waking the Shepherds and to-be time travellers that had turned in for the night, explaining their situation, and sending those they woke to either the castle courtyard.

After several minutes of waking and explaining, Kjelle and Lucina ran back to where Aversa was waiting with their friends and Shepherds in tow. None of them seemed eager to have been removed from their rest, but most understood the urgency of their situation.

Aversa was waiting in the same spot in the courtyard as when she had been left by Kjelle and Lucina. She had caught her breath and regained her composure, but she was beginning to feel the weight of their coming ordeal.

"Is this everyone?" Aversa asked Lucina once the princess had returned.

"All living Shepherds bar Frederick and Robin, and all of their offspring are present and accounted for, yes." Lucina confirmed with a nod. She then cast a glance back to the castle, but shook her head and offered nothing more.

"Thank you." Aversa tilted her head toward Lucina, and Lucina raised an eyebrow at the uncharacteristic words of kindness. The dark flier was truly reaching the edge of her sanity.

"I was told something about Chrom dying to Robin, and a need to travel through time?" Severa asked, putting no stock in the claims based on the disdain dripping from her voice. "It's nice to see you again after so long, Aversa, but could you please think up a better excuse to meet up?"

"I speak nothing but what I know to be truth, and…" Aversa began, pausing for a moment to take a long, deep breath, "...and, I believe Lucina's claims about Naga's portal."

"Seriously?" Severa scoffed, but her actions were rooted in uncertainty. "This is nonsense. Robin betraying everyone and killing his closest friend? Portals through time created by Naga herself? It's absurd!"

"It's our final chance to prevent all of the horrible things that have happened to this world." Aversa said. "This is our last hope. I don't know exactly what's happened, but according to Frederick, Robin is beyond powerful. He will destroy Ylisse. He will destroy the world. All we can hope to do is prevent any of this from ever happening."

"The portal opens tonight." Lucina added on. "All we have to do is cross through it and we'll arrive in the past, in time to aid the Shepherds in Plegia and Valm. Doing that, and killing Robin, should save the world."

"No! There's no way Robin killed Chrom; he's been with us through everything!" Ricken protested, earning a quiet murmur of agreement from the original Shepherds, including Gangrel and Yen'fay.

"Frederick gave me Falchion, and he himself will be here soon before Robin." Aversa said, indicating with a tilt of her head the legendary sword in Lucina's scabbard. "You'll soon see that I speak nothing but the truth. This will be our last chance."

"What do you propose we do?" Emmeryn asked, her calm voice bringing silence to the courtyard.

Aversa opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated and shut it, closed her eyes, and winced. The dread within Kjelle returned.

"We do everything in our power to slow or stop Robin." Aversa said, her eyes remaining closed. "If we win, then there's no reason to use Naga's portal, but if he is powerful enough to destroy the world… then we have to buy time for the younger ones here to flee."

Several expressions devolved into shocked horror at her words.

"What? Are you claiming that we allow you to make a heroic sacrifice so that we may flee!?" Owain shouted in his theatrical brand of horror. "Ridiculous! I would never abandon mother to such an undesirable fate!"

"There's no way in hell we'd do that!" Kjelle backed him up. "You could all come with us! Hell, if we're able to outrun Robin, then there's no way he's powerful enough to take us all on at once!"

"Robin took Chrom to the Dragon's Table." Aversa said calmly. "The only reason to go there, and to then kill one bearing the blood of Naga, who holds the Fire Emblem with them wherever they go, would be to resurrect Grima. Or to become Grima."

"You- you're saying that Robin has become Grima itself?" Noire asked timidly, as though she were afraid to raise her voice. "That's impossible…"

"It's possible, and has been practiced to near perfection by the Grimleal." Gangrel interjected. "That rat bastard Validar had intended to do something along those lines with his little church. I'd never given them much mind, especially not after the cult was ground into dust by the original Shepherds on their war path in Plegia, but if Robin decided to use their methods to wreak havoc…"

"We have Falchion, though!" Cynthia spoke up. "Lucina should be able to use it to defeat Grima, and if not her, then me, or Owain, or Emm! We don't have to leave anyone behind!"

"Falchion would have to be awoken at Mount Prism for that to work." Lucina said, shutting her sister's idea down. "We could try that, but since Robin may be in possession of the Fire Emblem we would need, and as Naga is the one who wants us to-" she cut herself off and directed her head toward the castle gates behind Aversa. The hurried yet exhausted gallop of a horse could be heard nearing the walls.

"No… its so soon." Aversa murmured to herself before snapping her attention back to those gathered before her. "Every child of the Shepherds is to leave immediately, and everyone else is to face Robin and buy them time. Understood?"

As she spoke, Aversa nodded to Yen'fay, who nodded in return and moved to open the castle gates for Frederick. The great knight soon appeared within the gate's field of view, as dirty and tired as his horse's exhaustion would suggest.

"What about coming with us into the past?" Kjelle proposed again. "None of you have to stay here! We can go together!"

"And if Robin decided to follow you?" Aversa asked in turn. "No; our role is to stay here and protect you. That will be our final mission, and my own final act of goodness."

"There's no guarantee that any of this will come to pass." Lucina attempted to reassure Kjelle. "We must be ready if it does, but we still don't know everything. If we do go to the past, we'll be able to see everyone we've lost and everyone here again. There's no reason not to try."

"But… our families, the ones we have here and now… they won't…" Severa said between furtive glances toward Cordelia.

Frederick rode through the castle gates, coming to a precarious stop near Aversa's side. He nodded to the dark flier in silent thanks for her actions as he heaved for air, then turned to address those gathered, failing to recover his breath before speaking.

"Go! Now!" he ordered in a ragged voice. "Robin is here! Flee!"

Lucina nodded to him and began to bow out of the scene, much to the dismay of her friends. "Thank you, Frederick, and my thanks to everyone here. Please, put your faith in me, and I promise to honour your trust forevermore. Everyone, we make for the south courtyard."

"What!? No, this isn't how this ends!" Severa shouted.

"One more word, If I may?" Aversa called after Lucina, ignoring Severa's outburst.

Lucina stopped her exit and waited for Aversa to speak. Severa continued to deride the injustice of abandoning their loved ones, and was joined by Cynthia and Owain. Nah And Gerome were further in their exits than Lucina, but stopped to wait for their de facto leader to finish conversing.

"When I first met the Shepherds, I was… not friendly toward them." Aversa said. "It was a convoluted series of meetings between myself, Robin, the Khans of Ferox, and your father that lead to me trusting any of you. Even then, that relationship was uncertain. If I become your foe in the past, then I apologise, and I hope that you will strike me down before I cause you any pain. Good luck, Lucina, and may your gods favour you."

"I will remember your sacrifice today, lady Aversa, as well as the kindness within your heart." Lucina bowed her head toward the rider. "Thank you for your companionship. I hope that we may become friends again when next we meet."

Aversa smiled, then turned her head in an unsuccessful effort to hide her pleased expression. Lucina was charismatic, if not the most personable of people. It was difficult to not like her.

Lucina turned once more to leave, and was followed by the majority of her friends. Kjelle made to follow her, stopping only to take note of those who lingered in the courtyard. Severa was struggling to hold in tears as she embraced Cordelia, who was not so subtly attempting to push her daughter toward the exit. Owain, too, was embracing his mother. Cynthia was putting on a face more brave than either of them, considering that the news of her father's death had been dropped to her mere minutes ago.

Kjelle pitied that her own friends could be so weak, but also found herself sharing in their sadness, through some strange empathy she had not desired to possess. She envied that they were able to have such a sensitive moment.

As the last of her friends were pushed away from their families, Kjelle made to follow Lucina and those who had left with her. The few Shepherd children who had remained in the courtyard followed after Kjelle, only to be stopped alongside her when they met with Lucina and her group standing still in the castle halls.

"You guys sure took your time." Nah frowned. "We're on a schedule, remember? Reach the southernmost point of Ylisstol before Robin catches up to us?"

"These people have been our heroes for our entire lives, and now they've made for us the ultimate sacrifice!" Owain exclaimed. "The least we could do is send them off properly! You… you guys should've done the same…"

Lucina pressed past Nah, gathering all of the hall's attention to her in an instant. "Once we reach the past, we tell no one about anything. Understood?"

"What? Why?" Kjelle asked. She had no desire to go against what Lucina ordered, but she desired a proper explanation.

"We will change the past for the better, then allow our families their lives." Lucina said. "Whatever happens by the time Robin is dead will happen, but we should not try to sway anyone's actions. We have no idea how difficult it will be to control the course of fate, how it'll change, or who will be lost."

Kjelle narrowed her gaze on Lucina. The expression was made more in concern than scrutiny. "If you're concerned about people like Aversa, then don't worry. We know how everything's played out in this time, so we can replicate that - with a few tweaks and a dead Robin - in the past."

"And this will be how we minimise the 'tweaks', as you phrased it." Gerome spoke up. "Explaining who we are and having the Shepherds believe us will be more trouble than it's worth."

"If that justification doesn't satisfy you, then please consider your secrecy as a favour to me and those of us who wish to remain concealed." Lucina added on.

"I'll try, but I don't know how well it'll work." Yarne said, then gestured to himself and Nah. "Some of us aren't the most inconspicuous of people, you know."

"I must say that the thought isn't appealing to me, either." Inigo said. "To see my family again for the first time in years, only to hold silent? That sounds excruciating."

"Stay hidden, then, and aid them from afar." Lucina advised. She began walking toward the exit of the castle that would bring them to Ylisstol, certain that she would be able to persuade her friends before they reached the city's south. "I myself plan to only interject when necessary. That should be how we operate, and how we save the Shepherds."

Kjelle followed after Lucina as they made for the exit. She could understand the princess' desire to remain hidden, but there would surely be enough time to explain their situation during periods of peace. The Shepherds would realise who they are, and would have to accept them as their own. Their families would be made whole again. Their lives would be free of the suffering and death they sought to eradicate. Kjelle smiled at the thought.

The group soon arrived at the doors of the castle, headed by Lucina, Nah, and Gerome. Lucina pushed the doors open, only to be met with the scaly form of Minerva.

"Minerva? Were you waiting for me?" Gerome cooed and stepped toward the wyvern. Minerva hopped to approach him in turn. Her movements were sudden and jittery, and she held in her mouth Gerome's riding equipment and weaponry. She was on edge.

Lucina took note of Minerva's unease, and pushed past the wyvern and Gerome to reach the castle gates. She opened them hastily and turned back to her friends, waving for them to pass through and enter Ylisstol.

"We need to pick up the pace. None of this feels right anymore." she said, and continued to wave her friends through. Gerome took to riding Minerva close to ground level alongside his grounded companions.

Kjelle had to agree. An unseen tension had built in the air when Aversa had arrived, and it was now daring to become palpable. She could feel the necessity of departing from Ylisse, the same feeling she assumed Lucina had harbored since her speech from Naga.

Some of their group was lagging behind, and Kjelle ended up pushing both Severa and Cynthia into motion. She had no desire to linger.

As Kjelle passed through the gates, Lucina nodded to her in thanks, and Kjelle smiled in turn. She enjoyed having her actions be noticed by someone as strong as Lucina.

They both came to a complete stop upon exiting the castle gates, their friends doing the same in short order. The unease and dread that had built in the air was tangible. It had been joined by a detestable disturbance that hung from the world and weighed against everyone present.

Robin was upon them. The world was at the turning point of destruction.

Lucina took a few steps forward while everyone else remained in place, her movements sluggish and delayed, as though the weight of the air were acting against her every action. Kjelle swallowed through the knots building in her stomach and followed, only to be stopped and pulled a few short steps in the opposite direction. A blinding light overtook the world as she was pulled backward, and in the fraction of a second that her senses abandoned her Kjelle was able to spin herself around.

A pillar of flame erupted high into the sky above the castle. Its form was held in place by wind magic curling around its sides. A successive blast from within the first pulled at Kjelle and her friends again despite the wind magic barrier, her hair brushing into her view before being pushed back with the rest of her body as another explosion detonated.

The wind magic kept the raw destructive flames of the blast under control, but did little to stop the shockwave and heat that radiated forth. A sharp cracking sounded as parts of the castle crumbled toward the blast. Burning dust flew up around and into Kjelle, forcing her to block her face from harm. That dust soon intermingled with ash and debris falling from the cloud of flames expanding over Ylisstol.

"Go! Go, now!" Lucina's voice cut through the vehemence of the attack.

After a short period of deafening ringing in her ears, Kjelle could hear Lucina pushing their friends into motion once more. The princess grabbed Kjelle's arm and pulled her into moving, and Kjelle tore her gaze away from the pillar of blazing annihilation in order to run through the streets of Ylisstol.

People were screaming in distant storefronts, and mobs were beginning to flood the streets from homes near the castle. All soon took to running in the same direction as Kjelle and her friends, away from the castle at the north of the city.

Heat washed over Kjelle's back as she ran from the explosion. She was glad that Lucina was continuing to grip her forearm, though she would be certain to shrug the action off were she ever confronted about it in the future. For now, it was nice to have the comfort.

Gerome shouted something incoherent, and Minerva held out her wings as sails to slow her movement, then shot herself skyward with all of her might. Those who had been running nearest Gerome and Minerva, children of the Shepherds and civilians alike, stopped on a dime a short distance in front of a large intersection. A hail of arrows shot through from the right street. The arcs of successive shots shifted to follow Minerva as she climbed into the air with frantic flaps of her wings.

"Risen!" Gerome shouted from the sky, his voice carrying to reach his friends.

Kjelle heard a sharp intake of breath from near her side, and only then realised that Nah was a short distance from herself. Lucina's grip lightened as she removed her hand from Kjelle and drew Falchion, but before the princess could make a move Nah had transformed. The young Manakete flew forward into the cobbled intersection and sprayed her mystical blue flames in the direction of Gerome's assailants.

Lucina sheathed Falchion and, once Nah had finished her attack and reverted to her human form, nodded to her friend. She then turned and nodded once to Kjelle, conveying her orders without a word. They would continue moving forward regardless of what happened around them.

Parts of the growing crowd around Kjelle and Lucina rushed forward, taking advantage of Nah's attack to keep moving. As they thinned, Lucina turned and found Severa, and shrugged the steel sword she had used to train to her friend's hands.

"Too many of us are without weapons! We need to cover each other until we can reach the portal!" Lucina shouted to Severa. Only then did Kjelle realise that a blistering wind was threatening to silence every word anyone spoke.

Severa nodded and drew the sword Lucina had offered. She took a few steps toward Nah, only to be pulled backward several steps. Another wave of heat and cracking radiated out from behind them, and the to-be time travellers were sent tumbling to the ground. Robin's attacks on the castle and Shepherds continued in all of their brutal force.

"We have to evacuate everyone!" Severa shouted over the roar of the burning wind. "The people here are defenseless! If we can get them to the portal, we-!"

"Move!" Yarne shouted, loud enough to silence Severa despite not having directed the yell at her. He transformed and barreled into Nah as well as a group of people running through the intersection, tackling them away from beams of electricity that tore across the street.

Severa balked and grew silent at the image of the magic slicing through those Yarne had not been able to save. Heat continued to wash over her skin and burn its way into her clothes, drying her expression before it could soften. Kjelle could feel the horror emanating off of her.

Gerome descended from the sky in the window of safety Nah had granted him, landing on the far side of the street where the Manakete and Yarne were standing in their human forms. The two shapeshifters always held their transformation stones, and Gerome now possessed his weapons thanks to Minerva's forethought.

On her own side of the street, Kjelle knew herself, Lucina, and now Severa to be armed. Only she and Lucina out of everyone in their group were wearing their armour. Gerome was slipping on some light gear and one of his favoured absurd masks from what Minerva had gathered for him. Whoever remained of Ylisse's guard were undoubtedly engaging the risen elsewhere or were already dead. Their situation was growing bleak.

"Take to the alleyways and side roads - stay out of the open as much as possible!" Laurent shouted, more to the panicking people nearest him than to Kjelle or Lucina.

Lucina heeded his words and pushed Kjelle and Severa into the side path nearest them. Their route took them to the right of the intersection, opposite of where Laurent was doing the same, where he was joined by Cynthia, Owain, Brady, and countless people Kjelle could never name. Kjelle's own position was joined by more nameless people, as well as Noire and Inigo.

Kjelle attempted to push through the people who were flooding the alleyway, moving herself toward the street she had abandoned. Lucina stopped her before she could reenter the most prominent area of conflict, where she would have engaged the risen, protected her friends, and bought time for everyone before claiming triumph. Part of her was thankful that Lucina had done as such.

Lucina poked her own head around the corner of the building in the edge of the alley, and once she saw that the street was safe, stepped into the open. She angled her head to the side path Laurent had taken while keeping her gaze locked in the direction of Gerome, and pointed to her side in yet another silent order. After a second of pause, she nodded, and then moved back into the alleyway.

"Gerome, Nah, and Yarne will protect the others as they advance." she said to Kjelle, simultaneously beckoning Severa, Inigo, and Noire to her side with one hand. "We can continue advancing as well. If things get too grim, no one stops until reaching the portal. Understood?"

"But what if…" Severa began to say, but failed to form a complete sentence. She seemed shaken, more than anyone else in their small group.

"As if I'd leave any of you behind!" Inigo smiled, though Kjelle could detect an uncharacteristic weakness in his voice. He too was shaken, though not as much as Severa.

"Make your own calls as you please, but my orders are clear." Lucina said, her voice unwavering. She was unafraid.

Lucina began pushing her way through the crowd of people lining the alleyway. Inigo and Noire followed soon after her. Kjelle brought up the rear with Severa.

They group pushed their way through the crowd of people and reached an alley that led to the street to the right of the intersection. Lucina pressed herself against the side of one building, peeking out into the street with the corner of her eye before switching positions and doing the same for her other side. She glanced back, saw that everyone was prepared to advance, and waved Kjelle and Severa forward.

A command did not have to be spoken for Kjelle to know what would happen. Risen were crawling over the city, meaning that some degree of fighting was inevitable. Kjelle herself, Severa, and Lucina would be carving a path forward by force.

"Stay close and scavenge a weapon only when safe." Lucina ordered Inigo and Noire, her voice cutting through the wind radiating out from the castle. "There's a group of four fighters out on the street to our right, and more flooding in at a constant rate. Kjelle and I can handle them, but we'll need to keep pressing forward. Severa, cover Noire and Inigo, and watch our backs."

Lucina tilted her head toward the open street, and both she and Kjelle ducked out into the open. Four fighters were being joined by a mage and a mercenary to their right. The sounds of Nah, Yarne, and Minerva tearing apart risen echoed toward them from their left. Indiscriminate screaming was intermingling with the sounds of destruction washing over the city.

Kjelle silenced most of her senses and launched herself toward the nearest risen fighter. Anything but fighting would be a distraction.

The first risen fighter was impaled by Kjelle's lance before it could turn to see her. It broke apart into purple ashes that spread across the cobbled street without a sound. Lucina felled a second fighter in a similar fashion with a single stroke of her blade.

One of the remaining two fighters turned to Kjelle, with the other fighter, the mage, and the mercenary all deciding to target Lucina. Kjelle would have intervened had they been attacking anyone but Lucina. Lucina could more than handle herself.

A blast of flames shot toward Lucina, but Kjelle held no doubts that the attack missed. Kjelle's fighter occupied the majority of her attention. Ashes bled across the street as Lucina destroyed another risen.

The fighter near Kjelle charged her. She was able to sidestep their slow attack, as Lucina had done to her during their training, and she realised how laughable her own attempts were against someone so fast. Her technique would have to be refined before she challenged Lucina again in the past.

A line of sparks danced past Kjelle's peripheral vision, and after a few slices and pained groans, Lucina's remaining two risen had been eliminated. She had defeated three opponents before Kjelle had defeated one.

That thought pushed Kjelle into making a stronger strike than necessary, though any attack would have defeated so pitiful a risen as her mark. The fighter crumbled into ashes as she rammed her lance into their side, and as their ashes dissipated the street was made clear.

Lucina wasted no time in waving Severa and the others forward. She herself took a defensive stance facing toward the intersection. Kjelle mirrored her, taking up an overwatch on the side of the street that curved in the opposite direction. She could hear footsteps rush past her as people sprinted from the first alleyway to the next across the street.

Dozens of massive fires had ignited across the city, their number growing greater the closer they were to the castle. Entire buildings were being engulfed in flames. Kjelle glanced toward the castle and saw a few small forms flying around the giant pillar of fire. Spells shot up from the ground periodically and reduced some of the forms to ashes, while spells from one and melee attacks from another brought more and more pegasus- and wyvern-mounted risen to a timely demise. The Shepherds were putting up a valiant fight.

A hand pressed against Kjelle's shoulder, and without hesitation she allowed herself to be pulled into motion. Lucina advanced with her into the far alley. Severa was tugged along behind her while she casted repeated glances backward. Kjelle could not help but notice that she and Lucina had given up their guard without letting the entirety of the people behind them cross the street.

Kjelle took up a faster pace, letting Lucina pull Severa along unimpeded. Inigo and Noire were in the next alley when she reached it, alongside a small number of people. Kjelle joined their rank while beckoning for Lucina to advance faster. Noire had picked up a bow and quiver from the archers Nah had killed.

Severa and Lucina arrived in the alley after Kjelle, with Severa still being pulled along by her wrist. Kjelle waited for Lucina to pass her side and turned to face south, further into the alley she had entered, not wanting to wait around and watch over the people still crossing the street. Lucina had a plan for them. The distant screaming she could hear at any given moment was not death or pain, but part of that plan.

Kjelle advanced further into the alley, following Lucina as the princess carved a path through a winding web of alleys and side roads. Severa managed to tear herself free of Lucina's grip and pressed forward at her own pace. She, too, would follow Lucina above anything else.

Their group continued to move forward through the alleyways until they reached another large open street. Lucina peeked around the corners of the buildings at her sides and tilted her head from Kjelle to the street, indicating the necessity of more combat.

Kjelle stepped forward, her lance held ready for another round of combat. At that exact moment another shockwave buffeted the city. This one proved more violent than any before it, shaking the foundations of buildings and causing streets to vibrate and fracture from its intensity. Kjelle lurched forward and struggled to maintain her footing as the shockwave ran over her body, rattling her inside the shell of her mother's armour.

She whipped her around to face north toward the castle, tearing her attention away from the street. The wind around the pillar of flames had been annihilated, leaving the fire magic to expand outward. It grew more fierce with every awestruck moment Kjelle spent watching it expand. Then, as if by decree of Robin's own conscious effort, all of the fire spontaneously snuffed out.

Chunks of the castle started floating in the air, suspended by some unseen force in the wake of Robin's fire magic. Some spiralled down toward the ground in lazy arcs, some floated upward at a constant velocity, and some rested in place midair.

Forms could still be seen flying around in the air, with magic continuing to arc upward as Shepherds fought in both the sky and on the ground. Despite whatever strange magical occurrence was warping the castle, the Shepherds continued to battle, and in doing so gave Kjelle immense hope. There would always be the option to fight. There would always be hope.

"Kjelle!" Lucina's voice cut through her thoughts, forcing her attention back to the street she had neglected.

A risen was upon Kjelle, its sword darting toward her chest before she had the chance to react. Lucina was engaging two fighters simultaneously. Kjelle tanked the hit, allowing the sword to glance off of her armour as she brought her lance up to make an attack of her own. The risen's sword strike did little more than bruise Kjelle through the protection of her armour.

Before her counterattack could connect, Kjelle and the risen were both blown aside by a shot of wind magic, with Noire calling out the presence of a mage a short second later. Kjelle was propelled through the window of the building to the right of the alley she had exited. The risen she was fighting followed after her via its strong grip.

Glass rained down on the ground beneath Kjelle as she landed inside the building, her armour protecting her from any serious damage the shards could inflict. The risen fared worse, cutting its back and sides against the jagged edges of the glass pane Kjelle had left in her wake. The risen then landed in place atop the knight herself.

Kjelle struggled to force the risen off of her before it could attack, maintaining her grip on her lance all the while. She failed. The risen stabbed its sword down at Kjelle's face as she jerked her upper body to one side, spinning enough that the attack only grazed her cheek.

The failed hit destabilised the risen enough that Kjelle was able to push up against its weight and bring her lance around into its side. The risen shrieked in pain as Kjelle pushed further, grabbing the hilt of its sword with her free hand and using her momentum to flip their positions. Now atop the risen, Kjelle withdrew her lance and rammed it back into the risen's side, killing the undead soldier a final time.

Kjelle took a moment to breathe, verifying that she had not sustained serious damage before she pushed herself up to a stand. A single risen had almost gotten the better of her. Kjelle was disgusted with herself, though she liked to believe that she had handled the situation well.

A muffled sob beckoned Kjelle to look deeper into the building into which she had been launched before she could leave. She then held in place as her mind processed the scene before her.

A mother and daughter were standing in the shadows of the room. The mother's hand was clasped over her daughter's mouth, holding back fearful sobs. Both were on the brink of tears.

Kjelle blinked, taking a second to process the fact that her weapon was still drawn. She placed her lance away on the loops on her back and tried to smile at them, hoping to quell their concerns before anything got out of hand.

"It's okay; the risen's dead." Kjelle reassured them, though her soft words and smile did little to dry their tears.

The door behind her burst open, and from the corner of her eye Kjelle saw Lucina catch herself on the frame of the building as purple ashes cascaded inward. She had eliminated the rest of the risen. That gave Kjelle all the more reason to be proud yet envious of her.

"Ah, Kjelle, you're safe." Lucina said, her composure gathered in full despite her abrasive movements.

Kjelle held a hand up to Lucina, asking for her to be silent without speaking a word. The young girl let loose another muffled scream at her door being kicked in. "Are you okay?" Kjelle asked the girl and her mother. "Can you walk? There's a place we have to reach. We'll be safe once we get there, and we'll be able to make it like these things have never happened." she gestured to the fading ashes of the risen.

"We need to leave, Kjelle. Now." Lucina ordered in her usual composed tone. "More risen will be here soon. We can't-"

"We can't waste time, I know." Kjelle dismissed Lucina's concerns. "To leave behind a kid, though, and a parent who wants to protect them? You know I can't do that."

She returned to smiling at the girl and mother, bending forward to be level with the daughter. The girl was afraid, that she could determine with ease, but there was an underlying hope in her eyes. A fierceness that Kjelle understood well. This girl wanted to survive.

The mother tightened her grip around the girl, offering what little protection she could against the horrors waiting beyond their home. Kjelle extended her hand toward the daughter nonetheless, and the girl raised her own arm to do the same.

Falchion swung through the air between them, severing their potential touch as it embedded its tip in the floor of the house. The girl screamed and recoiled, and the mother pulled her away several steps from Kjelle, who flinched and locked herself in place.

Lucina stepped between Kjelle and the family, pulled Falchion free of the floor, and held it in front of herself. "We need to leave, Kjelle. We can't afford to waste time."

"She's a little girl!" Kjelle argued, her voice fracturing in horror.

"And there's another version of her, waiting for us in the past to make saving her life unnecessary." Lucina said. "People will die today. All we can do is save their past selves. To do that, we have to face everything together. I refuse to risk losing someone over a life that cannot yet be saved."

"She's a child! Why can't we bring her through the portal!?" Kjelle argued further. "What if leaving this time doesn't reset the world, but makes a new one? What if people die because we can't reset anything and save anyone, because they're already dead, here and now?"

"That's of no consequence to me, and nor should it be to you." Lucina replied, her answer as practiced as the expressions she wore. This was Lucina; she must have thought about every outcome imaginable and selected the best. Kjelle felt like a fool for doubting her, but could not contain her indignation at having to leave anyone for the risen.

"Saving them will take no time or effort!" Kjelle continued to argue, now against her better judgement. What Lucina was saying made sense to her, and she knew that their mission would end up saving everyone, but that did nothing to alleviate the horror she felt.

"Until one tiny thing goes awry and irreplaceable people perish as a result. The fewer the variables, the better." Lucina said. As she spoke, she levelled Falchion with Kjelle's chest, her words growing colder with every syllable.

"What are you-!?" Kjelle stared at the tip of Falchion where it now hovered a short distance from her body. She moved to defend herself with her lance, but stayed her hand before she could dare to raise the weapon against her friend. "I… okay. I get it. Let's go save these people in another time."

Lucina smiled at Kjelle. The expression was yet again no different than before. Kjelle cast a final glance toward the mother and child and mouthed 'I'm sorry' to them before exiting their home. Lucina followed close after her.

What they were doing was right. It had to be, for Lucina was the one who had decided upon their course of action, and Lucina was the most capable person Kjelle knew. That did not alleviate her guilt over leaving someone behind, someone she would have protected under any other circumstances.

"Kjelle…" Lucina sighed, sensing her friend's discomfort. "You need to know that sometimes, the way to win is to never fight. That's why we're running from Robin, so that we don't have to fight him, not directly. That's why we can't fight to protect any of the people here. It's why we can't afford to fight amongst ourselves. Our battles must be chosen with the utmost care, and we cannot allow ourselves to falter, regardless of anything that may happen. I hope you understand."

"Trust me, I know." Kjelle said, avoiding the gaze she knew to be upon her. "I know you'll do what's necessary, and I know you'll be capable of whatever you set your mind to. I respect that, and I'll always follow you, even if I have difficulty keeping all of that in mind. I promise, I'll be with you every step of the way."

Lucina smiled, and this time Kjelle could swear that it went beyond her perfect iteration. "Thank you, Kjelle. That means a great deal."

They joined again with Severa, Inigo, and Noire, and resumed moving south through the city's alleyways. More explosions sounded behind them from the direction of the castle, but no one was pulled off their feet by the shockwaves of each blast. Fires and risen continued to spread across Ylisstol with every slow minute they spent running.

After the sky was burning as bright as it had in the day and after there had been enough distant screams to silence all else, Lucina held up a closed fist and stopped. She and her group of friends were stood at one of the final blocks of housing in the city, a short distance from where cobbled rings of roads gave way to dirt paths stretching past distant farms and unprotected emptiness. The edge of Ylisstol.

"This is it, right?" Severa asked, having recovered from the fracture in her snarkiness in full. "This is the city limit. Where's the portal?"

Kjelle scanned across the small hills and flat plains that stretched for an eternity outside of the city. Unless it was well concealed, she too was unable to see any trace of a portal through time. There was nothing more the same unassuming landscape as always.

"Maybe we're too early?" Noire suggested, her voice almost succumbing to the fierce roar of hot wind pushing out of Ylisstol. "Or… or maybe we're too late…"

"The portal will appear somewhere nearby. Set up a wide perimeter, prepare for any risen, and notify the others once they arrive." Lucina ordered calmly. "Don't go back into the city under any circumstances. We'll all depart together once the portal arrives. Understood?"

"Got it." Kjelle replied as she began to move east, toward where she could see Nah's dragon form dipping through the sky. She had no reason to doubt Lucina or the portal. All she could do was trust in her friend and in Naga. Lucina would never lead anyone astray.

Kjelle arrived at Nah's location in a negligible amount of time. Nah was swooping around the rest of her party, ensuring that she could protect any of them at a moment's notice. The Manakete took notice of Kjelle's approach and landed on an open street, returning to her human form as she went.

Nah held her composure until Kjelle was nearly upon her, then had to bend over as she struggled to regain lost breath. "No… portal?" she heaved.

"Not quite." Kjelle responded as she moved her hand out to support Nah. "We're defending this place until it shows up, then leaving together. Lucina wants a wide perimeter and for us to be prepared to face risen."

"Of course there's more to do." Nah sighed and forced her composure together with a decisive frown. "Okay. See you soon, Kjelle." she said, and raised her dragonstone to the air as if to transform.

"Wait! Don't you know when to take a breather!?" Kjelle interrupted Nah before she could transform. "Lucina doesn't want anyone to die here - at least, not any of us. We aren't to take unnecessary risks."

"Tell you what: I'll take a breather when risen aren't bearing down on my defenseless friends." Nah said pointedly. "It doesn't matter what Lucina said; I'm capable of making my own decisions. Unlike some people."

Kjelle narrowed her gaze on Nah. "What's that supposed to-? Wait, everyone you're with is still defenseless? After all this time fighting through the city?"

"I'm strong enough to take on any risen we come across, and Yarne was cleaning up what little I couldn't." Nah said. "It's not my fault that a bunch of weapons get burnt up in the process. Or that Brady was too much of a baby to touch an axe a risen had used…"

"Ugh, gods." Kjelle groaned. "Send them toward Lucina and get them to scavenge whatever they can. If they don't get a weapon, she's more than capable of defending them." she said, a small smile then playing out over her face. "How's that for making my own decisions, huh? An on-the-spot strategy!"

"If you call that a strategy, sure." Nah snorted. She took a step back and transformed in a brilliant surge of light, her voice shifting into its modified pitch. "You outsourced everything to Lucina and myself. That doesn't count."

Kjelle glared at Nah without ill intent as the Manakete departed. She had in fact given Lucina the responsibility of caring for the defenseless because she knew Lucina to be powerful enough to do so. There was no shame in admitting as such, but Kjelle felt agitated by the matter nonetheless.

As she patrolled in search of the fated portal through time, Kjelle's gaze wandered toward the castle. The structure was distant now, a mere speck compared to the rest of Ylisstol, its spires and walls having been destroyed by Robin. The massive pillar of fire had disappeared, but the sharp red of countless fires across Ylisstol kept its memory alive.

To wait for the portal while the Shepherds fought felt perverse. Kjelle wanted to charge back into the city, to face Robin alongside the people she had idolised. At the same time, she also knew that Lucina would never permit her to risk her life in such a dangerous effort, and so Kjelle held her ground.

Many of the grim sounds radiating from the city died out over time, leaving the low roar of fires in their wake. Kjelle could no longer see Nah or Yarne darting about in their transformed states. The world had grown calm, and that put Kjelle on edge.

Soft footsteps soon called for Kjelle's attention. Severa had broken from her watch in order to approach her, though there was little that needed to be watched. The risen had gone silent, and none had made any efforts to attack them since exiting the city.

"Hey, Kjelle. No luck yet?" Severa opened, an unease in her voice betraying her forced air of calm.

"Nothing." Kjelle replied. "Things are quiet out here. I'm guessing you haven't found anything, either?"

Severa shook her head and turned to face the burning city of Ylisstol. "There hasn't been a sighting of a risen since we got here. Hell, there aren't weapons, or bodies, or anything. There's nothing."

"Do you think they're still fighting?" Kjelle asked and tilted her head toward the castle.

"I don't know. I'm scared to think that they are, and more scared to think that they aren't." Severa sighed.

Kjelle nodded and lowered her head. "Guess we've got nothing to do, then. I'd love to see someone, to know how the Shepherds are faring and support them, but I suppose we can't do that."

"I wish I could go back, too." Severa admitted, her voice growing weaker. "Don't tell her if you see her again, but I'd like to fight alongside my mother. She could've come back with us. Why send us, when she's a thousand times the fighter I am? Why not send someone who's extraordinary at everything?"

"Severa?" Kjelle called out, growing wary of how distant the redhead was beginning to sound.

"Ah, sorry, I lose myself way too easily." Severa apologised, though her tone remained distant. "None of this is sitting right, you know? Not a single person has left the city beside us, Shepherd or not. I haven't seen Robin or Grima. Everyone in the Shepherds seemed so ready to die, too. Mother was brushing off my goodbyes. None of this feels like the way so many lives should end."

"Don't think of their lives as ending." Kjelle said. "We're going to save them. Once we go back in time, it'll be as though none of this has happened. We'll get the lives we wanted with the families we lost, and everything will be made right."

"But what if things don't turn out that well?" Severa asked, her voice downtrodden. "What if we fail, or if someone still dies? How can we know that everything is going to turn out okay?"

"By trusting in Lucina." Kjelle shrugged, as though the answer should have been obvious. "If anyone can do this, it'll be her. If you don't trust in her, then trust in me, or yourself, or anyone else going to the past. We'll be in this together, and if you somehow aren't able to rely on your own strength, then rely on someone stronger. That's how we'll get by."

"Hm. That may be the first time you've told me to rely on other people." Severa smiled.

"That's how Lucina thinks we'll be able to get through this, so it's how I'll have to think, too." Kjelle said. "I know I can rely on myself, but if you can't do the same, then lean on me. I can handle it."

Severa's smile disappeared into a frown. "Right. You don't believe any of that, but Lucina told you to and she can kick your ass, so you listen to her. Why would I expect anything different from you?" she sighed, though her smile soon reappeared. "Thanks, Kjelle. Talking to you is easy. It's nice to have something like that."

"Holy hell, was that a compliment? From you?" Kjelle reciprocated her smile with far more enthusiasm. "Ha, I'll have to count my blessings! Seriously, though, feel free to rely on me. I won't blame you for it."

"I may take you up on that." Severa said.

They smiled at one another, losing the uncomfortable heat and atmosphere around them for a short moment. Kjelle enjoyed spending time with Severa, regardless of how difficult it could be to interact with her. She hoped that Severa felt at ease in their conversations.

"Hey, Severa…" Kjelle opened again, conveying more trepidation than she had intended.

"Hm?" Severa raised an eyebrow, her usual cold demeanour absent.

"I get that we haven't always been on the best terms, but I feel like we've gotten along more often than not." Kjelle said. "I don't know how to explain how much I like spending time with you, but I do. So much has happened, and you were there for me every single time. I want to do the same for you. Regardless of what's happened, I'm glad that you're here."

Severa gave another genuine smile. "I'm glad, too. Things aren't looking the best right now, but you're here. That counts for something. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't happy to be here with you, too."

"Um, so, Severa…" Kjelle said murmured and shook her head to rid herself of her hesitation. "I don't know how to say this, or what you'll say to me, or anything, but I have to say it. I want to."

Severa raised an eyebrow when Kjelle failed to say anything further. "Out with it, then. What's got you so shaken?"

Kjelle held silent for a while longer, her gaze avoiding Severa's eyes as they scanned for a distraction. She had no idea why she had said anything. If she went any further, she risked her entire friendship with Severa, everything they had built up for so many years. That was the last thing she wanted.

Against all odds, a distraction manifested several hundred metres from her, sucking the colour from the world around it in a magical display of light and dark. Rings of runes appeared around a crystal eyelid, which opened to show a murky image of a snowbound landscape. The portal had appeared.

"Sorry, we're going to have to pick this up later." Kjelle said, thinking her diversion to be beyond adequate as her eyes lit up. Lucina had been right. That meant Kjelle had been right to trust in her, as always.

"Hm? What-?" Severa began to say as she traced Kjelle's gaze, her jaw then dropping as she beheld the spectacle of the portal. "It exists!? Gods, so Lucina wasn't insane!"

"Of course it exists!" Kjelle scoffed. "Do you think Lucina would lie to us? Hell no - this means we have a chance to save everyone!"

"We do!" Severa laughed in happiness, a sound Kjelle was glad to hear. "We can go back, we can stop Robin, we can avert all of this death and destruction. We don't have to be afraid anymore, not of risen, or losing people, or of Robin and Grima!"

"Come on, we're far away. We should start-" Kjelle began to say as she moved toward the distant portal. Her words died in her throat when an inhuman screech sounded a short distance from them, from the inner edge of Ylisstol. Her face paled as unseen risen took up the horrendous wail, their volume eclipsing the fires of the city.

"Start running!" Severa shouted, and pushed Kjelle into motion with one hand as she passed the knight's flank in a near sprint.

Kjelle stumbled and then pursued Severa, navigating over the uneven roads and through the few buildings outside the city limits. Severa slowed her pace to accommodate Kjelle, ensuring that her friend would not be left behind to face the risen on her own. Neither dared to look at their flank toward the growing cries of the undead.

Ahead of them, near enough the portal that she was shrouded in its mystical absence of colour, Nah transformed. Her magical fires illuminated the space around the portal alongside the dozens of figures she set to flame. Sounds of desperate fighting echoed out from her direction.

Kjelle dared to glance to her side, and found herself regretting doing so with a loud curse. Streams of risen were pouring forth from the streets of Ylisstol, spilling over one another in a mad trample toward herself, Severa, and their friends. Kjelle redoubled her efforts to quicken her pace.

A risen sprinted toward Severa's side a short distance in front of Kjelle. Severa dodged the charge by stuttering her pace, only for the risen to continue sprinting past her in the direction of Nah. Severa regarded the risen in confusion as she continued to run. Never before had a risen passed on a potential target.

"They're aiming for the portal!" Severa shouted with her realisation. "We can't let-!"

A risen sidelined her, tackling her to the ground and pinning her there with a deathly screech. It raised its clawed hands high above its head and slashed downward, one hand narrowly missing Severa's head as another caught on her raised sword.

"Severa!" Kjelle barreled into the risen without slowing down. She and the risen both fell to the ground, though Kjelle managed to draw her lance and end Severa's assailant in a single swift stab, even from her prone position.

"Come on! Don't stop running!" Severa yelled as she ran to Kjelle's side, helped her up, and pushed her into another sprint. She failed when another three risen slammed into her and Kjelle both, sending all five bodies to the ground in a mess of armour and rotten flesh.

Kjelle pulled her unused shield free from her armour and used it to push back against the two risen occupied with her. Purple ashes washed over her back a few seconds later, and she knew that Severa had managed to eliminate the third attacker. A sword then poked over her shield and stabbed into the head of one of the risen. Kjelle pushed back against the last risen, shaking its balance and ensuring it was felled with her lance, only to be pushed back to the ground in a stampede of successive undead.

She hit the ground on her back with her shield raised, and with Severa landing behind her. Risen after risen cascaded over them, scrambling over her shield without any concern for who sat underneath its protection. None made to attack her or Severa.

Some of the risen crumbled into ashes as they climbed Kjelle's shield, be it from her own rapid jabs with her lance, flashes of Severa's blade, or the calamitous thrashing of the other risen. After a few short seconds of washing over them, all of the undead that had sprung forth from the city had passed. Kjelle rose to a stand and helped Severa do the same.

"Let's go!" Severa shouted before either of them could begin to question what had transpired. She pushed herself and Kjelle into pursuit of the risen horde.

Nah's fires continued to waste whatever risen ran into her vicinity, and as Kjelle and Severa followed the risen toward the portal, they could tell that every one of their friends was fighting against the undead. Even so, none of the risen made to counter or target any of them, focusing instead upon the portal alone.

Dozens of risen dashed past the blades and flames of the Shepherds' children, never stopping their advance on the portal. No matter how many Nah burned, Yarne tore apart, Minerva stole away into the air, or Noire shot down, more pressed onward in their near limitless numbers. Only a small section of road opposite of Kjelle and Severa's position remained untainted by their presence.

Kjelle froze and watched in horror as the first of the risen reached the portal. The undead was accepted into its creeping embrace. The portal lowered toward the ground as if to collect the risen, which ran into the center of the eye-like structure. The risen then disappeared into the watery grey and blue of the portal's centre.

"Did it just-!?" Severa gasped in horror matching Kjelle's, and also ground to a halt.

More risen streamed into the portal, which sucked them into its embrace and deposited them into some unseeable time. Kjelle and Severa both stood in horror as they grasped the implication of what was happening, and then sprinted once more after the tail end of the risen crowd.

As Kjelle and Severa reached the bulk of the risen, a subset of bodies froze in place and spun to face them. Kjelle stopped a fraction of a second earlier than Severa, bringing her weapon up in time to deflect the first attack sent her way, while Severa was forced to dodge a swipe before she could do the same.

A clawed hand swiped at Kjelle's chest, and she pushed out her shield to block the hit. She then followed up with a stab from her lance, ending her assailant but leaving herself open to attacks from two more. Each hit bounced off of her shield. The risen responded by wailing and digging their claws deep into the protective metal plate.

Kjelle lurched forward as a risen's claw lodged itself in her shield and refused to be pulled free. Another risen turned and sprinted for her exposed side. Beside her, though she could not see through the risen clouding her surroundings, Kjelle could tell that Severa was in as unfavourable a position with her own opponents.

A new risen wrapped its grotesque hands around the edges of Kjelle's shield and yanked it free of her grip. Now left with only her armour and lance to defend herself, Kjelle was forced to improvise her own defense, and did so in the best way she knew: by charging the risen that had lodged its claws in her shield.

She slammed into the risen that had been thrown aside alongside her shield, crashing her armoured shoulder against its body and sending it hard to the ground. Ashes washed over her lower legs and she knew that Severa had felled a risen, and she knew that she had to do the same. What kind of person would Kjelle be to rely upon if she could not prove herself more capable than any other?

With that thought, Kjelle drove her lance into the risen that had ripped away her shield, killing it in a single strike. More ashes washed over her, and she turned and swung her lance into another risen, determined as she was to kill as many as possible.

The risen had the advantage of numbers, but they were weak. Kjelle felt ashamed that she had at one point been terrified of them. There was no way that anyone competent with a weapon could fall to such a pathetic opponent. Her kill count against such easy targets was meaningless, but Kjelle strove to defeat them all the same, ensuring she could boast about the ease of combat.

A final wave of ashes washed over her as the last of the enraged risen fell. All that remained were those that sought the portal. Kjelle spared for them no worry. Anyone in the past, even someone unprepared to fight, would be able to combat them.

If someone could not defeat a few meager risen, then they had no right to their wasted life, anyway.

Kjelle shuddered at her own thoughts, knowing they were dark, and that she had failed them in her own right. That did not stop her from believing that she was right.

Why could people not be as strong as the Shepherds? Why did they not bother to try, as Kjelle was doing? She had no desire to associate with people who squandered their potential.

Severa raced past Kjelle toward the risen entering the portal, clearly not sharing her dispassionate view. Kjelle sighed and chased after her friend, now believing their efforts to stop the undead to be unnecessary, but wanting to help the people around her all the same. Her friends were always deserving of her help.

After a short time, there remained no risen left to slay, with all having either perished or crossed the boundary of the portal. No one made to follow the undead out of their time until they had taken stock of themselves and their friends.

Kjelle placed away her lance and, after a quick glance to Severa to verify that she in particular was okay, made to locate her lost shield. She found it on the ground where it had been dropped by the dying risen, scratched and torn beyond use. She left it to sit in its own destruction. Its loss was the greatest she had faced today, considering the safety of her friends and the salvageable state of the past.

Satisfied with their status long after everyone else, Nah returned to her human form on the open ground in front of Kjelle. Her return was met with a wracking cough and complete breathlessness. She bent forward as the cough worsened and her legs trembled, struggling to support her overexertion. Kjelle rushed to her side.

"Didn't I tell you to take it easy?" Kjelle scolded Nah as she placed a hand on her arm, helping hold the young Manakete upright.

"Now that we're safe, I can." Nah heaved. Her free hand held her dragonstone, which had grown dull from its extensive use, but otherwise remained in serviceable condition. She pocketed the stone and attempted to downplay her exhaustion with a deep breath. "I'm good. I didn't go too far. Besides, I managed to reduce the number of risen that escaped to the past by a ton."

"The people of the past aren't weak, you know. The risen will be exterminated soon enough." Kjelle continued to scold her, though she did not wish to downplay the Manakete's actions. Nah was powerful - and therefore deserving of her respect - when in her dragon form.

"They may not be threatening to you or me, but they'd wreak havoc on an unaware populace." Nah said, her breathing normalising. "Hey, could you do me a favour and fetch Lucina? She went to keep the risen at bay near the city. I'd check on her myself, but I'm not certain that I can walk that far right now…"

"Yeah, I'll get her right away. As long as you promise to rest now." Kjelle said.

Nah waved her off, but did not hide her small smile. "I promise to rest for as long as I can. Now go get Lucina."

There was no reason to be concerned for Lucina. It mattered not how far the princess had wandered, because Lucina was the most capable person of anyone Kjelle knew. For her to be harmed by a risen was unthinkable, no matter their number or strength - not even the exceptional risen Kjelle had encountered in the Farfort could hope to harm her.

There should have been no reason for Kjelle to feel any concern for Lucina. However, that did not stop Kjelle from coming to a slow stop once she had located the princess, nor did it stop her stomach from tying into an unusual knot.

Lucina was fine, as was to be expected. The princess stood at the edge of a large street with Falchion drawn, the blade at rest after its extensive use. She was not breathing heavily. Her entire composure was as composed as always. She had sustained no visible damage.

There was no reason to be afraid for Lucina.

No fires burned around the street on which Lucina had fought against the risen. All those that had once raged were silent, and the houses that had been ablaze now sported no than scorch marks. Despite being inside of the city again, Kjelle could see no trace of people beyond herself or Lucina.

Lucina was beyond capable. There was no reason to fear for her.

A sea of purple ashes washed away around the street. The ashes stood as high as Lucina's knees when Kjelle first looked to the princess. Once spots of ground became visible Kjelle saw sparks dancing, the aftereffects of attacks from some unseen mage Lucina had slain. If any risen had been capable of proving themselves a threat, Lucina had eliminated them without leaving more than a fading trace.

Perhaps there was reason to be afraid of Lucina.

The princess took notice of Kjelle's presence. Her expression was neutral; no fear, no pain, no happiness, nothing. Nothing but the strength Kjelle admired. Then, her expression eased into the same practiced smile as always.

Kjelle cleared her mind of its errant thoughts and shut her fallen jaw. This was Lucina; there was as little reason to fear her as there was to fear for her. She was the perfection all should strive to become.

"I trust everyone is safe?" Lucina asked, breaking Kjelle from her thoughts.

"Hm? Oh, uh, yeah, I think so." Kjelle said. "We're done fighting for now. Nah wanted me to come get you. You seem like you've had an interesting time."

"You could say that, yes." Lucina nodded, her smile then disappearing without a trace. "I regret to say that risen swept through the city. I know not if anyone within lives. That said, I have at least eliminated all of the risen in this area."

"All of them?" Kjelle asked in surprised skepticism, though the proof of the countless undeads' ashes was plain for her. How many had she killed to amass such a tide? In how short a time? All Kjelle knew was that she would not have been able to do the same. Yet.

"I believe so." Lucina replied in utter nonchalance.

"Er… right." Kjelle agreed. "Everyone important has made it, though. The portal is still here, too, though some risen did get through it. We can save everyone in the past."

Lucina's neutral expression pressed into a disapproving frown. "We're no more important than anyone else, Kjelle. We were chosen for this mission and must strive to complete that which we've been assigned, no matter the cost, but that doesn't make us greater than any other. You need to remember that when we're in the past."

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Kjelle blew off Lucina's concern, as she instead remained transfixed on the princess' absurd success. "How did you…?"

Lucina sighed, but accepted Kjelle's weak answer nonetheless. "Now, how many risen made it through the portal? If Naga hasn't handled them, then we need a plan to mitigate any damage they cause."

"Uh, I don't know." Kjelle admitted, still distracted. "Maybe a couple hundred, maybe more, maybe less? They were throwing themselves into the portal in a constant stream for a few minutes, but we killed as many as we could."

"I'm certain you did well." Lucina said. "We should regroup. I don't believe there to be any more immediate threats we need to face."

"Right, right." Kjelle agreed and lead Lucina back to everyone else. There was little reason for her to do so; Lucina would have been capable of finding the way on her own with no issue whatsoever, but Kjelle wanted to feel as though she was being of assistance, and Lucina was kind enough to humour her.

Nah had taken to sitting on the ground a short distance from the portal by the time they had returned, despite audible pestering from Brady to keep standing. Severa stood appraising them both with her arms crossed. Cynthia and Owain were shouting about their heroic deeds to a disinterested Gerome. Things seemed normal, given their circumstances.

Kjelle and Lucina approached Nah, whose eyes lit up at the sight of the princess. Anyone could be expected to have a similar reaction, so far as Kjelle was concerned.

"It looks like you weren't even hit." Nah commented to Lucina.

"I suppose I didn't." Lucina said, as though she had not considered the matter. "All is well here?"

"As well as it can be, yeah." Nah said, her pointed ears then laying flat as she grimaced. "I've yet to see anyone but us make it outside of the city. There must be people trapped inside."

"Based on the number of risen I defeated, and the number I'm told made it out here to the portal, I find that unlikely. We should not concern ourselves further." Lucina said. Kjelle was left to wonder yet again as to how many of the undead Lucina had eliminated.

"So they're dead? Everyone?" Severa entered the conversation with a scoff. "That's not possible. There's no way every single person in the city was killed, even between Robin and the risen."

"Ah, my apologies; I suppose that sentiment was unclear." Lucina said. "It doesn't matter whether the people within are alive or dead, though I fear many fall into the latter category. What I mean is that they're all effectively dead."

Severa's expression flashed into confusion, as did Nah's. None of them were able to ask Lucina to elaborate before Kjelle gathered their attention and redirected it toward the city.

"I think the fighting at the castle's stopped." Kjelle said. "The Shepherds might've won. If we go back now, we-"

"No." Lucina cut her off, her tone authoritative and decisive. "Regardless of their status, we need to go through the portal. That's our mission. Not to go back and help them."

Kjelle hesitated for a moment, scrambling to form arguments against Lucina's decision before reminding herself of the princess' immense strength. Whether she liked it or not, that strength was enough to make Kjelle capitulate.

"Okay." Kjelle agreed. She could not stop her face from falling at the word. "Let's go, then. There's no reason to stick around here any longer."

"Things will be better soon, Kjelle. I promise." Lucina smiled her same smile.

"There isn't a timeline possible where I don't believe you." Kjelle reciprocated the smile. Lucina was right, after all. Her life would improve by changing the past. Her family would be made complete and alive. The legends of the past would be tangible. As if by magic, time travel was offering to solve all of her issues, and the issues everyone was facing.

"Right. So, do we hop through, like the risen?" Severa asked, directing her gaze toward the portal.

"What else would we do, genius?" Nah snarked. Kjelle was amazed at how the young Manakete was able to be as vitriolic as Severa at the drop of a hat, despite keeping a far more level head.

"I don't know, maybe not use brain dead corpses as a guide?" Severa replied in turn with an equivalent level of scorn.

"That's enough." Lucina said, and both fell silent. There existed no ill will between Nah and Severa, and there was camaraderie to their bickering, but it remained a waste of time. "Naga said to jump through the centre of the portal, so that's what we'll do."

"Okay. Let's do it, then." Nah said as she pushed herself to a stand. Brady barked for her to remain sitting, though Nah ignored him, despite the wobbling of her legs.

"Gods, learn to rest. You're not built the same as Kjelle or Lucina, you know." Severa scolded her.

Nah responded by sticking out her tongue before continuing her teetering advance toward the portal. Brady continued to shout for her to stop, but did nothing to enforce his words.

Lucina sighed and walked over to Nah, surpassing the young Manakete's limping pace. She placed a hand on Nah's shoulder, and through that simple action made her stop.

"You've done more than enough for now, Nah." Lucina said. "Please, rest. I won't allow you to push yourself too far for anyone's sake."

"She's right, though - Severa, I mean." Nah pouted. "It doesn't matter how much I fight because I can't match you or Kjelle. It's like the two of you don't tire, regardless of how much training and fighting you put in. You were dueling all day, and now look at you. Neither of you have broken a sweat!"

"Yet you were the one to protect us, and guide half of our number through the city." Lucina said. "You've performed admirably. You may not think it on the level of myself or Kjelle, but as far as I'm concerned, your efforts were exceptional."

Nah sighed through her growing smile. "Why do you always have to be so right? It's like an annoying curse."

"I didn't mean to-" Lucina began to apologise before Nah cut her off with a raised hand.

"It's all good, Lucina. I'll take a moment to rest." she said. Her smile then faded a little, but became no less genuine. "You know, there isn't a guarantee for how everything's going to play out in the past, but I feel like you're going to be the one to save the world. You seem like the only one with enough drive to do it. If not you, then maybe Kjelle, and if not her, then I call dibs."

"You're not gonna get the chance!" Kjelle shouted to Nah, having had nothing to do but listen in on their conversation.

Lucina ignored her in order to smile at Nah. "I'll do my best to make you proud. At the least, I know that together we cannot fail."

"If you lot are done with your little pep talks, do ya mind if we form a plan?" Brady reminded them both of his presence. "Risen're runnin' amok in the past. We're gonna do somethin' to stop 'em, right?"

"Of course." Lucina nodded as she stepped away from Nah's side. "This shouldn't be difficult. We need to follow them through the portal and eliminate them all before they can wreak havoc."

"Fear not! The risen shall soon know the meaning of defeat!" Owain exclaimed, having also had nothing better to do than eavesdrop. He posed in what he assumed was a heroic pose before beginning a mad sprint toward the portal. He was swiftly followed by Cynthia doing the exact same.

"Owain, you idiot! We haven't- and, he's gone." Severa huffed as Owain disappeared into the hungry draw of the portal. "Great. Guess we have to keep him in check now, too."

"I'll go on through and make sure they don't get themselves killed in the first few minutes of fightin'." Brady sighed and walked his way over to the portal. He entered it woth more caution than his companions, allowing one hand to be pulled in before taking a deep breath and leaping forward.

Minerva walked her way over to Lucina with Gerome on her back. The wyvern and rider both nodded to their commander, indicating that they were prepared to travel through the portal, but everyone gathered knew them well enough to surmise that they would wait until everyone had gone before them.

"Are we certain that this portal is secure?" Laurent spoke up from near the anomaly, one hand on his glasses as the other clutched a tome Kjelle had not noticed him equip.

"I don't want to go through anything that might… I don't know, tear me apart, or something." Yarne added on from beside the mage. "Gods, do you have any idea how many gruesome ways I could die doing this!? What if Naga loves the taste of Taguel and transports me to a dinner table!?"

"I'm not aware of dragons having ever feasted on Taguel." Lucina said calmly.

"Oh gods, that means she's going to be curious! That's bad!"

"Hm… you raise a valid point." Laurent said, and Yarne gawked at him. "Er, not on the matter of eating Taguel, but the portal. It is unknown and unprecedented. What if we don't end up together on the other side, if Naga is capable of controlling our destination as well as our time period?"

"I'm certain that whatever Naga has deigned for us is the correct course." Lucina said. "Perhaps we'll be together, perhaps not. Nothing will stop us from fulfilling our mission."

Laurent hummed to himself for a moment before nodding his head. "An acceptable answer." he said, and upon taking hold of Yarne's shoulder, he began to drag the Taguel toward the portal.

"Hey! What are you doing!?" Yarne attempted to hold himself in place, but was unable to resist what little might Laurent exerted.

"Come along, Yarne. We've risen to slay and rational fears to ignore." Laurent said, and pulled them both through the threshold of grey.

"Nothing to be afraid of...Nothing to he afraid of…" Noire repeated to herself in a low murmur as she approached the portal, though it was loud enough for everyone else to hear. "Okay, okay. I can do this. Lucina said it'll be okay, so it'll be okay. Nothing to fear." she repeated as she too disappeared within its reach.

"Ah, but this will be a harrowing journey." Inigo grinned, having somehow appeared in the space between Kjelle and Lucina. "Perhaps one of you lovely ladies would be brave enough to accompany me? Or, perhaps you're in need of accompaniment yourself?"

He looked across the people gathered around him, receiving harsh glares from everyone but Lucina, whose expression was blank. He raised a hopeful eyebrow to Lucina, who continued to stare at him without emotion until he was pushed forward by Minerva's tail.

"Alright, alright, I'll go one my own. Sheesh…" Inigo muttered as he walked to the portal.

Lucina tilted her head as he disappeared from view. "He didn't seem afraid to go alone. Was he truly asking for help?"

"He was trying - and failing - to hit on anyone who would give him the time." Severa frowned. "I get that social cues aren't your thing, Lucina, but for the love of Naga, learn to shut creeps like him down."

"Ah, so that was another of his attempts at a romantic gesture. I see." Lucina said, conveying as much disinterest in the matter as anyone could hope from her.

"I suppose it's about time for the rest of us to get going, too." Nah said as she rose to a stand more steady than before. She calmed herself with a deep breath and contained her weariness.

"Hey, Kjelle? What were you trying to tell me before?" Severa whispered as Nah exchanged a few short words with Lucina.

"Hm? Oh, ah, haha… nothing much." Kjelle attempted to laugh the matter away. Severa's frown told her that she had failed.

"You were going to say something." Severa persisted. "What was it?"

"Ah, well, you know. I've always considered us close friends, and I'm glad that we can be like that." Kjelle said, knowing that she was lacking any shred of confidence she should have held.

"That's the least self-assured I've ever heard you sound." Severa continued to whisper. "Seriously, what's going on? You can tell me."

"It's not that easy." Kjelle murmured, causing Severa's typical glare to shift into concern.

Nah disappeared into the portal, leaving her four friends and Minerva in the future. Gerome shifted his gaze over to Severa and Kjelle, expecting one or both of them to depart before himself or Lucina.

Severa huffed, shook her head, and began walking toward the portal. "We can talk about this later, once the past is secure. And believe me, we're going to talk about it."

"Wait, Severa-!" Kjelle said, too faint to be heard by anyone but herself.

Severa continued to walk to the portal. Kjelle was no longer certain of what she wished to do, if it would be best to reveal her feelings or let them sit. Her heart tugged at the idea of letting Severa walk through the portal alone.

Kjelle ran up to Severa as the portal began to draw her in, stopping her with a firm grip around her wrist. Severa turned to her in displeased confusion, her temper shining through her steadfast glare. That glare disappeared when she caught sight of the indecisive blush running rampant on Kjelle's cheeks.

Before Severa could say anything, Kjelle closed the last of the distance between them, gently squeezing Severa's wrist as she brought their lips together. Severa's eyes widened, but she leaned toward their kiss, and so Kjelle closed her eyes and did the same.

The portal was robbing them both of sensation. Kjelle felt cheated by it; she should have known the wonderful feeling of their lips touching, of the warmth of Severa, of the heat of their bodies and her blush, but there was nothing more than what she could imagine. There should have been an electrifying spark, or a wave of relief washing over her, but everything was being stolen away. Kjelle revelled in the kiss all the same.

After several wonderful long seconds, Kjelle broke their kiss. Her blush had not faded in the slightest. Severa was now red herself, her eyes having remained wide when Kjelle had closed hers.

"W-What?" Severa stammered, her blush growing stronger as she brought a hand to her lips and processed what had happened.

"Um… yeah." Kjelle offered weakly, shifting her gaze toward the distorted ground. She then looked once more at Severa, and was overcome with a wave of anguished uncertainty. What if Severa did not share her feelings, as she had feared? What if this kiss was a massive misstep and drove them apart? What if all the things that could go wrong went wrong?

Kjelle stared at Severa, taking in her once-friend's flummoxed state. She then shoved Severa through the portal without another word.

Severa's expression flashed in shock as she was pushed, but her face and body soon disappeared into the grey. Kjelle lingered on the sight of her departure for a short second before whipping around to face her remaining friends.

Gerome's eyebrows were raised high above his mask, and he began to mouth 'wow' once Kjelle had turned toward him. Lucina's expression was neutral. Somehow, amongst all of them, Minerva's uncomprehending stare was the most welcome.

"Shut up." Kjelle said before anyone could utter a word. She knew that her blush was nowhere near fading.

Gerome raised his hands defensively, his eyebrows still high atop his forehead. Kjelle wanted to glare at him, but knew that doing so in her current state would be ineffective.

"I'm sorry, Kjelle." Lucina apologised with a shake of her head, though Kjelle could not understand why. Something in her voice sounded melancholic. Any emotion in the princess' voice was unusual.

Kjelle sighed and lowered her head, failing to hide the red that refused to abandon her face. "There's nothing to apologise for. I'm sorry for getting mad. I'm a little shaken right now, is all."

"Ah. Of course." Lucina said. Her creeping melancholy remained present.

"Ahem." Gerome cleared his throat in the most artificial way possible, drawing Kjelle and Lucina's attention. "I believe you may require this in the near future… past. You know what I mean." he said, and drew from a pouch on Minerva's side a mask similar to his own that passed it to Lucina.

"A mask?" Lucina stated the obvious. Gerome pointed to his own eye beneath his mask, and Lucina stared at him in confusion before piecing together his meaning.

"The brand of the Exalt. How could I forget such a thing?" Lucina said, and placed the mask atop her face.

"You more than anyone should work on protecting your identity." Gerome said. Lucina nodded in understanding and began to tie up her hair, but before she could complete the action, Gerome was talking again.

"There's a long and dangerous road ahead of us." he said. "My greatest hope is that we'll be able to face it forthright and without error. For now, I know that our first task must be to calm an enraged young woman with too much of a temper."

"Why are you staring at me?" Kjelle asked, though the answer was clear to understand. She had no desire to face any part of that truth in this moment.

Gerome shrugged, pushed Minerva forward a few small paces, and then charged her toward Kjelle. Unable to dodge in time, Kjelle was knocked into the portal alongside Minerva and Gerome. She cursed them both despite the lack of sound that accompanied the portal's lack of sensation.

Strands of grey raced past Kjelle, soon giving way to spots of black and white, before then returning to a uniform grey. Gerome and Minerva were nowhere to be seen. Then, before Kjelle was able to make sense of what was happening, all sound and sensation popped back into existence, and she was falling to her face in a field of solid white snow.

Kjelle's head shot up as she took in her new surroundings, failing to recognise any of the trees, nonexistent landmarks, or the sky itself, free of ashes as it was. The portal had dropped her into a wasteland of white.

"Hey, guys? Guys?" she shouted, a response never meeting her ears. She had arrived in this cold expanse alone.

Her armour clung to her clothes as she stood. The cold suffocating the land was wreaking havoc on her unprepared equipment. There were no buildings or settlements in sight, with the only comfort offered being that of the forest that bordered her on every side.

Kjelle cursed and began to trudge her way through the snow, moving in a single direction with little aim more than survival. Perhaps not having to face Severa - or Robin - was a blessing in disguise.

* * *

Robin sat silent atop his horse as Kjelle finished her recounting. His eyebrows shot high up his face when she got to the kiss. He remained quiet for a few moments longer than he should have, expecting Kjelle to continue her story after she had reached its conclusion.

"Er… what was the point of telling me this, again?" Robin asked when it became apparent that Kjelle would go no further.

"Like I said, I want to work through it." Kjelle said. A blush had resurfaced on her face at her recollection.

"Are you asking me for dating advice?" Robin wondered aloud. Something about the notion was painful, but Robin had no desire to consider why. Was Kjelle interested in Severa or in women alone? Robin wanted to support Kjelle in any way possible, but some aspect of that made his chest heavy.

"No, I'm- I don't think so. I don't know." Kjelle admitted. "The main point was to have you understand that I know where you're coming from, with wanting to avert the potential end of the world and everything. Also, Lucina is going to kick your ass as soon as we find her. If you win her over, though, then everything will turn out okay."

"To be honest, I thought that if you were going to kiss anyone, it'd have been Lucina." Robin commented. "No offense to Severa, I'm certain she's a lovely person, but you were worshipping the ground on which Lucina walked."

"If there's anyone who deserves praise, it's her." Kjelle shrugged. "Also, the thing with Severa and me, it's… I don't know. It's something. I don't know what to think of it, or if what I did was right, or why I did it…"

"Do you regret it?"

Kjelle thought for a long moment before shaking her head. "I regret that I didn't have the courage or forethought to do it better. I don't know if I want to be involved with her, or if I'm lacking courage again, but… I don't know."

"If you don't regret it, them you did the right thing." Robin advised. "There's no telling what'll happen next, but for now it's best to remember how much you care about her. That's why you kissed her, right? Because you have feelings for her?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure what to make of those feelings, but yeah." Kjelle nodded.

"All I can say is that you made the right choice to kiss her, then. Well, you could've warned her about it, but… uh… it's the thought that counts? Kind of?" Robin said. "If you want advice for this, go to Sumia or Cordelia. They know more about love than anyone else in the Shepherds."

"I don't know if it's safe to call it love yet, but alright." Kjelle said. "It's possible that Severa will hate me for what I've done. That prospect scares me as much as never telling her how I feel."

"At least now you have a shot at not being afraid." Robin attempted to again support her, and based on her small nod, he succeeded.

"Hey, Robin?" Kjelle spoke up again, a new light blush lining her cheeks. She felt an odd happiness at speaking with him, but at the same time, so much of their conversation was making her feel lethargic, as if a weight were pressing down on her. "I'm glad that I can talk to you. I don't think I've done something like this before, and it feels nice."

Robin smiled at her. "I'm glad. I feel the same."

Both of them were experiencing an odd, melancholic weight in addition to their happiness. Neither wished to voice that observation, but that did not stop them from feeling as such.

After a short time spent travelling, Robin leaned back in his saddle and sighed. A change in topic may alleviate the weight he felt, but at the same time, he had no desire to end Kjelle's professed happiness.

"So, any tips for dealing with Lucina?" he asked, hoping that the question was not too abrupt.

Kjelle thought for a long moment, humming to herself as she shot down strategy after strategy. "Be fast, I guess, and hit hard? There's more to beating her than that, but I never got past the speed requirement."

"Am I going to have to fight her? Is there no other way?" Robin asked through a wince. While he did not believe everything Kjelle had told him about the princess, her story had still made Lucina out to be an extraordinary opponent.

"I don't see a world in which you don't." Kjelle said. "She's the only one of my friends more driven than me. Considering how much I tried to kill you, you're going to be in for a hell of a time when she shows up."

"Great. What more could I want?" Robin deadpanned. In truth, he was excited at the prospect of fighting Lucina, of facing someone with so great of a grudge that he could kill them without facing repercussions. He shuddered and silenced that thought as soon as he could.

Kjelle was quiet as she began to frown. "Did I ever apologise for that? You know, trying to kill you?"

"I didn't think it was in your nature to apologise." Robin said. "Besides, we worked past it. I expect you to act if I misstep, but there's no hard feelings for that or anything that happened between us. Right?"

"I'm not going to fight you while Valm is invading, or if we counter-invade them." Kjelle said. "I know you say that there aren't any hard feelings, but considering that I tried to kill you so many times, I find that hard to believe. I swear, I want to try being friends, so I'll try to not be as much of a jerk."

"Are you kidding?" Robin asked. "If anyone was a jerk, it was me. I wanted you to be angry at me, to hate me and want to kill me. I tried to manipulate you for as long as I'd known you. If that's not deserving of a negative response, then I don't know what is."

"We'll call it even, then." Kjelle said with a shrug. "For lack of a better term, we've both been assholes. Let's try something different."

"Sounds good." Robin smiled, with Kjelle then reciprocating the smile in turn. To become genuine friends with Kjelle made Robin happy, though the belief that his death would aid the Shepherds loomed over him all the same.

"Also, once we reach the port, you're running laps with me around the city." Kjelle added in the silence that followed their agreement.

"What? Why?" Robin questioned her defensively, his body and mind both opposed to such a grueling prospect.

"You're going to be fighting in a war soon. That means you need to be in good shape." Kjelle explained. "You haven't been keeping up with Frederick, so you're going through my routine - I'll even be nice enough to kick it up a bit, to make sure that you're ready for fighting as soon as possible."

"We've been dueling for weeks!" Robin argued. "Isn't that proof that I'm capable of holding my own? Hell, you can still barely beat me!"

"As if that proves anything! There's no way you'd beat me in hand-to-hand combat!" Kjelle refuted. "What if you get caught without magic in the middle of a fight? You'd be dead in an instant! No, I won't allow that idiotic of a death for you - you're learning how to be as tough as possible, as soon as possible. I'm going to train you every day and night until I'm satisfied with your progress."

"You're kidding." Robin groaned, though he was not opposed to the idea completely - he would be able to spend more time with her, and grow as a person. Then again, adapting to her regimen would be more painful than anything Frederick could dream up.

"I'm serious." Kjelle said. "I'm not going to let you out of my sight until then, until I know you're not going to get hurt. Not by an enemy, and not by yourself, either."

Robin blinked and looked to Kjelle. The end of her statement held a different force than the rest, leaving little room to doubt her claims. It sounded as though she was going to address their time together with a genuine sincerity greater than what she had yet demonstrated. Robin wanted to thank her for her enthusiasm and care.

"I'll do what I can." he instead sighed, uncertain of how he should progress. "I've still got strategising to do. I didn't plan much for the war, as you know."

"You'll have the time." Kjelle reassured him. "Dawn and dusk workouts, every day, at the minimum. If you do well, you may want to show up for the noon routine, too. Gods, I can't wait to get back into this! I've been travelling far too long!"

Robin found himself watching Kjelle's enthusiastic grin, and returned his attention to the road ahead. He sensed in her a legitimate desire to help, even if neither of them knew the best way to go about doing so.

He would have to make time for her workouts. Or rather, their workouts.

* * *

Lucina took a deep breath as she stared down the portal to the past. Gerome's gifted mask sat atop her face and her hair was tied back into a tight bun. No one in the past would be able to identify her. She knew it would be best for everyone if she and her friends acted as ghosts.

No excessive interaction. No family. No emotion. No life beyond her mission. It was all a simple yet effective mantra, one of which she knew Naga approved. One she had formed herself and held more dear than anything.

Falchion rested in a common scabbard at her side, reminding Lucina of a father and a future she had lost. The sword gave her an equal measure of courage and sorrow. There was no purpose for such thoughts, such melancholy or pride. All that mattered was her mission.

She took another deep breath. There was no reason to force a sense of calm; she was as stable as always. Every action she made was executed with the precision as she had practiced, mastering smiles and frowns more difficult than any technique with a blade.

Lucina cast a final glance back to Ylisstol and found herself lingering on the suspended ruins of its grand castle. There was no reason to hesitate; everyone within was dead. A reason and means to save them no longer existed. No one would make a last minute escape and meet her at the portal. Her heart would have fallen at the idea, were it not held under tight shackles.

The princess' attention returned to the portal, and she took her first step forward. She wanted to pity her friends, so excited as they were to recover something lost that she knew they would never possess. She did not. That reality should have scared her, but it did not, and so too did that lack of fear fail to terrify her. Nothing mattered but her mission. There was to be no emotion.

The portal shuddered in place and collapsed out of existence. Lucina stopped in the middle of her stride as colour and sound returned to the world in full. She should have been afraid, but fear was far from her mind.

A sharp hiss preceded a dull, loud thud behind Lucina, and she whipped around to face the sound's source, Falchion half drawn. Robin was on one knee on the ground before her, gasping ragged breaths and failing to cast wind magic. Lucina drew Falchion and leveled it with his body.

Robin pushed himself to an unsteady stand, wobbling as his right leg supported more weight than his left. His clothing was in tatters, with even his prized cloak sporting several grave lacerations through which skin and blood could be seen. He had always boasted about how that cloak was impossible to damage. He had been wrong.

Sparks ran over Robin's wounds, forcing his muscles into visibly unpleasant contractions. His own magic would then wash over those same areas, forcing the muscles to relax in a manner that seemed to be as unpleasant but necessary. His intense grimace bore his physical pain.

Robin's face and hair were stained with ashes. A long cut sat open on his forehead. Two pronounced lines ran down his cheeks where his tears had washed away any smudging. His eyes were aflame in an untold ferocity.

"You're still here." Robin noted through ragged breaths. One of his hands moved to clutch the side of his chest as he spoke.

"As are you. Why?" Lucina asked, her sword remaining locked on his form. "Are the Shepherds…?"

"Dead, yes." Robin confirmed in a tone as neutral as her own. Every word was spoken with a lilting cadence, as though every syllable brought him a sharp jab of pain. "Every death is by my own hand, or by the risen I brought. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?"

"I killed them all. Everyone." Robin explained. "All of the Shepherds. I killed Flavia, I killed Chrom; hell, it's probably my fault that Sumia died, too. I killed them all. I'm sorry."

"I didn't think you to be repentant." Lucina said.

"I am." Robin said. "I loved the Shepherds - I still do. I don't think the past me will feel good about all of this, because their story will be different. You're bright enough to have realised that part already, yes?"

Lucina nodded, but did not shift out of her combat stance. Something significant was developing in the distance behind Robin, something that was flinging chunks of land into the air, similar to the castle. It appeared as though the world itself were being consumed by that annihilation.

"There's a set of rules we have to play by." Robin continued to speak. "I tried to break the script, but I couldn't. Know that your pain and that of your friends would have occurred regardless."

"A script?" Lucina questioned.

Robin dug a small object out of a pocket of his cloak and lobbed it at Lucina. She reflexively removed one hand from Falchion to catch it, and held it a distance from her face and body as she examined it.

In Lucina's hand was a small gemstone, one no larger than a glass marble, that shone in a vibrant green light. Her expression did not change despite her confused surprise.

"Vert. A gemstone from the Fire Emblem." Robin explained. "I was surprised to find that the Fire Emblem was useless. However, simply because I can't change the script doesn't mean others haven't. I learned that the hard way. Please, use the power of the gemstone to kill everyone who wants to tamper with our world. I'd give you more, but I needed them to stay alive back there." he tilted his head toward the destruction behind him, wincing as he did so.

"Why would I listen to anything you say?" Lucina asked. She wanted to trust Robin, as she had done for so many years before this point, but his villainy made such a thing impossible.

"As it turns out, there are worse people than someone who wants to destroy the world." Robin smiled too wide. "I wished to end life as we know it. Someone out there wants to rewrite the world until it fits their sadistic idea of perfection. Compared to them, you'll see me as a hero."

"And who would this person be?" Lucina asked, not knowing whether or not she should be humouring him.

"After all this time, I still don't know. I've even seen her face." Robin admitted, his smile persisting. "I suppose that's because I'm not part of her perfection. Ah, you should get out of here; odds are that you aren't, either."

Robin raised his arms and closed his eyes in concentration, and after his entire face had contorted into a pained grimace, a portal popped into existence behind Lucina. Robin opened his eyes, now shaking and sweating from his exertions.

"Go and live your story, Lucina. I'll be rooting for you." his smile returned, and with it authenticity entered his voice.

Lucina kept her sword trained on him and refused to move. "You're a murderer who doomed this world. I'll never believe a word you say."

Robin's smile widened. "This world was doomed from the start."

Before Lucina could speak further, Robin raised his hands again and fired a tempest from his palms. The wind crashed into Lucina and forced her backward without harming her, launching her in the direction of the new portal.

A new gale then crashed into Lucina's back, suspending her between the two winds. Robin's face flashed in concern and he cut off his magic. Lucina fell to the ground, sliding forward as the rear cast continued to push her away from the portal.

Robin kept his hands raised, now as a defensive measure. The opposing wind died down as a soft voice cut through the air around him and Lucina, stopping the princess in place before she could stand.

"Damn, points for that one. You managed to hide for, what, five minutes? Kudos, Robin." the voice said, her tone taunting yet calm.

"Naga?" Lucina asked in surprise, finding no form to place to the familiar voice.

Robin shook his head in a fear that bordered on primal excitement. "Naga's dead. This is the fun part - when the plan fails, the script wins, and it comes time to erase everything. This is what I wanted."

"Dead?" Lucina echoed him.

"Don't listen to him, Lucina." The voice advised in the same relaxed, toying manner. The destruction behind Robin raced toward them both. "I want to help you. To save you. You can witness the perfection I desire."

Lucina nodded. She could trust this voice, Naga or not, over anything Robin claimed.

"Good." the voice hummed, and a second portal opened next to the one Robin had constructed. "Now, stand up, plant Falchion in the ground, and go back in time. You know your mission. Do me proud."

Robin's eyes widened as Lucina did what the voice had commanded. "Lucina! Stop! Don't trust her - let the world live its story and die! That's the only way we'll get an ending!"

The voice gave a light, melodic laugh. Lucina ignored Robin and stabbed the tip of Falchion into the ground in front of her. She saw the horror in Robin's eyes as she raised her head, but again ignored him, and without a second thought she entered the portal the voice had constructed.

The voice could be trusted. It was warm and loving. It would never wish for anyone to be harmed. Those thoughts filled Lucina's mind as she stepped into the portal and lost all sensation of her original time.

Lucina emerged in the sky above a dark forest. She pressed through the veil of the portal into a brisk night air. The world beneath her shifted in a series of tumultuous quakes that shook trees, but nothing more. No ground cracked and no lava poured forth. Lucina did not know why she supposed any such thing would happen.

Several risen shambled around the forest when Lucina landed on the soft earth, searching for prey that was not present. They each turned to Lucina as she stood and targeted her in lieu of an easier mark.

Lucina reached for Falchion before remembering that she had left the blade behind, as per the voice's command. She sighed as the first of the risen began to charge her.

Without Falchion, she would have no way to defeat Robin, should he be tied to Grima by blood as Naga had claimed.

Lucina tightened her grip around Vert. She sighed as the first of the risen leapt at her, a crude axe raised high above its head. This was going to be a long, annoying night, and a long, grueling mission.

* * *

 **This chapter is the last major flashback for Robin and Kjelle. There are going to be more over the next arc, but those are going to be brief scenes at the start of each chapter that help to develop Lucina, since she's going to be somewhat important. There's also going to be one big series of flashbacks at the end of the arc to wrap up all of the loose ties in this fic before the ending.**

 **I had a problem when I started writing where I would say nothing in a lot of words. I'm trying to get better at that, so this story will hopefully be moving faster than before, which was super slow.**

 **Status: As of 05-07-19, I'm on chapter 37. I'm still not making a ton of progress, but I'm satisfied with what I am writing.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	31. Chapter 31

A stampede of footsteps thundered outside Lucina's room. Had she not been awake, the sound would have kept her from sleeping.

The young Lucina pushed herself out of her bed and took several tired, lagging steps toward her closed door. She was grateful that she had grown out of using a crib; that contraption always proved troublesome to escape at the least convenient of times. Now that she could walk and speak, her parents were beginning to trust her capabilities. The same could not be said for Cynthia, who was confined to her own room for her incessant wailing.

She reached the door and stood on the tips of her toes to reach up and turn the doorknob. It was unlocked - there was never much reason to maintain high defenses in the guarded castle - and creaked open as Lucina pushed against its surface.

A few long legs darted past the edge of her limited vision. Most wore unassuming clothes, but some had donned armour. Lucina recognised the characteristic armour of Ferox's Khans, common guests of the halidom. Her curiosity had her push her door open once the last of the legs had disappeared.

In the infinite wisdom of her youth, Lucina decided to sneak toward whatever the armoured people were running from. She held close to the castle walls, occasionally darting across divergent halls, then waiting in the shadows to observe where guards and Shepherds would run. An inconsistent stream of people were maneuvering the halls, all stemming from the same source and all looking more desperate than the last.

After a few short minutes of lurking, Lucina came across Frederick standing before the open doors of the dining hall and all aing orders to a group of knights. His face was so red that Lucina could have laughed, were she not preoccupied with remaining concealed.

Frederick shouted a few more incoherent orders, and the knights dispersed down the hall toward Lucina. They were running faster than anyone before them. Lucina hid in a small alcove in the side of the hall, and they again passed her by. Frederick shouted something louder and less composed, and then he, too, was passing beside her hiding spot.

Lucina peeked her head out into the hall, saw that it was clear, and tiptoed her way toward the dining hall. When she drew near the open doors, she could hear a tumultuous sobbing within. She felt sad for whoever was making the noise. It was such a pained sound that she wanted to cry herself.

She steeled herself and pushed into the room. She then froze in the doorway in silent shock.

Three people remained in the dining room - her parents and their grandmaster, Robin. All three were seated at the large tables on which the Shepherds and castle staff ate their meals. Her mother, Sumia, was paler than untouched snow. A revolting clear foam was pouring out of her mouth alongside enough bile that Lucina had to restrain herself from retching.

Her father, Chrom, was cradling Sumia in his arms. Her head lolled to the side as though she could not to hold it up. Her eyes had glazed over, and her veins were easily visible through her whitened skin. Her arms and legs were hanging limp toward the ground.

Chrom was sobbing. He attempted to hold Sumia's head upright, wiped away the foam from her mouth, and tightening his grip around her. He brought his head close to hers, whispering her name over and over. Anguished tears streamed down his face.

Robin sat across from Chrom and Sumia, a blank expression of shock locked in place on his features. His mouth hung open. His eyes were wide and unfocused. Lucina wondered how long he had been sat in that exact pose.

As Lucina stood frozen in the doorway, Chrom lifted Sumia and moved in her direction. His face tangled in her light brown hair, his troubled whispers continuing at full pace as he ran. Lucina stepped into the dining hall and he exited without noticing her presence.

Lucina gawked at the two as they left. She struggled and failed to wrap her mind around what was happening. Why did her mother look so strange? Was she not well?.

Lucina regained her ability to walk, and gravitated toward where her mother had been sitting. She boosted herself up onto the seat Sumia had used, having to avoid more foam and bile as she did so, but was greeted with the welcome sight of a partial meal when she stood up to look at the table's surface. Robin sat across from her, in the space opposite where Chrom and Sumia had been. He gave no indication of noticing her.

Sumia had been eating a bunch of assorted vegetables, what seemed to be a steak, and a bowl of soup Lucina could not identify. From what she could see, everyone else had been close to finishing their meals before they had left, though Sumia had yet to finish half of hers. Lucina thought it a waste to let so much delicious food go uneaten.

She reached for the utensils that had been dropped to the sides of the plate. Robin's open mouth began to twist into a smile. His gaze was distant, and his smile disconcerting, but Lucina still preferred it to his surprise.

His smile reached its crescendo, only for him to then blink and, for the first time, take notice of Lucina. "Lucina!? What are you-!?" he began to say, his voice growing louder in surprise with every word.

Lucina froze and dropped her spoon into the soup. For some reason, she had forgotten that she was trying to remain hidden. At least she knew from experience that Robin would never scold her as much as Frederick. She moved to save the falling spoon, hoping that not wasting the soup would somehow lessen her inevitable punishment.

"Don't touch that!" Robin shouted, startling her. He reached over the table to swipe away the dishes before her, sending them crashing to the floor at her side.

Lucina could feel tears stinging her eyes for too many reasons. "Ah! I didn't mean to… to…"

"Why are you up? Why are you here!?" Robin asked, maintaining the same surprised force in his voice.

Lucina held silent, not knowing what to say. All she knew was that if she opened her mouth again, she would not be able to hold back her tears.

Robin blinked, and his composure returned. "I'm sorry, Lucina. You're not fault for any of this. I was surprised, and I overreacted. Can you forgive me?"

After failing to find her voice, Lucina nodded. Robin was kind, if a bit solitary. He was close to her parents. If anyone other than her family or the young children of the Shepherds were to be considered her friend, it would be him.

Robin smiled at her. "Thanks, Lucina. So, uh… you saw that, huh? Are you feeling okay?"

Lucina still lacked the confidence to speak, and so she nodded.

"Oh, that's… good?" Robin said, uncertain himself of how to respond under his circumstances. "It's okay to not be okay, though. Remember that. Grown ups can be sad, too, so you shouldn't worry yourself with pretending to be fine."

Lucina swallowed her trepidation, and in doing so found the confidence she needed to speak. "I'm fine. I just don't want to get in trouble for sneaking out of my room."

"You won't get in trouble, I promise. Not from me." Robin assured her. "You should get back to your room, though. People are going to be looking for you soon, and you wouldn't want to worry them, would you?"

"Is mom- mother going to come tuck me in?" Lucina asked, barely remembering the lessons in propriety she never cared to utilise.

Robin did his best to mask his expression, but could not conceal his wince. Not from Lucina. "Ah, no, she… she can't. Not anymore."

"Why not?" Lucina pouted, and though she did not know why, she was again on the brink of tears.

"I'll explain what I can, okay? We have to get you back to your room, though. I don't Frederick to have a heart attack." Robin smiled. He rose from his seat and stepped past the table toward the exit, motioning for Lucina to follow him.

Lucina worked her way down from the seat and ran over to Robin in order to grab the loose fabric at the knee of his pants. She still did not know why, but she felt afraid. She wanted her mother, or father, or even Frederick to do something to console her, but Robin would have to do for now.

"Did you see your mother in the dining hall back there?" Robin asked as they exited the room, his pace slow to accommodate Lucina's lacking movement.

"Yeah." Lucina confirmed, her voice a whisper.

Robin paused for a long moment before continuing down the halls toward her room. "I'm sorry you had to see that. Do you understand what happened?"

"Mother was being silly again, and father was playing along." Lucina said. She knew her statement to be incorrect before she had spoken.

Robin tensed but kept up his pace. "That's not what happened. Some mean people did something bad to your mother, so she won't be able to see you for a long, long time. Everyone went to get healers and staves, but there's no way they aren't too late."

"Oh." Lucina muttered, her grip on the side of Robin's pant leg tightening. "Is she not going to be able to tuck me in for a while, either?"

"No." Robin confirmed with a sad smile. "I don't think Chrom will be able to, either. He and I, and all of the Shepherds, we're going to have to go away for a while. Not as long as Sumia, but a long time. We're going to take care of the bad people who were being mean to your mother."

"Who was being mean to her?" Lucina asked. "Is she sad? Is that why father sounded so sad, and why she looked so weird?"

"Er, something like that. I'm sorry, but I can't tell you much about what happened." Robin said, his scarier smile then returning, curving his lips up at sharp angles. "As for who hurt her, why, it was the empire of Valm, of course. The strongest military in the world, itching to conquer everything under the sun. Their wishes for peace were lies; they want war, and so they killed Sumia! A marvelous excuse to fight!"

Lucina paled and almost tripped over her own feet. Her mother was not dead. Robin must have misspoken. No one would be going to war.

"Are you sure it was the em… empy… emtire of Valm?" Lucina asked, struggling to form the unlearned word in the mix. "Maybe it was the people who fall from the sky. I've seen them from my windows, when the weird holes open up. Father told me that they're mean. Maybe they were mean to mother."

"Those are called risen, Lucina, and they aren't people. Not anymore." Robin explained. "We don't know why the portals - er, 'holes' - are here, or where they go, but we know it's not Valm. And Valm is to blame for this, and for the war to come."

They had reached her room. Robin stopped a few short metres from her door, and Lucina did not dare walk further without him. She did not want to be alone yet.

"There's a little bit of truth in how you were thinking." Robin remarked with his less welcoming smile on his face. "Killing risen isn't like killing a person, because they aren't people anymore, and they're mean. People in Valm are mean, too. That means killing people in Valm will be no different than killing a risen. The same goes for any mean person in the world."

He knelt down next to Lucina, his smile never fading. "I enjoy taking care of mean people like that. Getting rid of them. It makes everything better."

For some reason she could not explain, Lucina was scared. She did not want to be scared. She had to be strong. She had to be the princess she was expected to be. Maybe that meant listening to what Robin had to say, and maybe it meant doing the opposite. She could not yet tell which way was right.

"Ah, sorry, I shouldn't be wasting your time." Robin apologised, his smile returning to the one Lucina preferred. "You're going to be having a long night, and a longer day tomorrow. Get some sleep while you can."

He stood up and gestured toward the door to her room. Lucina mustered all of the strength she could and let go of his leg, and walked the last few steps to her room on her own.

Robin continued to smile his more welcoming smile as he watched her open her door. "I know that I'm going to get a good night's sleep tonight. I hope you get the same." he said, and with a wave he turned and left.

Lucina shut her door, welcoming the protective darkness of her room. Her emotions were trying to get the better of her. She did not want Robin or anyone else to see her cry. She did not want to think about the fact that she wanted to cry.

Her bed was the same as when she had left it, her blankets messy and uneven. Lucina went about flattening and organizing her sheets, ensuring that they were spread across her small mattress and that they were free of all wrinkles. So long as she kept her mind on her task, she knew she would not cry. Then, she raised herself up into the bed underneath the covers, and pulled them up to her neck.

She knew her mother would never do anything like that again.

Laying now in her secluded bed, without anyone to hear her scream or sob, Lucina still refused to cry. She did not want to be the kind of person who cried. She did not want to be like Robin, either, always smiling at weird times. She did not want to be as stern and unwelcoming as Frederick. She wanted to be removed from those strange complexities that were her emotions.

She fell asleep without allowing herself to make so much as a single sad whimper.

* * *

Kjelle and Robin brought their horses to the same stables they had used long ago in Port Ferox, next to the inn at which they had stayed. Both noticed but neither commented on the destruction that had fallen upon the inn in their absence. Robin was overjoyed to see the myriad of familiar mounts in the stable, from the angry steed of Sully, to the horse Noire had stolen away, to Sumia's familiar pegasus. He felt at peace being so close to the Shepherds, yet he knew that he should remain far.

"I'm not that good at riding a mount, you know." Kjelle noted, following after Robin as he exited the stables. "I've told you that already, but keep it in mind when you're building your strategies."

"Noted." Robin acknowledged her passively, his focus having been diverted to searching for Shepherds.

"I was thinking about trying to learn a little. Riding, I mean." Kjelle continued, not caring that Robin's focus was elsewhere. "It'd be a good way to spend time with my mother, to ride and train at her side."

"Be sure not to smother her, though, yeah?" Robin advised. "Sully isn't the type of person to object to fighting alongside someone strong, but she needs space, too. She might also not be all that welcoming to the notion of spontaneously having a daughter."

"Ha! She'll love me, and if not, she's bound to come around once she sees me fight!" Kjelle boasted, causing Robin to raise an eyebrow in her direction.

"You're prepared to face her not accepting you, right? Even if it never happens?" Robin asked.

"She isn't going to-" Kjelle began to argue, only to be cut off by a loud shout from far down their street.

"Robin!" Chrom called out, and within a few short seconds had sprinted up to his beloved friend. Sumia appeared further down the street and gave chase to her husband. "Ha, you're close to being on time!" Chrom smiled bright, so much so that he could not notice when Robin winced and grew sheepish.

Kjelle slapped Robin on the back, softer than she would have done to anyone else. "You two have some stuff to talk about. Chrom, If you could direct me toward Sully, so that I can leave you two be?"

Chrom blinked, still failing to notice Robin's unease as he realised that Kjelle was present. "Sully? Er, yeah, last I heard she was training with Stahl down by the docks. You can find them if you look around enough."

"Do you think you could guide me to Sully, Sumia?" Kjelle addressed the queen as she reached their group, though the rider had to double over to catch her breath after pursuing Chrom. "I may get lost, or she might move, or blah blah blah. These two need their alone time."

Sumia knitted her brow in confusion, but soon caught on to the gravity in Kjelle's voice. "Er… right. We can go look, I guess."

"Is there something we need to discuss in private?" Chrom asked Robin, his concern masking his enthusiasm.

"I kind of hate you for this." Robin cast a glare to Kjelle, who shrugged and stepped past him to join Sumia. Though this confrontation was necessary, he did not want it to be so soon. He at least understood that Kjelle was attempting to help.

"Robin? Is this something serious?" Chrom asked as his concern grew.

"No, no, nothing major." Robin assured Chrom. He could feel Kjelle's intense glare at his words as she lingered near him. "It's, ah… do you mind if we go somewhere private for a minute? There's a lot of stuff I have to tell you."

Chrom nodded. He had nothing but trust for his friend. That trust was enough to make Robin wince again. "Of course. Sumia and I have a room at the inn; we can talk in there, if you can get through all the people who're going to want to greet you."

"Yeah, that should work. Thanks, Chrom." Robin said, and he could hear his own voice shaking. For some reason, he was still able to look at Chrom without feeling guilty, but he knew that familiar sensation would return.

"Ha! Of course it would be these kids making such a damn racket!" a deep voice boomed, stopping everyone dead in their tracks before they could move.

Chrom turned around, confusion and horror on his face in equal parts. Robin whipped around after Chrom had turned, his expression a close reflection of his friend's.

"Khan Basilio…? Khan Flavia?" Sumia spoke first, her and Kjelle having turned as well. Her voice was a horrified, confused whisper as she took in the grinning Khan and his yawning companion.

Robin stared at Basilio and Flavia, his mouth hanging open as his mind raced to form an explanation. The risen that he, Chrom, and Sumia had defeated in Ylisstol had been Flavia. He had seen her face, heard her voice; he had fought her and watched her die.

"Our mission in Plegia wrapped up a little while ago, so we were able to come back last night." Flavia explained through a long yawn. "We didn't think it wise to wake everyone and make a big show of our return, so we called it early."

"Well, one of us did!" Basilio guffawed. "I slept like a babe, but someone saw that Chrom and Sumia had arrived, and so convinced herself that a certain someone else would be here soon. Who'd've thought that she'd be right?" he directed his smile toward Robin.

Flavia elbowed Basilio hard in the side, more to inflict pain than to silence him. She then walked toward Chrom and Robin. Robin tensed as his mind continued to scramble for an answer.

A version of Flavia was dead, but the one before him was alive. That meant there were somehow two Flavias in the world.

Robin tensed further as his thoughts clicked into place, and he shot a rapid glance across everyone nearby. Basilio was unarmed, and based on his casual attire, had woken up minutes ago. Flavia had a sword strapped to her hip and, knowing her, another hidden from view on her back. Robin had his levin sword and the tomes Kjelle had purchased for him, as well as his gifted Book of Naga. Kjelle had both her enchanted lance and her fire tome on her person. As always, Chrom had Falchion resting in a scabbard on his hip.

His gaze fell on Sumia, where it rested longer than on anyone else. The fact that she was unarmed was enough to stress Robin out.

"You two- you aren't- this isn't…" Kjelle stammered. Her mouth began to curve into a smile. The Khans were alive. It mattered not how such a thing was possible, only that they lived.

"Ha! Happy to see us, eh?" Basilio bellowed. Both Khans looked happy, and both seemed oblivious to the horror of their companions.

Flavia's expression brightened as she made her way toward Robin and Chrom, to the point where she was beaming at them. Robin could tell that her gaze was focused more on himself than Chrom. That was good - it meant she could not suddenly attack Sumia.

"I'm glad to see you again, Robin." Flavia said, her voice sweet. "You'd never believe what we've been through, but you need to hear about it. How about we grab a drink and something to eat, and I can give you a recap of what went down?"

Kjelle's happiness twitched with discontent, though she kept smiling. She knew that Robin and Flavia were close, and though the feelings between the two were muddled, there were feelings all the same. She knew that, so why did the notion of them sharing a meal rub her the wrong way?

Her disturbed happiness was replaced by shocked confusion as Robin drew his levin sword on Flavia. The Khan stopped in place a few short steps from the grandmaster, her expression nothing more than horrified.

"What? What are you doing?" Flavia asked. She was not reaching for her weapons, and was instead staring at Robin.

"We killed you - the risen you." Robin explained. A glance around his companions revealed that no one else had drawn their weapons. Basilio was gawking at him. "In case you don't know, some of the risen have developed the ability to speak, and act as though they're intelligent."

"I'm here, Robin. I'm not a risen." Flavia assured him in a gentle voice. His blade did not lower.

"What the hell are you doing!?" Kjelle hissed at Robin.

"The only way something like that could be possible - for you to be alive now, and to have had a risen version of you die - is if there were two different Flavias in existence." Robin continued, his stance and tone unflinching. "The only way we know for something like that to be possible is if another you travelled through time."

Kjelle blinked. Robin's reasoning almost got through to her before she remembered how improbable such a thing was. "No way - the Basilio I knew died in Valm, and the Flavia wasn't present on the day the Shepherds died. Neither could have used our portal to travel through time, and there's no way Naga would open one for them."

Sumia creased her brow as she began to understand the point Robin was working toward. "The risen Flavia we fought… as soon as she saw me, she started talking about how I needed to die, that she needed to kill me. If that was the Flavia from another time, one in a future where I died…"

"Then Flavia may have been the one to kill you." Robin finished their shared reasoning.

"My future's Sumia died of illness in a time of peace!" Kjelle refuted before Flavia could voice her own defense. "No one murdered her, let alone the leader of another nation!"

"That's what you know, but are you certain it's true?" Robin asked Kjelle without averting his gaze from Flavia.

"That theory merits our consideration, and our caution." Chrom said, his right hand moving to rest on Falchion's pommel.

"I didn't kill anyone! I fought to protect all of you!" Flavia argued.

"She's right. We went up against the Grimleal and their leaders to save you from having to deal with them, and with Grima." Basilio spoke in support of his rival. "You've got no idea how much pain they would've caused for you - for everyone, the world over."

"What do I have to say to convince you?" Flavia asked. "I don't want to kill Sumia, or anyone else. The notion that I would is insane. Come on, Robin, do you not trust me on this?"

Robin shifted his weight between his feet. He wanted to trust the Khan, but he could not bring himself to do so. "Is there any reason at all why you - any version of you - would want to harm Sumia?"

"No, Robin. I don't want to hurt her, or you, or anyone else." Flavia assured him.

"Drop the sword, Robin." Kjelle commanded. "She didn't kill anyone. I don't know what you heard, but it's not possible, especially not in this time. This is pointless."

Robin made no move to do as she had instructed. "It was Flavia, Kjelle. She talked to and fought against us. Is it such a stretch to assume that if there were any leads, they would be found with this Flavia?"

"Yes!" Kjelle insisted. "That's what I'm telling you! Now drop the godsdamn sword!"

"Here - I'll go first." Flavia offered, and reached for the sword on her hip. Robin tensed further, but Flavia continued moving her hand, drawing the silver blade and lowering it to the ground at her feet in a single slow motion. She then kicked it toward Robin, and did the same with another steel sword on her back.

Satisfied that she would not be an immediate threat, Robin lowered his sword, but kept his grip on its hilt tight. He had to take as few chances as possible while one of his friends was in danger, even if that meant being prepared to kill another, more dangerous, friend.

"Where's Frederick?" Robin asked, directing he question toward Chrom. The great knight's absence from Chrom's side was abnormal, especially when outside Ylisstol.

"He wouldn't stop pestering me yesterday, and talking mad about how he'd thought that I was dead." Chrom answered. "I ordered him to take a long rest and collect his thoughts. Cordelia was somewhat on the same page as him, but she left me be, so she may still be around somewhere." he offered, knowing that the dark flier was more than capable of filling in any role for which Frederick may be required.

Robin gave a terse nod. "Can you find her and get her to come to the Khans' inn, Sumia? We need to go over a lot of stuff right now, and I'd be more comfortable with her around. It's probably be best if you stay far away from the Khans, too, for the time being."

"No - I want to be there when we go over this." Sumia said, leaving no room for Robin to dispute her. "It's about me. There's no way I'm sitting this out, risk or not. I can take care of myself."

Robin hesitated for a second, but nodded. "Okay. As long as you promise to be safe, and evacuate if need be, I have no qualms."

"As if she needs your permission." Kjelle scoffed. She then turned toward the Khans and waved them toward their inn. "Come on, let's set up a table and get this over with. The sooner this crap is done, the better."

"You're not going to be there when we go over this." Robin said, cutting Kjelle off in the middle of her step and causing her to spin on him with a harsh glare. "This is some serious business, and you technically aren't a Shepherd. I don't want this discussion to be muddied."

"Then be glad that you have a liaison from the future to set your story straight." Kjelle said in a half-mocking tone, and resumed walking toward the inn, not waiting for Robin to say something more.

Robin resisted the strong urge to call after Kjelle. She had made up her mind and would at worst have to be dragged out of the inn. He sighed at his own inability to act before hardening his expression. The risk Kjelle was taking was unnecessary, and that irked Robin more than he knew to be reasonable.

Chrom frowned at Kjelle's actions, but nodded his head nonetheless. "You've picked an interesting one, Robin. I like her."

Robin blinked, his hard expression replaced by confusion. "What?"

Chrom shrugged and stepped past Robin, a knowing smile on his face, as though the two of them were part of an inside joke that only Chrom understood. From there, he advanced to the inn, following Kjelle and the two Khans. Robin was left to wonder what Chrom had meant before he, too, walked to the inn.

* * *

Robin sat on one side of the large table Kjelle had secured for their defacto summit. Chrom sat at his right and Sumia to the right of him. Robin had insisted that Sumia sit nearest the exit, to which Kjelle had objected in her usual headstrong, obstinate nature. Across from them sat the two Khans, their weapons now held in confidence by Cordelia, who leaned against the wall behind Sumia.

An eccentric white-haired dark mage had claimed the seat at one head of the table, near Robin. Kjelle was seated at the opposite head of the table, nearest Sumia and Basilio. Robin glanced at the mage, and saw that he was grinning from ear to ear.

"He has some info on Plegia and the Grimleal that may be worth hearing. I only met him yesterday, but based on what little he's shared, I thought it wise to bring him." Cordelia explained before Robin could question why the mage was present. "Also, he's a Shepherd. Apparently."

"The name's Henry!" the pale mage grinned and extended his hand for Robin to shake.

"Er… nice to meet you, Henry." Robin shook his hand. "I'm Robin. These are Chrom and Sumia - the leaders of Ylisse - and those two are the Khans of Ferox, Flavia and Basilio. The lady across from you is Kjelle." Robin said, gesturing to each person as he went. "I know about you, Henry; you've made a name for yourself through your magic and your… unique charm."

"Nyaha! Aren't I special?" Henry laughed in giddy happiness.

"Right." Robin agreed, then cast his glance to Cordelia. "How much did Sumia tell you about what's happening here?"

"That risen versions of Flavia and Basilio were killed at the castle, and one - Flavia - spoke about killing Sumia." Cordelia said. "The risen have also changed recently, to the point where they're cognisant of the world around them, and are more of a threat."

"It's a shame there won't be more of them, since, y'know, the Grimleal are dead." Henry added on, his smile never wavering.

"You know about that?" Kjelle asked in surprise. Henry confirmed his knowledge with a pleasant nod. Kjelle's expression then morphed into a satisfied smile that she directed toward Robin. "See? The Khans have an alibi. They haven't done anything."

"An alibi?" Chrom said, his brow narrowing. "They don't need an alibi; we already know they haven't done anything. All that matters is something they may one day do based on what may have happened in- oh gods, I hadn't said that out loud until now."

Kjelle's smile grew a thousand fold more smug as Chrom realised the absurdity of his accusation. Robin remained unfazed.

"Your account is correct." Robin nodded to Cordelia, then returned his focus to the Khans, tenting his hands on the table before him. "Risen Flavia broke into my office and attacked myself and Chrom. Sumia intervened and she, alongside Chrom, killed her. Risen Basilio attacked Kjelle and Kellam, and nearly killed Kjelle, but was killed by Sumia before he could land the final blow."

Kjelle frowned at his recounting. She muttered about how it should have been her kill before raising her voice to speak. "Basilio was also spouting something about wanting to kill me, and about understanding the world. You know, some 'my mind has been rotting as a risen for a while' kind of nonsense."

Robin raised an eyebrow at Kjelle, but let the matter pass unopposed. "Anyway, we all assumed Flavia and Basilio to be dead. That's not the case. That means those risen came from the future, and as risen Flavia spoke about killing Sumia in her time, Sumia's life may be threatened by this Flavia."

"That seems like a bit of a stretch, but… okay." Cordelia nodded along to his explanation. "You believe the Khans to be a potential threat. I'm assuming they refute your claim?"

"You're damn right we do." Flavia confirmed. "We've done as much as we can to help all of you - we don't want to harm anyone. I'll do whatever it takes to prove that." she focused on Robin as her tone softened.

"Your entire suspicion is based on the words of a risen." Kjelle butt in. "Those words carry as much weight as those of undead Basilio's rotting brains. Besides, what if she lied to you, tricked you using that regained intelligence of hers?"

"She was being honest. I think." Robin said, though his certainty wavered. "Someone murdered the future Sumia. I know that for a fact, because… because I do. If it was Flavia, then I need to know, because I need to stop her."

"And what would that entail, 'stopping her'?" Cordelia asked.

"Killing her." Robin answered without hesitation. Everyone but Henry either gasped or raised their eyebrows at the suggestion.

"Nyahaha! Nice!" Henry grinned in unashamed joy, only to be ignored by everyone around him.

"You would kill her because of a suspicion? Are you insane!?" Kjelle shouted, jumping up and knocking away her chair as she planted her hands on the table.

"Kinda sounds like it." Basilio murmured, retaining far more of his composure.

"How do you know that the future Sumia was murdered?" Flavia asked, giving Robin some flexibility. "There's a reason, right? Kjelle claimed that Sumia died naturally, but you know that's not the case. You wouldn't make a baseless claim."

Robin hesitated for a long moment and refused to meet anyone's gaze. "I… I simply know. That's all that matters."

Chrom frowned and reached out a hand to Robin's shoulder. "Is something the matter? You can tell us why you have your suspicions, Robin. Even if it's absurd, we aren't about to think less about anything you claim, or about you yourself."

"I had a fever dream in a desert, and had some kind of weird conversation with what I assume were my… I don't know, inner demons?" Robin admitted, and Kjelle's entire posture sagged. "During that, I found out that I'd killed everyone in Kjelle's time. Everyone but Sumia, who died before I had the chance to kill her."

Again, everyone but Henry gave a reaction of surprise, or of exasperation.

"So… when you told me that you were afraid of hurting us, that was…" Sumia murmured, her remark passing by unnoticed.

"You mean the memories you have of the you from my time?" Kjelle asked Robin. The perplexed looks she received showed that her reasoning was anything but rational. "What? It didn't sound crazy when he told me about it… kinda."

"Yeah, that's what I mean." Robin confirmed, his tone growing faint as his confidence waned.

"I get that you want to protect your friends, Robin, but this is absurd." Basilio spoke with an unmistakable force. "Hell, we're your friends, too! You can't accuse us of something this horrible and use naught but a memory of the future as your evidence!"

Robin opened his mouth to argue, but stopped himself. His claims were absurd. All that had happened here was due to his overreacting about his own ridiculous suspicion. It was not his place to threaten the Khans, and now, he knew that he could only apologise, and hope for their forgiveness.

"This is coming a little late, but could we backtrack for a moment?" Cordelia asked, stopping Robin before he could begin to apologise. "Henry, could you explain your information about the Khans before we proceed further?"

"He saw us in Plegia, right before we went to the Dragon's Table to eliminate the Grimleal." Flavia answered for him.

"Yep!" Henry confirmed with glee. "They killed a lot of people! I recognised some of 'em!"

"You two are responsible for a massacre of an allied nation." Cordelia leveled her gaze at the Khans. "You need to think carefully on this, Flavia. If what Henry told us is true, then you violated the treaties we established. Did you kill the Grimleal you came across at the Dragon's Table?"

Robin raised an eyebrow at the Khans and decided to hold his silence. Cordelia seemed intent on turning this meeting from conjecture about the future to a summit regarding war crimes. She was correct in her line of thinking as well - if the two Khans were alive, then an untold number of Grimleal had been slaughtered during their assault on Plegia.

"Yes, we did kill the Grimleal. All of them." Flavia confirmed as Chrom and Sumia adopted horrified gapes. Basilio hung his head, and Kjelle's expression grew taught as she, too, realised what the Kahns' survival entailed. "We'd do it again if we had the chance. We'd do whatever it takes to save all of you."

"What happened in Plegia?" Sumia asked Cordelia, who angled her head toward Henry, urging the sorcerer to speak.

Robin grimaced. He had refrained from mentioning the Khans' plan in his letters to Chrom. Why had he done that? Why had he wanted them to fail, to die?

"Well, I didn't see anything myself, but my lovable crows did!" Henry explained. "They saw a massive army kill a bunch of people at the Dragon's Table, then disappear into a sandstorm. I got to play around in the aftermath, but no one they'd killed would become a risen, and there weren't any of their dead to examine, either. Eventually, some lady who wasn't named Proteus showed up, and she convinced me to leave. She was part of the big army, and she's a mage! We're gonna try to kill each other one day!"

"You defied our orders to come here?" Basilio asked Henry, a heightened rage hiding beneath his words. "Did you see us at the Dragon's Table?"

"Nope!" Henry confirmed with a cheery grin. "You may have been there, but if you were, I gave you enough time to get away. Not-Proteus knows you, though! She mentioned Flavia by name, and talked about our conversation!"

Flavia's eyebrows shot up her forehead, though Robin could not understand why. Did she not know about her own soldiers and their directives?

"That army wasn't yours." Robin reasoned. "Kjelle and I went to the capital as a stop on our journey. We met with Raimi. She said you were low on soldiers after the war, but that she still had more than enough to spare for a mission at the Dueling Grounds… which shouldn't have been necessary in the first place. You already knew that people become risen after they die. You left those corpses there knowing that they would harm your own people."

"We have more than enough soldiers to handle anything anyone throws our way," scoffed Flavia, "and no one was at risk. The Dueling Grounds are secluded."

"Not enough." Robin shook his head. "Your soldiers and citizens were disappearing. Their families and friends would search for them. We encountered a group like that, and they all died, same as the ones they had been searching for. Thousands upon thousands of people were stored in a mass grave on an island off the east coast."

"The Isle of Lost Souls, where we met up with Nah." Kjelle said, following his reasoning. "There were so many risen there, it would've been impossible to not know about the absence of people on the mainland."

"Aside from that," said Cordelia, "we know that the army you fought alongside wasn't your own, or of Ylisse. We Shepherds encountered an artificial sandstorm and the people who caused it before we arrived here. They weren't Feroxi or Ylissean, and claimed to be Plegian, though their supposed regiment no longer exists. As Henry mentioned, they had among their ranks some powerful mages, who employed unique, dangerous magic."

"First things first: you've admitted to committing a serious crime, one that before Emm's rule would've been punished with death." Chrom said, taking a modicum of control over the conversation. "Second, you're lying to us in some way about what happened. You need to be honest."

Kjelle frowned, but was no longer raising objections. As long as everyone understood that the Khans were no threat to the Shepherds, she had no reason to counter any more arguments. She too was now concerned about the Feroxi leaders' actions.

"Punish us as you see fit." Flavia shrugged. "We did what we knew to be best. In order to realise the most ideal world possible, the Grimleal had to be eliminated, and the Shepherds have to be left standing. We did the right thing."

Robin's gaze narrowed further on Flavia. She seemed so confident that she had done the right thing in killing so many people. He had seen something like that, and the ideal of creating a near perfect world, before - whenever he had encountered the woman in grey and her writings.

Years ago, Robin had followed close that woman's orders, and had ended up failing to save countless people in a war that should never have been so bloody. Perhaps Flavia had done something similar.

"Please, tell us everything you know about the soldiers you fought alongside." Sumia pleaded. "At the very least, can you confirm or deny that they were your soldiers? Our treaties have been violated, but if you used mercenaries or forces from somewhere other than Ferox, Plegia, or the Halidom, then that may change how we address this."

"They're Feroxi. We've established that." Flavia said. Robin frowned at the apparent dismissal of how he had explained such a thing to be impossible. "We violated the treaties, yes, but if you have to punish anyone, then punish Basilio and myself. Our people and yours shouldn't have to suffer."

"Why did you do this?" Chrom asked. "We have alliances and treaties; why turn your back on all of that and assault the people of Plegia?"

"If we didn't, there would end up being another war." Flavia explained. "That might push some of us over the edge. We didn't want that."

Robin's gaze grew cold. Flavia knew about the future in a way she should not - she was doing this for him, knowing that he would end up hurting those he cared about in future conflicts. Not to mention that she had known about Kjelle and the other time travellers when such a thing should have been impossible.

"Won't combating Valm do the same?" Robin asked, deciding to focus on a single matter at a time. "Things have the chance to go wrong there, too. People may be pushed over the edge, as you put it. People may die." If she knew about the future as Robin suspected, she would know about the numerous deaths in Valm. The deaths Robin had caused.

"For all we know, Valm may never invade." Flavia remained calm. Her voice was too level for Robin to not remain suspicious. "There may never be another war again. We can live in peace, without fear of conflict and death."

"They'll invade." Kjelle interjected. "We're fated for conflict. A war is inevitable."

"We don't know that for certain." said Basilio, picking up where Flavia remained silent. "The two of us have chosen to hold out hope as long as we can. With any luck, there won't be any more fighting, period."

"What a thing to hear from the leader of a nation built on conflict!" Robin remarked before shifting gears back to Valm. "The empire is a threat, and we'll handle them. Someone, likely Aversa, has been helping their forces develop, and Cherche's information suggests a pending invasion."

"Nope, not Aversa!" Henry cut in, reminding everyone of his presence. "Your Khan friends and their buddies killed her at the Dragon's Table. I saw that body for myself!"

Robin's expression flashed in surprise as he was forced to rethink his information. "But Valm has been training dark knights, and-" he cut himself off when he saw shock greater than his own on Flavia and Basilio's faces. They, too, had not expected that turn of events. Neither had Kjelle, judging by the way her mouth popped open in shock.

"Henry mentioned that when I conducted a brief interview with him, when I first arrived here." Cordelia said. "Aversa was found dead alongside the Grimleal. He also witnessed a mage controlling the twelve deadlords."

"Nyaha, yep!" Henry confirmed as a multitude of eyebrows shot up around the table. "She was more forcing them around, but still! I hope I get to kill her some day…"

"Your soldiers were controlling the mythical deadlords? Who on earth…?" Chrom asked the Khans in a stupefied fright.

Flavia hesitated for a fraction of a second, giving Robin time for his judgement to manifest as a sharp frown. "That's insignificant. All that matters is that we won the day." she said.

"You don't know, do you?" Robin asked, and though the Khans put up their best fronts, he could tell they were dying to twitch at his revelation. "You weren't at the Dragon's Table."

Flavia paused for several long seconds before breaking out into a wide, pleasant smile. "Ha, we can't sneak anything past you, huh? No, we didn't fight there alongside any army, let alone our own. We didn't even fight."

"What are you-!?" Basilio began, only to be silenced by a disinterested wave from Flavia.

"Our job was to rendezvous with a commander, give them some high-quality weapons, and then help them and their forces kill the Grimleal." Flavia said. "That commander got impatient, and decided to slaughter everyone at the Dragon's Table before we got there. We met with one of their generals, who took the weapons and left."

"This general, was it by any chance the one Henry encountered?" Cordelia asked without missing a beat.

Basilio shook his head and sighed as he accepted that the truth was to be revealed. "It was some mustachioed guy. Not a mage. Crazy beard, but looked nice. Heavy preening."

Cordelia's brow furrowed as she failed to place the man among those from her encounter with the unidentified army. "I can't recall anyone like that… though, to be fair, I didn't meet with everyone."

"Are these people dangerous to us, to our people?" Chrom asked, fearful of the answer he may receive.

"They're strong, but they're our allies. I think." Flavia said. Her words instilled confidence in no one. "They didn't hesitate to kill in Plegia, but they wouldn't do the same to our nations. They were focused on eliminating the Grimleal."

"Do you know where they are, what they're doing, what kind of gear they use, and what manner of training they undergo?" Cordelia asked. "We need to understand them as much as we need to be wary of their unchecked presence."

Basilio shrugged. "Maybe they're still in Plegia, maybe they're in Ferox or Ylisse, maybe they're halfway to Magvel. We haven't the faintest idea."

Chrom brought a hand to his temples and sighed. He wanted to trust the Khans, but they were making it hard to favour them. He could not help but retain skepticism against them, though he knew that to be a fraction of the cold aggression Robin was exhibiting.

"Did you seek these people out, or did they find you?" Robin asked.

Both Khans remained silent for a long moment before Flavia delivered an answer. "A mixture of both, I suppose. We needed help dealing with Plegia, and they were the ones who were available and capable of helping us. Circumstance brought us together."

"So you're saying neither of you sought the other out, but that you happened upon one another?" Sumia asked.

"In a sense." Flavia shrugged, offering little more than a vague non-answer that infuriated Robin. She was hiding something.

"And there's nothing at all you can tell us about them?" Cordelia asked. "What about those weapons you gave them? Were those enchanted or based around wind magic in any way? Those are the type of spells they used when they came across us in Plegia."

"There was a high-powered wind tome or two, sure." Flavia said. "There were also fire and thunder tomes of similar quality - and I mean high quality here. There were legendary weapons that I'm ninety percent certain weren't replicas; things like Gradivus, and Yewfelle, and so much more. Also, a hell of a lot of brave weapons. I don't think any were enchanted."

"Ooh, ooh, did you give them any dark magic tomes, like eclipse, or Grima's Truth?" Henry asked in unbridled excitement. "I'd pay you a dozen arms and legs for one of those!"

Flavia shook her head. Every action she made now struck Robin as being too calm, as though she was too prepared for everything being thrown her way.

"You got legendary weapons for them?" Kjelle asked, having again taken interest in the conversation enough to speak. "Good gods, how many museums did you plunder to get that kind of gear? And why the hell wouldn't you give me some if you knew that I had to fight Robin!?"

"You weren't exactly ready for it when we last met. Also, our disappearing military friends had paid for them in full." Flavia stated. "Thanks for not killing him, though. Your efforts won't be necessary any longer. I can look after anything that develops from here on my own."

Kjelle was dumbfounded to find that she wished to defy the Khan. She had promised to watch over Robin, to ensure that he would never harm anyone else or come to harm himself. Should she not be happy that Flavia was offering to do the same, albeit without warning? The thought of leaving everything to Flavia filled her with nothing but discontent.

Robin retained his sharp glare. Flavia and Basilio both had known about his ties to Grima, a part of his life he had thought secret. That was why they had gone to Plegia in the first place. Everything they were doing was because they had information which they should not yet possess.

"Hey, Sumia?" Robin asked, beginning what he believed would be the final stretch of their conversation. "Did you arrange with Flavia to have me take a vacation across Ferox?"

Sumia blinked, having in no way expected the question. "Um… no? I don't think so. She and I hadn't talked since my wedding, a short time after the war."

Flavia grew confused for a split second before realisation dawned on her. Robin could see the smallest of smiles on her face. She was expecting nothing but Robin's best, and he was more than ready to deliver.

"You knew about the peacekeeping in Plegia without being informed by anyone involved in the process." Robin said to Flavia. "You knew about my ties to Grima long enough in advance to plan an incursion against the Grimleal, and to supply an army with the greatest weapons on the planet. You knew about Kjelle and her friends despite the fact that some of them hadn't yet arrived in this time."

Kjelle froze as she reached an unexpected conclusion. "The Flavia of my time wasn't accounted for in the final battle at Ylisse. You… you're from the future?" she asked the Khan in bewilderment.

"Didn't you hear what Robin said?" Flavia snorted in mocking laughter at Kjelle. "Everyone died. The other Flavia is included in that."

Kjelle leaned back in her seat and struggled to wrap her mind around what the Khan was saying. At the very least, she and Basilio did know more about the future than they should. "Then… how do you know…?"

"Someone told you everything." Robin reasoned, and Flavia's smile returned. "Whoever that person is, they know about the future, and about everything that led up to this moment. Do you know who it is? Have you met them?"

Flavia shook her head. "They wrote to us. Their letters detailed every single event in the war against Plegia, including your existence, before I met you. They talked about the Shepherds, Emmeryn's death, the invasion of Ylisse, Gangrel's death… all of it."

"But you didn't meet them?" Robin asked. For a short moment, he had hoped that he would learn the identity of the unknown woman who had for so long perplexed him.

"They predicted everything…?" Kjelle wondered aloud, knowing that such a thing was impossible, even amongst her and her friends. So much had changed between her time and the present that no one would be able to map out what Flavia was claiming. No one human, anyway. Everything was once again pointing toward the woman shrouded in a grey mystery, the one with the power to fell a god and know what was unknowable.

"Did the same person have you send me on those missions?" Robin asked. His eyes then widened. "She mentioned you, and what you were doing in Plegia. Finding Henry and fighting the Grimleal. She knew about that because she's the one who sent you."

"'She'?" Flavia echoed his ravings. "I don't know about any 'she' or any 'he'. All I know is that I had a reliable informant."

"You 'had' one? Meaning you don't have them anymore?" Cordelia asked, ignoring how flummoxed Robin had become.

"Our contact was through letters, and they didn't give a return address." Flavia said. "They haven't made contact since the day almost two years ago when we received all of their writings. Basilio and I saw how accurate their claims were, and have been acting to fulfill the parts they had outlined for us - which, I'll have you know, ended with the mission in Plegia."

Robin shook his head and looked to Kjelle, forgetting the presence of everyone else in the room. "This is too familiar. There's no way it isn't her."

Kjelle nodded in agreement. She was hesitant to agree with Robin after he himself had admitted to how absurd some of his claims were. Before, she had believed him without difficulty, but now that their discussion was painted in a different light, she had to retain some sense of reason.

"May I ask who you're talking about?" Chrom inquired, having grown as confused as Flavia by their reference to an unknown woman.

Robin opened his mouth to answer, and then froze. "It… it doesn't matter." he said after a long pause.

"She's a mystery woman who predicted the future, and is a gifted mage." Kjelle answered Chrom when Robin would not, ignoring the grandmaster's subsequent glare. "She left strategies for Robin in a journal, does some weird thing where she talks to him through his head, and… and she killed Naga. Robin's stupid enough to think that she's friendly."

"Uh… what?" Chrom asked as he raised an eyebrow high up his forehead.

"Crazy dreams and nonsense. It's inconsequential, as I said." Robin frowned, then directed his attention back to the Khans. "I'm sorry. If you were following her orders, then you were doing what's best for everyone. I pray you have the kindness to forgive my transgressions."

Flavia and Basilio both raised their eyebrows at Robin's sudden turn. "Er, right." Basilio spoke. "Of course we can forgive you. I take it you've experienced something similar to us?"

Robin nodded, but held silent. He could not bring himself to ignore how Kjelle had narrowed her gaze on him.

"Whoever this lady is, she's a godsdamn psychopath." Kjelle said. "She murdered Naga. It was her strategies - ones that Robin tried to alter - that lead to the deaths of Emmeryn, Phila, Gangrel, now Aversa, and countless more. You have to see the kind of person she is!" she addressed Robin directly.

Robin flattened his gaze on Kjelle. "Flavia and Basilio are innocent and free to go. You've fulfilled your goal. Please, leave." he returned his gaze to the two Khans, ignoring Kjelle's aghast expression and the confusion of his friends. "If it's alright with you two, can we talk further? I'd like to know as much about your informant as possible, even if it's so little as discussing the content of her letters."

"Care to go over that bit about Naga dying first?" Flavia asked as Kjelle fumed.

"Oh, yeah, she's dead. Like, super dead." Robin said.

"We went to Mount Prism as an added stop on our journey." Kjelle explained as she reined in her indignation. "Someone had brought her to the brink of death, and had set up a trap to kill her soon after we entered her temple. She's dead."

"That's impossible. She's a god." Chrom refuted. "She's been alive for thousands of years. Legend has it that only someone of her own blood could kill her. Some mage, no matter how powerful they are, wouldn't be able to defeat her."

"The Mark of Naga hasn't faded, either." Sumia remarked, angling her head toward her husband's shoulder. "Not that this has ever been confirmed, of course, but the marks of divine dragons on their chosen line are supposed to fade after said dragon's death. Chrom's Mark of Naga looks as good as ever."

Robin glanced over Chrom. The mark had not faded in the slightest. Robin began to rub at the back of his right hand where he knew the same could not be said for the Mark of Grima. Kjelle watched Robin's every move up until he corrected his posture at the end.

"There's a lot of stuff Robin needs to go over with all of you." Kjelle said, ensuring that her message came across to Robin. "You know - talk through it, work through everything so that other people can help. You in particular, Chrom." she nodded toward the Exalt.

"Yeah, it would appear so." Chrom agreed, his gaze switching between Kjelle and Robin in perplexed concern. He did not want to doubt either of them, but their claims were growing more ridiculous.

Robin cast a quick glare at Kjelle. He how casually she was forcing his hand. Robin sighed and returned his gaze to the Khans across from him.

"I'm willing to end this meeting now, if everyone else is willing, too." he said. "I'm going to have to learn more about your informant and that military force, as well as listen to Cordelia's and Henry's accounts of what happened while I was away. Other than that, I believe we're done here."

Robin began to stand, but was stopped when Cordelia put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back into his seat.

"Let get this straight: an unknown military force commanded by an unknown person committed a genocide in Plegia, and the sole reason you weren't party to it was because you showed up late." Cordelia addressed the Khans.

"Yeah, sounds about right." Basilio confirmed with a shrug.

"The informant told you that there was going to be a genocide, and you followed their orders knowing that people would die?" Cordelia continued, unfazed by Basilio's lack of care.

"Yes, Cordelia, we were both willing to commit genocide in order to save all of you." Flavia cut to the chase, though her voice held far more weight than her fellow Khan's. "We're willing to do anything to keep you safe. You don't know how awful things would've become if the Grimleal had lived."

Robin narrowed his gaze on Flavia, and decided to once and for all end the dance of words that shielded from him the truth. "Did you do it because of me?"

Flavia hesitated for a split second, then nodded. Robin lowered his head and brought a hand to his temples.

"Their crimes should be pardoned." he said after a long moment without movement.

"Excuse me?" Cordelia asked, challenging him through her tone of voice alone.

"If they intended to commit genocide, then we cannot pardon them." Chrom said. "It wouldn't do the deaths of the Plegian people justice. We'll have an official trial."

Robin rose from his seat, shaking his head from side to side. "Kjelle was right. There's a lot I need to talk to everyone in the Shepherds about. We should do that now, before passing judgement."

Chrom eyed Robin before he, too, rose from his seat with a strong sigh. "All right. I'll trust you as much as I can on this, Robin, but you need to remember that we're dealing with a difficult matter. Flavia, Basilio, you cannot leave this city until we've decided our course of action, and we will have guards enforcing that. Please, try to understand our situation."

"As I said, we're willing to accept any punishment you see fit, and we aren't attempting to refute our crimes." Flavia said. "We've done our part. Now's the time for you to do what you believe to be best."

"I'm going to go pull up my documents on war crimes and treaty violations, just to be prepared." Cordelia said to Robin and Chrom as she turned to make her exit. "Call for me when you're going to be addressing us."

"Got it." Robin nodded, and Cordelia exited the inn. He hoped that she, and everyone else, would soon see that fault lay with him, and no one else. The Khans had done a horrible thing, but as it was to avert a far worse future it had to be justified. He knew the Khans had his and everyone's best interests at heart, the same as the unknown woman in grey. That should have been justification enough, yet Robin remained uneasy.

"Nyahaha, this was fun!" Henry laughed as he rose from his seat. "I learned some stuff I shouldn't have, met some nice people, and it sounds like I'm going to get to do a lot of killing! This has been an amazing day!"

"You contributed some valuable information today, Henry." Robin smiled at the mage, who reciprocated the action tenfold. "Cordelia was right to bring you here. Thanks for your help."

"No problem, Robin!" Henry bowed with a surprising amount of theatrical grace, and then departed. He took his unusual pleasant nature out of the room with him as he left.

"Where are you holding this address?" Basilio asked Robin. "I feel as though Flavia and I should be present, considering that it may exonerate us."

"The other inn - the one the Shepherds are using, that looks like it's been through a war and a half." Robin said with a halfhearted gesture in the direction of the building.

"We'll wait for you there, then." Basilio nodded to him, then to Flavia, and the two Khans departed together. Neither held animosity toward Robin, which confused him. His accusations had been beyond severe.

"I suppose I should go announce yours and Kjelle's presences to everyone." Chrom stretched to his side to wrap Robin in a quick embrace. "I'm glad you're here, old friend. Things may grow difficult with the Khans and the fighting to come, but I know that together, we'll make it through."

Chrom broke away from Robin, a contented smile on his face. He stepped away and gestured to Sumia, as if to have her leave with him, but the rider waved him off as she stared at Robin. Her arms crossed as a deep frown found a home on her features. Chrom accepted her dismissal without issue and exited the inn. He had noticed how Robin shook and refused to look at him during their brief embrace.

Sumia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She then opened her eyes and uncrossed her arms, placed one hand on the table before her, and pushed herself to a stand. Then she closed and opened her free hand several times. That hand then closed into a fist and rocketed into the side of Robin's head, sending him careening into the table as Kjelle failed to stifle an instinctive snort of laughter.

"What the hell!? Why do people keep doing this!?" Robin cursed as his hand flew up to nurse his face.

"Oh, gods, I'm sorry! I messed up something as simple as slapping… again…" Sumia apologised, only for her gaze to then harden. "However, my point stands! You're afraid of everything that may happen in Valm because you're afraid of hurting us, aren't you? Don't you see how idiotic that is? Can't you see how much we care about you, how we'll never let that fear consume you?"

"It doesn't matter if you try to stop it if you die anyway." Robin said. "The me from Kjelle's time killed everyone. I don't want that to happen again, no matter what."

"I can see how much this matters to you, and how much you're fighting to change the future." Sumia frowned. "If you can't see the same, then you're blind. If you can't understand that no one will come to harm, then you're an idiot. You're neither of those things. I hope you know that."

"Sumia, I…" Robin began, only to find that he had nowhere to go. "We should talk later. You, myself, and Chrom. We need to speak at length before any fighting starts."

"Find us after the formal address at the inn. We'll have more than enough time for you." Sumia said, her tone growing far more gentle as she turned and exited the inn.

Robin sighed as he continued to rub his cheek. The sting of Sumia's hit refused to fade. He shook his head and stood, already knowing that he would rue his eventual conversation with the two royals, but knew also that his hand had been forced.

"I'm surprised I didn't have to push you into that talk, too." Kjelle gave a forced laugh as she walked over to Robin's side. "Here, let me see your face. I doubt Sumia could hit all too hard."

Robin eyed her cautiously, but acquiesced and lowered his hand, turning his head so Kjelle could see his cheek. There was little chance that she would be of any help in tending to the hit, but Robin did not mind granting her request.

"Damn, nevermind." Kjelle's eyes widened as she held back another short laugh. "I guess she hits hard… serves you right, though, for trying to run away from this. I think she drew blood."

Robin's eyes widened at her revelation, and he again brought his hand up to his face, tapping against where he felt the most pain with two fingers. He drew his hand into his line of sight and was met with a small trace of blood atop his glove. His eyes widened further before he was able to dismiss his irrational fear.

"I don't have many options here. You know that." Robin said, and Kjelle's soft gaze hardened. "I'm doing what I can, but that doesn't look like it's good enough. There's a pressure closing in around me, ensuring I can never forget that I could kill someone I care about at a moment's notice. It's horrible. I'd do anything to be rid of it."

Kjelle's brought a hand up to the side of Robin's head. Robin winced away from another potential hit on instinct, causing Kjelle's expression to sour. She brought her hand to his cheek, resting her palm over the miniscule amount of blood leaking free, ensuring that she would not harm him in any way.

"I promised I'd help you." Kjelle said. "That's what you asked for - for me to keep you in line, and far from hurting anyone. Talking to the Shepherds about what happened will help with that. It helped me deal with what happened in my time, and it'll help you now."

"Thanks, Kjelle." Robin said, and allowed himself to ease a small amount into her open palm. Despite acting antagonistic, she was doing what Robin had asked, and was helping in her own way. "I'm scared about what's going to happen next, but I understand that you're trying to help. So, thanks."

Kjelle smiled. She wished that she could feel the warmth of Robin's face through the cold metal of her gauntlet. "I'm glad. I want to help. I get that you're scared, but I promised to help as much as I can. I'll, ah, try to not let you get punched by your friends anymore. I guess I pushed this whole situation pretty far."

Robin laughed and pulled his face away from her hand. "Wow, that sounds like growth from you. You know people's limits and are trying to work within them? I'm shocked."

Kjelle let her hand fall to her side as she smiled too bright. "Yep! So, you've got a public address and a private conversation I'll make sure you attend, and after that we're training until dawn. Don't think you can escape working out by doing administrative crap like this."

The smile on Robin's face wavered, though he managed to hold his features in place. "Ah, haha, right. Of course. You're still stubborn. Why would that change?"

"Be glad that it's only until dawn and not further." Kjelle said. "You should get over to the other inn. I'll find a vulnerary for you to heal with, but I'm guessing you're going to have to make a lot of reintroductions before you get the chance to make your little speech, so I've got time. See you in a minute." she smiled to him, then turned and exited the inn.

Robin stood still for a short time longer. He sighed before moving his hand back up to his face. He knew that Sumia had not intended to hurt him, but that did little to lessen how the miniscule wound stung. After another sigh, he resigned himself to what was coming, and departed the inn.

Upon reaching the open street outside, he was once again met with the destruction that had befallen the other inn, and was left to wonder how such damage had been dealt. He feared that the Shepherds would be in some way responsible, but knew that Chrom would be capable of compensating any damages.

Robin did not want to face Chrom again. He did not want to accept the reality that he may one day murder the Exalt. No matter how much Sumia attempted to reassure him or Kjelle tried to keep him on a proper path, the feeling of grey continued to eat away at the recesses of his mind, refusing to die out.

Upon entering the old inn, Robin was met with an exorbitant cheer from Vaike. The Shepherd had been lying in wait near the entrance, a drink in his hand. Several other Shepherds were gathered around tables or at the countertop bar the inn sported. More were arriving in the room with every passing second, descending from the second floor.

Robin knew that speaking to all of the Shepherds would be a large event, as would be necessitated by their sheer numbers, but being faced with everyone at once was a different matter. He had thought that he would be nervous, but he was afraid. Though these people were his friends, there was no way all would forgive him for killing them in a near-inevitable future. He would not blame them.

"Ey, long time no see!" Vaike roared into Robin's ear, the scent of strong spirits dripping off of every word. "Here's to the guy that's kept us all alive! How you been doing, Robin? Heard you've had a hell of a time running around the world, fetching time travelling damsels in distress! Sounds like a hell of a time!"

"I think they'd all be pissed at you for saying that." Robin noted, though he bore smile at his friend's familiar presence. "It's good to see you again, Vaike, and it's good to know that you guys are aware about the time travellers. Do me a big favour and try not to make any of them mad, okay?"

"Ha, you got it!" Vaike laughed before an unconcerned frown overtook his features. "Actually, the dragon girl's already mad at me… and the archer… and the redhead…"

"What did you do?" Robin sighed. He knew Vaike well enough to assume that he would be at fault for any awry first impressions.

"I didn't hit on any of them!" Vaike shouted at too loud of a volume.

Robin's gaze narrowed as his suspicion mounted. He was skeptical about Vaike's claims, to say the absolute least.

Cordelia stepped past Vaike, nodding to Robin as she continued on her way out of the inn. "There are some people outside - Sully, Stahl, a few others. I'll get them here in five minutes, tops."

"Thanks, Cordelia." Robin smiled and nodded to the rider. She never failed to demonstrate her attentive excellence. Robin hated that a version of him had sought to harm her.

Kjelle entered the inn as Cordelia exited, a vulnerary in her free hand and an easy smile on her face as she caught sight of Robin. Though Robin had entered via the doorway, Kjelle was content to step through the open space that had been blasted in the framework of the inn.

"Oh? who might you be?" Vaike asked as Kjelle passed Robin the vulnerary. Robin could tell that the fighter was trying to be something resembling suave, which was nothing but painful to behold.

"So this is everyone…" Kjelle breathed, ignoring Vaike. Robin decided that would be for the best and gently pushed Vaike further into the inn. "There's a lot of faces here I don't recognise, or only had described to me, but they're Shepherds. This feels surreal."

"Sully will be here soon." Robin informed her, continuing to push against Vaike as the fighter refused to move. "Some of your friends are around here, too - Nah, Laurent, Noire, and the other two I had the Shepherds find in Plegia."

"Ah, right. Yarne and Severa. I couldn't ever forget them." Kjelle said, her voice less than enthusiastic. She took a deep breath that was exhaled as both a sigh and a frustrated groan. "I don't think I'm quite ready to face Severa. I'll find her when I have the opportunity, and when I know I can handle the scolding of a lifetime."

"You can't avoid her forever, you know." Robin said. "My unsolicited advice? Face her and get it over with. That way, no matter what happens, you can move on."

Kjelle bowed her head and nodded to herself, though she felt no more prepared for the ordeal of reuniting with her friends than before. "Right, right… no use in putting it off. I'll get to it soon." she said, then trained her gaze on Robin once more. "Now then, you've got something to do. Heal yourself and go make your little speech."

Robin sighed and rubbed a small portion of the vulnerary into his cheek. A pointed tingling informed him that the potion was working. He passed the container back to Kjelle and smiled to her in thanks.

Kjelle took the vulnerary and reciprocated the swift smile. "Okay, I'm going to catch up with my friends. If Severa isn't with them. Either way, I'll be here in case you, I don't know, need help, or… something. Good luck explaining all of this."

"Thanks." Robin said, a fraction of his usual enthusiasm behind the word. Kjelle weaved through the Shepherds to find her friends, casting the occasional reverent glance to the people she pushed past, but never once stopping them to indulge her ideals of them as legendary heroes. Robin's pushing against Vaike shifted into a preemptive attempt to hold the fighter in place as Kjelle departed.

Vaike did not attempt to continue his foolhardy advance, but did spin on Robin once Kjelle had reached the far side of the inn. "What the hell, man!? Why'd you send her away? I was this close to scoring!" he slurred and threw up a hand that now held an empty tankard.

"You said one thing to her and then held silent." Robin informed him, knowing that Vaike could have forgotten what had happened mere moments ago.

"Yeah, exactly! I establish my presence and then, after enough neglect, people can't handle being without the Vaike!" Vaike said. "That won't work if you send them away before my magic can settle in, though."

Robin blinked, then shook his head. Trying to reason with Vaike now would be a lost cause. "Whatever you say, Vaike. Though, considering that hasn't worked yet, I don't think it will. Especially not on Kjelle."

"Ha, as if anyone could resist the draw of Teach! Good one, Robin." Vaike laughed. "I hear you got something to say to us all. Why don't you do that, and when you're done, I'll show you how successful my tactics are, hm? Then we can see who the real grandmaster tactician is!"

"Knock yourself out." Robin said, having already accepted the man's inevitable failure. Vaike took his words as a blessing and smiled, spun on his feet to locate Kjelle and, without another word, teetered the wrong way through the inn.

With Vaike gone, a regular stream of old faces washed past Robin, offering their greetings. Many voiced perplexion regarding the notion of time travel, but none allowed their confusion to impede their heartfelt welcoming of an old friend.

Most of the greetings washed over Robin. They all felt surreal, as though none of the people he was seeing were truly people, and that he was instead imagining visages of them. He could feel Gregor slap him on the back, and Tharja attach to his side before being pulled away by Virion, and Lissa's happy hug, but none of it was tangible. There was no sense of grey muddying their words or willing their actions, but there was still nothing.

Then, all of a sudden, the grey was there. A sense of nothing became grey, identical in all but name. It pushed against him and compelled him to accept the nothingness. It informed him of how everything would be useless once the Shepherds were dead, once he became their collective murderer.

Robin stepped his way to the inn's counter and placed a hand on its surface to support his unsteady legs. The grey was pulling sensation from the world around him, threatening silence and solitude on an unprecedented level. Robin felt as though he had been doing so well; sure, he had been afraid to see Chrom, but he had managed to tell Kjelle about everything troubling him, and had told Sumia about his fears. That counted for nothing to the grey.

A hot haze replaced the nothingness, washing over Robin's body and mind. The heat forced his thoughts into a stuttering mist, preventing him from processing anything. His arms began to feel weak as his hands shook. His vision ebbed as a lilting wave of grey washed over his eyes, eating away his sight as a steady tide.

"Hey, Robin? Are you feeling okay?" someone spoke up, their force somehow carrying through the grey.

Robin shook his head and saw that Ricken was standing at the counter next to him. The young Shepherd was leaning toward Robin, with concern etched into his features. Robin blinked and shook his head again, casting away more of the grey in what he knew would prove to be a futile effort.

"I wanted to say hi, after not seeing you for so long, but you look sick." Ricken observed, the concern on his expression leaking into his voice. "Are you okay? Anything I can do to help?"

"Er, sorry, Ricken. I'm a little nervous, I suppose." Robin lied, hoping that it was believable enough to avoid further prying. "I've got a speech to make, and… yeah. Public speaking, you know? Nerves get destroyed."

 _Why am I lying?_ Robin thought to himself. Ricken, as with everyone else, would know the truth about who he was in a matter of minutes. There was no reason to hide what he would soon explain in depth. It was not as if Kjelle would allow him to turn and run from this.

"Ah, I get it." Ricken smiled. The majority of his worry disappeared in an instant. "I haven't had to make any big speeches, so I don't have any advice to give you, but I think you'll do well. You tend to do things well - if not, we wouldn't all be here before you know. If it does get difficult, though, remember that you're among friends. We won't hold any slip up against you. You've got this!"

Robin tried to reciprocate the boy's easy smile. "Thanks, Ricken. I'll do my best."

Ricken continued to smile as he vacated Robin's personal space. The young Shepherd's assertion of friendship helped to slow the grey, but it made Robin's body feel much weaker.

Robin forced his breathing to remain steady as he struggled to fight against the grey. He wanted to find some kind of confidence in the people before him, but turning to face them offered no solace, and he was unable to quiet his disparaging thoughts.

Then he caught sight of Kjelle, of how she was watching him with the smallest of smiles on her face, and he was able to feel calm. Kjelle was supporting him. He refused to fail her.

Heads turned in wait for him to begin. Robin latched onto that sensation of calm, knowing that he could succeed as long as Kjelle believed in him. As long as his friends supported him. That was what everyone was reminding him about, what he had blinded himself to seeing in fear of how he would react. Robin would do anything for them, and they would do anything for him.

Robin took a deep breath and began. "So, ah… I have no idea how to start this." he gave an awkward laugh. "Nice to see you all again. It's been a while, so… yeah."

Most conversation died as he spoke, leaving only a few murmurs as the Shepherds waited for him to continue. In a way, it reminded him of how they interacted before a battle, how people would fall silent as they received verbal modifications to his orders.

"So, all of you should know about the time travellers. If not, here's some of them." Robin raised a hand toward where Kjelle stood with Nah, Laurent, and Noire. Severa was not with them, so far as Kjelle's unconcerned expression was any indication.

The door to the inn opened again as the Shepherds muttered about their new introductions. Cordelia entered with Sully, Stahl, and Miriel in tow. Sully and Stahl were both nursing wounds while Miriel was checking on their conditions and jotting down notes in an unmarked tome.

"Ah, hell, you started without us?" Sully rubbed the back of her neck as she scanned the crowd watching Robin. "Well, I guess that's on me. I was the one to drag this lout out for some training." she elbowed Stahl in the side, causing him to wince.

"Right, sorry, I forgot to wait." Robin apologised and nodded to Cordelia. He did not wait for their greetings in turn as he instead looked to Kjelle, gauging her response to their arrival.

Kjelle's gaze had fixated on Sully, miring itself in uncertainty. She caught Robin's evaluation and only then realised that she was looking at her mother. Nah whispered something to Kjelle, furthering her understanding of the situation, and her eyes brightened as she smiled. She seemed happy. Robin was glad.

"The only thing I've mentioned so far is the time travellers." Robin restarted his address, gesturing once more toward where Kjelle stood with her friends. "Many of you may hold doubts about their claims, but I assure you that they are honest. They are from a ruined future. I trust them, as I hope you all will, too."

Mutters radiated out from the Shepherds. Some stared at the time travellers, some shifted their footing in unease. Robin realised that he had no idea how much of his treachery had been made known to them in his absence. Not that it would matter in a few minutes.

"That waste of space is claiming to be the daughter of the future me." Tharja spoke up from a secluded corner of the inn, and Robin did not have to see her to know that she was gesturing toward Noire. "Am I to believe that claim, too?"

"Yeah, that's true, too." Robin confirmed, eliciting more murmurs. "As far as I know, every one of them is a child of two Shepherds, though that's no longer true for this timeline." he glanced to Kjelle for confirmation, to which she nodded.

"See!? I told you, I'm not… ah… haha… I-I didn't mean to…" Noire shouted before falling to a weak whisper as her enthusiasm failed her. She paled and withered as heads turned toward her, willing them away through her sheer awkwardness.

"Right. Anyway." Robin continued. "There are some of them we haven't yet met, and we don't know where those people will be. We need to keep an eye out for them, but we also need to understand why they're here, which brings me to the main point of this whole speech."

He sighed from the bottom of his chest before continuing, "in their future, I killed everyone. Every single Shepherd died to my hand or my strategies. I murdered the majority of you in Valm, and then killed the survivors in Ylisse. The time travellers escaped because of sacrifices some of you made. You bought time for Naga to construct a portal that transported them to our present."

More murmurs, intermingled with charged disbelief. Robin had expected more animosity. Most of the unfavourable reactions came from the time travellers themselves who, bar Kjelle, continued to regard him with skeptical disdain at best.

"I know that some of you may hate me for this, and you should." Robin continued. "It's a terrible thing, and I… I can't explain why I would do it. There's no justification that would make any sense. The me of their future was insane and evil, and I…"

"Bullshit." Sully called out with a snort of laughter. "I don't know what kind of tale you're trying to spin here, but you've been nothing but kind from day one. Sure, you get caught up in your work more than what's healthy, but that proves that you want to do everything you can to help us out. If someone says that you're going to kill us all, not only would I like to see you try, but I'd call them out on their crap, too."

"That's not- no." Robin denied her support, struggling to find words for his hazy thoughts. He reached for the glove on his right hand and pulled it away, revealing his Mark of Grima to the room. His eyes closed as he feared the response his friends would give. "I'm Grimleal, technically. In the future, I somehow became Grima, or took their power, or something that made me more of a threat. I've kept this hidden because I know it would show you the kind of person I really am. My status became known in the final days of the future, when I used it to manipulate the majority of people toward death. That's what a tactician does - manipulates and lies."

He opened his eyes and found Kjelle, glossing over the gazes he received from everyone else for fear of what he would see. Rather than the reassuring smile that told him he was progressing in the right direction, Robin was instead met with a discontent frown. The raised eyebrows of Kjelle's friends at his brazen reveal told him that he was doing well, though.

"Haha, is that supposed to prove that you're evil? 'Cause I don't buy it!" Henry laughed, breaking Robin's search for validation. "I don't know you that well, but you seem like a fun guy. If a Mark of Grima means you're evil, then it means that I'm evil, too - and probably the scary lady over there!" he pointed to Tharja.

"He's right. Mostly." Tharja glared at, then agreed with Henry. "A mark wouldn't compel you to kill anyone or become Grima, even if you were his chosen vessel. You would have to make the choice of your own volition - something that you would never do."

"You don't know me. Not at all." Robin argued, now willing everyone he laid eyes on to hate him, to prove his fears justified. "I… I've thought the same things as the future me. What it would be like to kill some of you. I don't want to; I don't know why I do it. It just happens, and I don't think there's anything I can do to stop it, except… except for doing everything I can to keep all of you safe from me."

Kjelle bit her tongue as her glare on Robin reached a new level of silent fury. She wanted to burst forth and speak on how he had wished to die, to interrupt him and tell the Shepherds about what she believed to be his greatest treachery. Even so, she held herself back. To expose such sensitive information would be to cross a point of no return that Robin would have to confront himself.

"So you've considered means through which to kill us?" Lon'qu asked, not waiting for a response before continuing. "Hmph. I would expect no less from someone whose greatest talent is strategy. You're complicating a matter that is natural for you - and, I believe, for anyone here. To be among so many gifted warriors and not envision victory over them would be questionable."

"No, no, it's not like that." Robin refuted the Shepherd. "I think of murdering people, not defeating them in combat. I send them to their deaths or kill them myself. There's no question of battle or refutation. It's not acceptable in any way. It's malignant, and I know that it's drawn me close to hurting some of you - who I do care about - against all of my rationality, and my best wishes."

"I'd be lying if I said that I hadn't thought of anything similar." Tharja said, causing Robin to frown. "It's like you say - no battle or contention, simply killing people who I… you know, don't hate. Getting them to shut up when I'm working, or to get rid of them when I want to be alone. It's understandable."

"You aren't listening." Robin grimaced, his voice holding enough frustrated tension for it to be bordering a shout. "It's not to quiet anyone, or to help myself, or for any reason at all. I myself am malignant. I have the opportunity to kill, and I do so without a second thought! I declared war on Valm, knowing Chrom would approve anything I sent him, because I wanted to kill! I don't care about bettering my situation or myself; all I do is kill because I can! I'm a threat! Can't you see that!?"

"Ah, hell, I hope this wasn't brought on by me telling you how expendable I am…" Vaike muttered in a moment of clarity between drinks. "It's been a while, but I bet you remember. You've always remembered all the little stuff I say. I didn't mean to make you think that we would up and die, or to make you think you had the opportunity to kill any of us."

"I'd like to see you try to take us on." Sully frowned at Robin. "Hell, even me alone - my ratio against you is pretty damn good. We can take this outside right now and you'll see that there's nothing to be concerned about. You aren't gonna break us like we're porcelain dolls."

"Why aren't you taking this seriously!?" Robin fumed, his voice wavering between a shout and a whimper. "I don't want anyone to die! I don't want to hurt anyone! I don't… I don't want to do this…!"

Kjelle's winced as Robin grew distraught. One of his hands shook as he ran it through his hair. He was being pushed too far. Kjelle no longer believed his situation was being helped

"Hey, can you make a diversion?" she nudged Nah, to a small pocket on the Manakete's shirt she knew to contain her dragonstone.

"You're kidding me. If he freaks out now, everyone will learn his true nature." Nah whispered, not caring to divert her attention from Robin. "I'm not going to let him escape this. I'll watch him squirm, and I'll enjoy every second of it."

"Remember what I talked to you about, how I wanted to help him and that he didn't have to die?" Kjelle asked, growing more conscious of how much time Robin was spending on the border of a meltdown. More Shepherds were throwing reassurances in his direction to no avail.

"He's admitting to all of his treachery! Why would you stop that!?" Nah hissed.

"Please, Nah. Help me help him." Kjelle pleaded. The earnest tone of her voice caused Nah's eyebrows to shoot up. "I made a promise to stop him from going too far, from hurting or killing the Shepherds, or himself. Help me fulfill that promise."

"Once upon a time, you made a promise to kill Robin. What changed?" Nah asked, though she did not wait for an answer before she sighed. "Gods, I don't think I've heard you beg before. I kind of liked it. I'll help you."

Kjelle smiled and switched her gaze back to Robin. "Thanks, Nah. That wasn't begging, but thanks."

"Whatever you want to tell yourself." Nah said, a small smile working over her lips before it morphed into a dismayed frown. "Damn. You have no idea how much trouble I went through to keep Nowi from knowing that I'm a Manakete. Are you sure you want me to use my dragonstone. Could I get Laurent to set something on fire?"

"Didn't you say you were going to talk to Nowi, and reveal yourself as her daughter?" Kjelle asked.

Nah's frown became more of a pout as her ears flattened, heralding some angry mumbling. "I know I said I would, but she's so childish. I didn't want to… ugh. Fine. Let's get this over with. I hate you, Kjelle."

"Love you too, Nah." Kjelle smiled and stepped away to give the Manakete space to transform. She knew not what Nah intended to do, but she knew that it would be more than enough to distract everyone from Robin.

Nah sighed a final time as she stepped forward, pushing through the crowd until she was able to locate Nowi. "Hey, Nowi!" she whispered, nudging forward with an elbow to grab her technical mother's attention.

Nowi turned to her, though her concern at Robin's deteriorating condition remained present through her smile. "Oh! Hi, girl-who-pretends-to-be-a-dragon-to-mess-with-people-but-really-isn't! Er, your name was… Nah, right? What's up?"

Nah held herself back from sighing over Nowi's gullibility. Fooling her had been easier than any other task Nah had performed her life.

She cleared her throat and began again. "I'm a Manakete. Robin is right about people coming from the future and being related to these Shepherds. I'm your daughter."

"What?" Nowi asked in confusion, her face overtaken by a stubborn perplexion that infuriated Nah. "No; you told me you couldn't transform. You even held up that dragonstone replica you bought from Anna and nothing happened. You're not a Manakete, just a mean girl playing a meaner trick!"

Nah withheld a disgusted recoil as Nowi was brought to the verge of tears. She understood that her mother believed herself to be one of the last Manaketes in existence, and the emotional turmoil of being lied to, but that was no reason for her to be so immature.

"I lied, Nowi… mother." Nah said, and produced her dragonstone from a pocket at her side. "My apologies for not telling you sooner; I… hadn't thought it to be for the best. Now watch me."

Nowi trained her gaze on Nah as the younger Manakete made her way to the inn's exit. Nah held up her dragonstone as she neared the wall next to the exit. It was more than weak enough for her to break through.

Her dragonstone began to glow as she coursed magic through it, calming herself in the moment before her transformation. This was to be her first time transforming since Robin had destroyed her original stone, the one she had been gifted by her true mother before the Valmese war, when she was yet unaware of the world. She wanted to pretend as if that stone had held little value to her, but using a new conduit to transform felt unnatural.

A warm light enveloped Nah. That light washed over the Shepherds in a dazzling radiance. Petals of energy sprang forth from nothingness to enclose Nah. The Shepherds turned to face her despite their concern over Robin's condition, ad Kjelle had desired. Any who were not redirected were pulled over by Nowi's excited screaming.

The warmth of Nah's transformation traveled through her, bathing every nerve in her body in a satisfying glow. The energy then began to convert into matter, merging with her skin and bones to morph them into a dragon. To Nah, it felt as though she was still her humanoid self, only now with the extension of wings and a tail that she could operate at will, not to mention changes in her perception of her surroundings. She did not know if other Manaketes felt the same - she had never had the opportunity to ask.

This time, as the warmth became scales and flesh, a pang of cold emerged in her core. Her chest tightened at the foreign sensation, but her transformation was soon completed as her ethereal light faded. She was left with nothing but a fleeting memory of a near-forgotten sensation.

"Oh my gods, yes!" Nowi erupted in happiness. She calmed herself enough to reach for her dragonstone, sending magic coursing through it as soon as her hand made contact with its surface.

Within an instant, she too had transformed, forcing those nearest her away for fear of being caught by her extending wings. Nowi launched herself toward Nah, who in turn flew out of the way, allowing Nowi to crash through the inn wall and emerge into the street.

Nowi hurtled into the street in a fit of happy laughter and ascended into the sky. She began spinning and looping out of pure bliss. Nah worked her way out of the inn's destroyed wall and, remaining in her dragon form, craned her head to watch Nowi soar. Part of her envied how carefree the other Manakete was, and she was glad to have another dragon to interact with. Neither part stopped her from sighing and hanging her head low before taking to the sky herself.

"No, Nowi! Don't play with your breath like that!" she shouted once she knew herself to be safe from the gazes of the Shepherds. She hoped none had come to know her well enough to surmise how exaggerated her speech was at every word.

Her own flames then rained down on the side of the inn, bathing it in hues of green and blue. Nah made sure to weaken her attack to avoid hurting anyone within the structure. Nevertheless, her magical flames were enough to evacuate many of the Shepherds.

Nah made certain to ascend as high as possible before anyone exited the inn, keeping her identity as the assailant unknown. She continued to ascend higher than what was necessary, closing in on Nowi as the other Manakete soared high above Port Ferox. Nah's presence in the sky was decided; she may as well try to enjoy herself.

"Did Nowi not know that the dragon girl was her daughter?" Vaike asked no one as he watched the two fly around one another in the sky, confusion etched into his sloppy features. "I mean, she's the last of a dying race. We've met time travellers who hang out with that Nah girl. Even I was able to connect the dots."

He continued to stare at the sky as Nowi began breathed playful fire at Nah, who dodged out of the way of every attack with the best scowl she could show. Most of the other evacuated Shepherds dodged out of the way as dregs of fire rained down toward them, but Vaike continued to stare up at the sky, oblivious to his danger until Lon'qu pulled him out of the street.

Inside the inn, Kjelle remained alongside her fellow time travellers, which to her significant dismay included Severa. The mercenary looked nothing short of pissed, though Kjelle knew that to be little more than her resting expression. Her smile was more intimidating than a frown or snarl.

Aside from them, Chrom and Sumia both remained in the inn, too concerned for Robin to dare leaving. As the flames Nah had spewed quieted, they remained inside. They went so far as to wave for the Shepherds to remain clear of the building to grant themselves and Robin some privacy.

Robin was beginning to calm. He knew himself to be evil. Why would the people he would hurt try so much to support him? It made no sense, and he therefore hated it.

"What on earth has happened here?" Laurent wondered aloud as he translated his gaze from Robin to the ruined wall of the inn.

"Nah somehow tricked Nowi into thinking they weren't related, and I guess she only now revealed the truth?" Yarne answered what Laurent had intended to be a rhetorical question. "Ha, as if my mother didn't know who I was as soon as she caught my scent. Can't Manaketes do the same?"

"Listen, I'm glad you all have the will to remain here after something like that." Chrom said, waving away a few more Shepherds one final time before turning to the time travellers. "However, for the moment Sumia and I require some privacy with Robin, to discuss what happened here."

Kjelle ignored Chrom and made her way toward Robin. "Hey. So… you tried." she said to him, her voice soft.

"It didn't work out well. It should've, but it didn't." Robin replied as his composure returned. "I don't understand what happened. I couldn't do it."

"You did your best. All this means is that you'll have to do better next time." Kjelle said, hoping that she was walking the line between reassurance and cold reinforcement. Robin required both.

"Right. Next time." Robin muttered.

"You'll do fine. If not, I'll back you up." Kjelle smiled as she tapped her fist on his shoulder. She continued to smile as she stepped away, ensuring that the action was known to him, and then exited the inn to give Chrom his requested space. She avoided Severa as she went.

Severa followed her friend with her gaze until Kjelle had left, at which point she returned her focus to Robin. She shook her head and fell into a scowl, but her surprise had come across all the same.

"Ah, I don't think I've met you." Robin smiled to Severa, ignoring the deepened scowl he received. "I'm Robin. Are you-?"

"Severa. It's a pleasure." Severa introduced herself. She bore more spite than Robin thought he would receive from the time traveller.

"Right." Robin nodded, and then turned to the Taguel hiding away near the inn's far wall. "You're… Yarne, was it? Panne's son? I've heard about you."

"Er… ah, yeah." Yarne nodded, shaking as he overcame his nerves. "You, ah, heard about me through Kjelle, I take it?"

"Yeah." Robin nodded. "I snooped a little, but yeah. It's nice to meet you. So, you all probably want to kill me, huh?"

"No, no, no! Not at all!" Yarne denied his mission. He was so vehement that Robin was on the verge of believing him. "Nah and Noire explained everything. Er, Laurent helped, too. They told us about how Kjelle was trying to stop you from being evil, and that we could only try to kill you after she fails… uh, not that she would fail."

"I'm sorry to be rude, but can you all leave?" Chrom asked, reminding the time travellers of his and Sumia's presence.

"Of course. Our apologies." Laurent bowed his head before making to exit the inn. He waved the remaining time travellers after him. Each of them left before ensuring that Severa had made her departure.

"Do you mind if I talk to Robin for a moment?" she asked Chrom, feigning a sweet voice of which Robin immediately grew suspicious.

"Are you going to try to kill me?" Robin asked.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, silly!" Severa laughed, and on instinct Robin took a step away from her. He knew little about her beyond what Kjelle had spoken about, but her behaviour was striking him as deserving of caution.

"Yeah, I'm going to stay here." Robin said, nodding to reassure himself of his decision. "Nice to meet you, Severa. I have to go talk to- oh, gods…" he groaned, realising that sending the time traveller away would herald the most uncomfortable conversation he would ever have. "Are you sure you don't want to kill me?"

"Severa, please?" Sumia asked, her voice warm but commanding.

After a moment of questionable silence, Severa smiled and nodded, again putting Robin on edge. "Go ahead. I'll find you later, Robin, okay? See ya!"

Robin raised a concerned eyebrow as Severa waved goodbye and exited the building. His gaze then translated over to Chrom and Sumia, where he found that they shared his horror.

"That was disturbing." Chrom observed before turning to Robin. "You may want to avoid her for a while. I don't know how much you know about her, but that wasn't normal."

"Yeah, I get that." Robin said. "Out of curiosity, can we delay this talk a little bit? You know, handle Nah and Nowi, and the Khans, and the war, and…"

"We're doing this now, Robin." Sumia crushed his vain hope. "You've convinced yourself that you wanted to hurt us. You aren't accepting our attempts to help you. That needs to be talked about."

"There's a chance that I may be the evil Robin-Grima from that future." Robin said after grimacing, his voice growing weaker. "I may be the one who killed all of you. I don't want that to be true, but it's a possibility. It would explain my memory… dream… things."

"You're not that kind of person, Robin." Chrom reassured his friend. "You've saved us in battle countless times. It doesn't matter what you think of yourself, because I know who you are, and you're a good person. Your fear won't change that."

Robin blinked. The sensitivity in Chrom's voice quieted his tremors for a short moment. "That's not true, Chrom. I nearly killed Kjelle, and Noire, and Nah, and I did end up killing so many people over these past weeks. I've felt as though I've come close to harming you, too."

"Please, Robin, be honest with us." Sumia tried to soothe him, but her concern proved more prevalent. "Tell us what's bothering you in full. There has to be some kind of way we can help."

Robin sighed and held his gaze far from his friends. He knew he had to tell them, to speak with them. Kjelle would ensure he did - he had made her promise to do exactly that. His past self knew that he could not run, no matter how much his present mind desired to do so.

"A woman told me how to act in the war against Plegia. She ordained all that occurred." Robin confessed. He was thankful that Chrom and Sumia held silent. "She informed about my relation to Grima, and knew of the time travellers, and set up mass graves of people turned risen. I think she's guiding Valm. She wants to usher in a golden future. I want to love her, and she wants to help us, but…"

"Is she the cause for your insecurity?" Chrom questioned in a gentle voice when Robin trailed off.

"The world she wants would keep the Shepherds alive. That's a goal she and I share. I wanted to keep you all alive so much that I… I wanted to die, because I knew I killed you in the future."

"Because of what this woman told you?" Sumia asked.

Robin nodded. "That, and what Kjelle and the other time travellers have experienced. I destroyed their time."

Chrom grimaced for a long, silent moment before he shook his head. "You're a fool, Robin. You wanted to die to help us in an undecided future? What insanity is that!? We stand together,no matter what, and that is how we will face any challenges we face. We… I refuse to lose you."

"Chrom, I…" Robin began, but swiftly found that he couldn't find words fast enough. "I… I don't…"

"You have to understand how horrible your loss would be for us, Robin." Sumia said. "We don't want you to die. It's wrong to think that your death would help anyone."

"I get that, but…" Robin said, trailing off as he again failed to find words. He did know that his death would hurt people; Frederick had been certain to tell him as such, and the unknown woman had prized his life. All he wanted was to keep everyone safe.

"There has to be something we can do. Some way to make you see what we see." Sumia continued. "We want to help you, Robin, to make sure you're okay and that you stop thinking like this. Please, tell us how to do that."

Robin winced. Sumia's pleading sounded more desperate and sincere than he could have thought. This was part of the reason he had not wanted to face everyone again; he knew that any confrontation would be difficult. He had wanted to die without having to face any of the problems he knew would be left in his wake.

"I… I don't know what to say, or what to do, or anything." Robin said, biting back the early stages of tears. "I'm scared. There's so much to be afraid of, and I don't know how to face any of it."

"It's good that we're going to Valm, then." Chrom frowned and pulled Robin into a tight embrace. "This woman, the one you claim killed Naga, who made you feel this way, who has a vision for the future I'm certain will be paved in more blood than yours or the civilians she and the empire have killed… we'll find her. We'll get answers for her actions, and I'll make certain that she cannot enact any more harm. We can make certain of that together."

"We'll do everything we can to help, Robin." Sumia said. She wanted to join their embrace, but their interaction somehow felt more special without her interference. "Talk to us whenever you get the chance. We'll always be here for you."

"I… I-I'm sorry… I'm so, so sorry…" Robin whimpered, now allowing his tears to fall free as he leaned into Chrom's welcoming arms. "I… I'm sorry."

Robin knew that dying would hurt everyone, but he had believed it to be a lesser pain than what their deaths would have inflicted on him. Perhaps he was wrong about that. Perhaps he was being too selfish to see how his loss would harm everyone he cared about.

All that mattered now was that Chrom was with him, holding him and ensuring that everything would be okay. Robin needed no more help than that, for now. Nothing mattered beyond continuing this money of security for as long as possible.

Nothing mattered as long as he had the Shepherds. As long as he had Chrom.

* * *

 **This chapter is pretty much where Lucina gets her real proper start for her role in the story. Also, Robin starts to realise how much he's blown his situation out of proportion and how far he made it go before he bothered trying to address it properly.**

 **Now that everyone is now more or less on the same page, the Valm section of this story can begin! I think I should have started near this point and not with thirty chapters of buildup, but at least that means this part will be better written.**

 **Status: As of 29-07-19, I'm on chapter 38. I thought I would be getting a lot done these past few weeks, but apparently not.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	32. Chapter 32

Lucina yawned as her father pulled her through the castle halls. Her morning clothes had been prepared for her despite her drowsiness. She was sleeping poorly as of late - not since her mother had died, and the Shepherds had announced their coming war with Valm, had she rested well. No one was sleeping well anymore.

The adults were trying their best to put on shows of confidence. They wore happy smiles that guaranteed them to return home with nothing but stories of victory to share over a warm fire. Lucina knew they were lying. She had started to see how fake their smiles looked, how they were all so afraid and uncertain beneath their thin veneers.

Today, though, her father seemed happy. He was truly happy - not the lie worn by everyone else. His eyes were bright, and whenever Lucina asked where they were going he would give her a genuine smile. Lucina had spent so much time mimicking that expression, standing in front of mirrors and forcing her eyes to light, and so she knew how difficult such expressions were to make. For someone to do it naturally must mean extraordinary things.

As Lucina continued to fend off the draw of sleep, the two arrived at a grandiose set of doors. Chrom said something Lucina could not properly hear as he rubbed her sleep from her eyes.

Chrom flashed another genuine smile, checked the halls over both of his shoulders, and pushed open the doors before him. Their opening revealed to Lucina large bookcases and thick blue curtains, as well as a large desk occupying the centre of the room. She was soon able to place her location as Robin's grandmaster study. Chrom would bring her here whenever they had free time together. Lucina sometimes thought that her father loved Robin as much as herself, or as much as he had once loved Sumia.

"Ah, Chrom! Finally. I'd started thinking that a risen had gotten hold of you." a woman's voice sounded as the Exalt entered the room with Lucina in tow. Lucina had not heard this voice much before, but she was able to place her blonde ponytail and fair dark skin as being that of Khan Flavia.

"My apologies; Lucina was having a little difficulty getting up." Chrom said, his voice warm. As soon as he and Lucina were both inside the study, he turned and closed the doors, ensuring their privacy.

"I'm glad you could make it. You're as reliable as ever." Robin smiled, and Lucina only now realised that the grandmaster was seated at his desk. "I think I know someone who might be happier than me, though. Why don't you go say hello?" he turned to his side and looked down at something concealed behind his desk.

"She's shy, but getting better. Her vocabulary is coming along well." Flavia said, though Lucina did not hear her. Rather than focus on the Khan, Lucina was instead staring at the shuffling of tiny robes and the unhappy murmuring of someone young doing their best to converse with an adult.

"So I've heard. Robin can't stop bragging about her, now that you two aren't keeping things a secret." Chrom said, and Lucina knew without looking that he was happy. "I'm surprised you managed to get away with it for so long. I mean, having a child so soon after the war, and managing to keep your marriage hidden through everything? I couldn't imagine it…"

"Yeah. It was something." Flavia shied away from the topic. She knew it to be a sensitive topic for the widowed Exalt - Sumia had been buried days ago.

"You're going to war, aren't you? To where people die?" a frail voice spoke up. Its source remained hidden behind Robin's desk. Lucina tilted her head as the figure refused to reveal herself.

"Daddy is, but I'm not. I'll be right here with you as much as I can." Flavia said, her voice as warm as she could make it, and her smile a mixture of false and real that Lucina could not interpret.

"I'll be back soon. I promise." Robin said to the hiding figure, with what Lucina believed to be a less genuine smile on his face. She did not know whether or not he was lying.

"You're not coming to Valm, Flavia? But I thought-" Chrom began in shock. He was cut off by a groan from Robin.

"Gods, Chrom, do you read my reports?" the grandmaster scowled and rose from his chair in visible frustration. Lucina could tell that he was exaggerating his movements. "Basilio's already on board. If Ylisse or Ferox are attacked while we're away, they'll need a capable leader to keep order - that's why we have the superior Khan staying here to keep everything safe." he smiled a fake smile to Flavia, who responded with a genuine grin.

Lucina hated the way Robin's eyes lit up when he spoke of war. She understood that he was a tactician, and that conflict was part of his job, but his false smile was concealing too much genuine glee.

A rustle brought Lucina's attention back to the side of the desk. Flavia had moved to coerce a young girl out of hiding with the smiles and warmth only a mother could provide. Lucina reminded herself to not miss that warmth.

"There we go!" Robin smiled, and this time it was free of the oddities that disturbed Lucina. This version of him was far more likable, yet remained disturbing in a strange way.

The room was silent for an instant as Lucina stared at the child. She was smaller than Lucina, with much shorter hair that was a pale whitish-blonde rather than her deep blue. The girl was wearing a cloak that appeared to be custom made for her small stature, though it was a size too large. It matched Robin's attire precisely.

Chrom cleared his throat after the instant of silence had stretched into a long moment. "Why don't you introduce yourself, Lucina?" he suggested.

Lucina nodded to the command and set about her practiced introduction. "Greetings. I am Lucina, princess of the Ylissean royal family. It is a pleasure to meet with you. If I'm ever not with my protector sir Frederick, my father Exalt Chrom, or my mo- uh, then, please locate them and inform them of my position at once. My thanks to you."

The girl stared at Lucina, tilting her head for long enough that the princess did the same. "Uh… I'm Morgan." she introduced herself with a restrained, uncertain voice.

"Don't worry yourself about the princess thing, Morgan." Robin advised, his voice again holding no negativity as he spoke with a loving warmth. "She's as much a princess as Chrom is a king. They're not what you'd expect from your history lessons. Besides, you're practically of the same status as her."

"Er… right." Morgan murmured, then did her best to smile at Lucina. The expression was in no way false. "I'm Morgan. Its It's nice to meet you, princess Lucina."

"It's nice to meet you, too, Morgan." Lucina said. Not knowing how to introduce herself further, Lucina extended a hand that Morgan took on instinct, which they then both shook up and down.

Morgan looked at their hands, perplexed as to why either of them had done such a thing, before she pulled away. "Ah… okay. Do you like magic, Lucina? Or strategy?"

"Are you training her to be a tactician?" Chrom asked in a judgemental deadpan.

"Better than a princess, I'd say." Robin smiled, and it was again unsettling. "She's taken quite a shining to her tactical studies, too."

"I've started making my own plans!" Morgan beamed at Chrom. "I won a match against father! He was trying to use knights in a swamp, but I got all of my pegasi to hit them a bunch until he couldn't keep going!"

"That was a study exercise." Robin explained, his words too assured honest. "I wanted to test her skills, and she did well. She used high movement and effective weapons to keep the armours in the swamp. She's going to do well with her studies."

Morgan grinned at his praise, and though she found difficulty reading such situations, Lucina knew that the entire family was happy. Flavia's worries, Robin's disconcerting behaviour, and Morgan's nerves washed away when all three were together.

"Ah, so you've pulled out those old war games, have you?" Chrom breathed, his tone wistful. "It's good to know that your daughter is doing better at them than I ever could. I know she'll do well with you two supporting her."

"Ha! Those games couldn't hold a candle to the kinds of things of which Morgan is capable." Flavia boasted, a conceited smile on her face. "The three of us are Feroxi, be it by blood or by law, Chrom. Morgan has no use for simple games when she has soldiers at her disposal."

"You- you're using people? Not fictional characters?" Chrom blinked in surprise. "That's, uh… a step above anything we used to do. It doesn't sound safe."

"The Feroxi soldiers knew what they were getting into when they signed up." Robin shrugged. "Though, I suppose the same can't be said of the conscripts, or of those who have no other way of life…"

Chrom's expression soured, though he managed to rein in a friendly appearance. Morgan seemed in no way perturbed by her use of live soldiers in her tactical challenges. Lucina doubted that the girl understood the grim reality of her actions.

"Don't worry. We'll be certain to stop anything before it can get out of hand." Robin said, his voice cold, smooth, and a tad too eager.

"Hey, are you okay?" Morgan whispered to Lucina before she could eavesdrop further. The young tactician paid little attention to anything in the room, but had narrowed her focus to a concerned point on Lucina. "You look uneasy."

Lucinda blinked and neutralised her expression. "I was unaware. Sorry; I'm fine."

Morgan grinned as Lucina spoke. "I'm good at reading things - tomes, situations, people, all of it. I can tell you didn't want to show me anything with your face. You were doing a good job of it. I guess I'm just a bit better as seeing than you are at hiding."

Lucina tilted her head. She did not contest anything Morgan had said. She had only recently met the girl, and so had no means of evaluating her beyond what she had been told. The stellar commendation Morgan had received from Robin and Flavia was worth noting.

"So… tomes? Strategy? Is there anything you like?" Morgan asked, rocking on her feet toward Lucina in a fit of restrained excitement.

"Robin and Flavia being together was a secret. Were you a secret, too?" Lucina asked Morgan, avoiding her question. "Have you never met another child before, or done anything… childish?"

"I like to play pranks on my parents when they come to visit me." Morgan grinned, unperturbed by how her question went unanswered. "That's never been all too often, though… I get that they try, but they make me stay at these weird old ruins in Ferox. There are people there to help take care of me - which I can do on my own - but they're all old, and it gets lonely."

"Oh. That's sad, isn't it?" Lucina asked, confounding Morgan for an instant from the genuine nature of the query. "Well, you seem to like strategy and magic, so why don't we do some of those? I don't know much about either, so you can teach me, and we can get to know each other."

Morgan smiled and nodded once. "Yeah, let's go talk magic for a bit. We'll have time."

Lucina raised an eyebrow, but allowed Morgan to lead her behind Robin's desk. Chrom continued to speak to Robin and Flavia as Lucina and Morgan moved, but their conversation was no longer interesting.

An impromptu fortress of books had been constructed on the ground next to Robin's chair, with a small space cleared in its centre. Once Morgan had lead Lucina to the circle, the young tactician sat inside of it, and gestured for Lucina to sit anywhere within her materials.

"These are all the plans, notes, and readings my parents wanted me to go over while I'm here." Morgan waved her hand over several maps of battlefields with extensive notes jotted in their margins. "I'd gone over all of these before they were assigned. I really like strategy."

"Do you know how to cast magic?" Lucina asked, her gaze and reach drifting toward an open thunder tome on the edge of the fortress.

"Yep!" Morgan confirmed with a grin. "So far, I only know how to use 'el-' level magic, but father is pushing for me to learn 'arc-' spells by the end of the month."

"How do you…?" Lucina began to ask before trailing off, her brow furrowing as she struggled to understand the tome before her. She twisted and flipped the book around. The words on each page looked simple but proved impossible to understand.

"Oh, right! It looks hard, but it's pretty easy." Morgan reached out a hand to correct the angle at which Lucina had tilted the book. "The letters are the same as anything else you'd read, but the words are all jumbled nonsense. You can't read them like normal books."

Lucina's brow remained furrowed as she failed to read the tome. "This is weird. I don't understand…"

"You get used to it, if you try enough." Morgan said. "There's a lot of practice involved so, if you want, I can make sure you keep at it for as long as I'm here! That'll probably be a while, so, ah, make sure you come see me, okay? I'm not allowed to go anywhere in the castle yet."

"I'll meet you in here whenever I can. I promise." Lucina gave Morgan a smile she had practiced since the death of her mother. The expression fulfilled its purpose, as Morgan soon reciprocated the smile with some intense exuberance.

"Awesome! I'm glad I've met you, Lucina - someone I can consider a friend." Morgan said, the last word coming out after immense hesitation.

Lucina continued to give her practiced smile as she lowered Morgan's tome to the ground. "I'm glad to have met you, Morgan. Friends are good to have."

Morgan's smile grew blinding as she clapped her hands together. "Great! I'll be the best friend you've ever had! Now, why don't I show you a bit of strategy? After that, I'd love to know what a princess does!"

Lucina tilted her head as Morgan set about explaining an extensive battle map, absorbing passive information as she studied the young tactician's expression. Morgan was so pleased to speak with someone. Lucina's mouth angled into a frown as she nodded to an explanation of something Morgan referred to as a 'Jagen'.

She did not understand how anyone could be as happy as Morgan.

* * *

Dusk crawled over Port Ferox by the time Lucina arrived at the city. Bright hues from the setting sun cast quaint shadows over the port's buildings. Radiant scales of two transformed Manaketes shone as they soared high in the sky, but none of it was striking. None of it felt special.

Hot winds cascaded out of the city as Nowi spewed playful fire at Nah. Some heat travelled so far as to wash over Lucina as she approached the city. She did not stop to relish in its welcome warmth before pressing on. One hand rested atop the hilt of the steel sword she had obtained from the first risen she had encountered. The legendary gemstone Vert from her ruined future rested in a small pocket near her free hand.

There should have been something unusual about seeing Nowi and Nah so close, each aware of the other. Nah had defied her wishes for everyone to remain concealed. Though, Lucina supposed, that secrecy mattered little when her plan to save everyone had failed. Emmeryn, Phila, Gangrel, and an unknown number more were dead, and Lucina knew she would have no second chance at this mission.

She crept up to Port Ferox's outer perimeter. Unusual tall standing torches resembling braziers lined the exterior of every building. Perhaps there was some form of ritual underway of which she had never heard. She cared little.

A massive man atop an armoured horse had informed her of the Shepherds' current location, and of their plan. Lucina had been so absorbed in ensuring that Sumia would live that she had failed to notice the Shepherds preparing for war. To her great surprise, all matters she had sought to attend where handled by some unknown party before she was able to do anything. She was fine with that. All that mattered was that the Grimleal were eliminated and that Sumia was safe.

The titan of a man who had sought her out did not seem threatening. He had acted gleeful and welcoming in their meeting. He had been ecstatic to meet her, eager to fight her at a later date, and had grinned to himself over his claim of delivering Lucina's Falchion to the Shepherds. Lucina knew not where her sacred blade lay, but had a strange trust that the hulking man was being truthful.

As she ran through her thoughts, Lucina walked toward the inn around which a massive amount of Shepherds had congregated. She opted to remain hidden from them for a while longer, as she had for so long prioritised.

Therefore, it was in hiding when she first encountered her friends, who had exposed their identities to the Shepherds. Lucina had taken care to remain concealed. She found that she cared little that her friends had revealed themselves, as she knew how difficult remaining hidden could be. Their exposure may complicate their mission, but she knew it would not matter in the end.

The Shepherds stepped about the street outside the inn, dodging flames and keeping others safe as they struggled to calm Nowi. The visible time travellers - Kjelle, Noire, Laurent, Severa, and Yarne - stood in place with their gazes turned skyward. They knew that Nah would allow no harm to befall them. Nevertheless, they remained tense, wary of any potential accident heading in their direction.

For an instant, Lucina thought it odd how Kjelle shuffled herself away from Severa, and how Severa ignored her. She had believed the two to be close, but thought little more of the matter. On a more important note, she was unable to locate Chrom or Sumia amongst the gathered Shepherds. Robin, too, was absent.

Lucina could tell that the magical fires dying out across the surface of the inn matched those spewed by Nowi. The decimation before her had no doubt been caused by the young Manakete's exuberance. She circled around the inn, slinking through alleyways without exposing herself to the streets of the city.

In a strange way, Lucina wanted to remain hidden from everyone. Even now, when her friends had revealed their identities, she wanted to stay far from the Shepherds, and from the people she had once known.

Her family was dead, of course, as were all of her friends'. However, Lucina could fault no one for seeing similarities in the people of their future and these in the past. She herself had begun to think of this Chrom as identical to her father, regrettable as that may be.

Lucina cleared her mind as she walked. These thoughts were an irregularity she need not consider. She would complete her mission. That was all that mattered. Anything that happened to the people of this time, to herself, and to her friends was dictated by that mission. It was all that mattered.

Within a few short moments, Lucina had reached the rear of the inn, and was upon a back entrance to the building. She would have thought its simple woodwork to be charming had she bothered to appreciate its make. At least it had been spared the damage of the front entrance.

She pressed her hand against the heavy wooden door before her. It held shut, and so she jammed her sword behind the visible keyhole and fractured the lock. A small slice of light entered the dim inn room as she succeeded in pushing the door open. Lucina pushed the door open, stepped into the abject darkness of the room, and sealed the entrance behind her.

Voices could be heard in a room further in, which Lucina assumed to be the building's main hall. Minuscule shafts of light seeped into her room through a closed doorway of tilted make. The edges of bags of flour and basic foodstuffs they illuminated informed her that she was in some form of pantry.

As Lucina pressed close to the door to the inn proper, the voices raised from a low din, gaining depth and distinction. One was what she believed her mother to sound like, though she had limited memory of the sound of her voice. A man then spoke, who sounded similar to what she could remember of her father. She had found her parents again, after so long in Plegia fretting over the matters of their deaths. Lucina did not bother to smile.

Then, another voice sounded, and this one held as much familiarity as her father's. Robin was with them. His voice called forth memories of a young girl who had always greeted her with smiles that could never be understood. Lucina was not sad that Morgan had been absent on the day everyone had traveled through time, but she was also far from pleased. There was no purpose for her to dwell on the matter.

Robin's voice carried strong through the door Lucina was pressed against. He was advancing on her room. Murmurs carried through the door as he informed Sumia and Chrom of needing a short moment to himself.

His voice was catching as he spoke. If she were better able to understand people, Lucina may have believed Robin to be vulnerable.

Chrom spoke again, and Lucina knew he had moved closer to the pantry as well. His voice was uncertain, too. He was talking about stopping Robin, about spending time with him and never letting him go. Sumia then murmured something inaudible, too low for Lucina to hear through thick planks of wood, and Chrom's voice pulled away.

Lucina held silent as she realised that Robin was intent on entering the pantry. She stepped away from the door and tried to take note of her situation. Her surroundings bar the shafts of light creeping past the door were shrouded in darkness, obscuring even the exit from sight.

Before she could begin to think about panicking, Lucina calmed herself. By the time Robin opened the door she had set into motion her plan of action.

* * *

Kjelle glanced away from the spectacle that was Nowi and Nah, bringing her gaze down to Severa. The two of them were together again after so long, but Kjelle was incapable of reading her friend's expression. It was always hovering somewhere between bored and annoyed.

Severa remained transfixed on the two flying Manaketes for the entirety of Kjelle's lethargic glance. Did she not care about what had happened between them? Did she not remember? Was this some weird sort of punishment? Kjelle's mind developed a warm, hazy ache.

She was incapable of facing Severa. Kjelle hated the cowardice of that admission, and knew that nothing good would come of it, but it was true. She wanted to hide and pretend that nothing had changed from the world she had left behind.

A subtle flash of blue caught Kjelle's peripheral before she looked away. Her focus narrowed on an inconspicuous alleyway, and she stared at it until she was satisfied that it held no secrets. She had thought that flash of blue to be familiar, whether she had imagined it or not.

"Hey, Kjelle. It's been a while." Severa spoke from her side, beyond Kjelle's line of sight.

"Gods, Severa, you-! Er… ah, haha…" Kjelle jumped and found that she was incapable of forming a sentence. "I, uh… yeah. Bye."

Severa blinked, then frowned as Kjelle attempted to shuffle away. "What are you doing? It's been forever since we last spoke. I know you're not the shy type."

"Yeah, well, about that…" Kjelle failed to speak, her gaze scrambling to find some form of diversion. "I, ah… have to go. Find my mother, introduce myself, talk to her about life, and everything that's weird about this time. Yeah. See ya."

"You're going to talk to her? Ha, and here I was thinking you'd challenge her in combat first." Severa laughed, her voice more relaxed than Kjelle had anticipated. "I noticed that your father isn't here. Did something happen?"

Kjelle nodded, but ensured that her gaze did not linger on Severa. "He's fine, but he won't be joining the Shepherds. He got spooked about the level we were fighting on, which was kind of my fault."

"Hey, that sounds more like you!" Severa exclaimed, though she kept her voice low. Her relaxation put Kjelle on edge. "Back to bragging about yourself and shutting challengers down, huh? I was half expecting you to start talking protein the moment I walked up."

"That's not who I am." Kjelle said, a tiny frown lowering her features. "I want to better myself, but I don't want to be arrogant, or to scare anyone."

Severa raised her hands to placate Kjelle. "Okay, I get it. That's not what I expected you to say, but I get it."

"Did you expect me to abuse my strength?" Kjelle spat. She was uncertain as to why she was acting so hostile.

"No, that's… I don't know." Severa answered honestly. "I'm used to you being a very forward person, one who doesn't care much about other people. This might be the first time I'm seeing this side of you."

Kjelle hesitated for a short second before responding, "I think its it's always been there. Some recent events may have made me less aggressive, but I've always been me. Hell, I think I've never seen much of this side of myself, either."

"What changed?" Severa asked, her curiosity shining through her unsettling sweetness.

"I met Robin." Kjelle found her answer, and as soon as she had spoken it, she knew it to be true. "I got my ass handed to me for a while, but we managed to get along. I learned that there's ways to win other than brute force, and ways to better myself other than raw strength. I guess I've started to grow a bit? I've, you know, learned how to be close to people."

Severa's brow furrowed as Kjelle spoke. She blinked as she took in what had been said, her mouth bobbing open multiple times to make nonsensical sounds.

"Do you mind if we talk somewhere private?" Severa managed to blurt out, her sweetness faltering for an instant before returning. "There's, ah, a lot that I feel we should go over."

"Soon, I promise." Kjelle said. She wanted to avoid that conversation, regardless of how she knew it would help. "Not now, okay? I have to go see my mother. And… stuff."

"Hey, don't-" Severa began, but was ignored as Kjelle turned her back and moved to find Sully. Severa's easy smile twitched into a frown before she forced herself to be sweet.

Kjelle's behaviour had been unexpected, but was far from unwelcome. Severa's issues with confronting her had been born of an inability to understand and reason with her; now, Kjelle was as approachable as anyone else.

The plan to help Robin rather than eliminate him was known to Severa. Nah had made certain of that. Even so, Kjelle's relationship with Robin, be it as mere friends or something more, was going beyond what Severa had expected.

Kjelle had always been one of the most determined people she had known. She was beaten only by Lucina's calm determination that none could challenge. For her to support Robin was unthinkable. The entire situation felt perverse. Worst of all was that Robin had enabled this change of heart.

Severa frowned and allowed Kjelle to leave unopposed. She watched in silent fury as her friend approached and spoke with Sully. Her frown became hard set before she sneered in disgust and turned her back to the streets of Port Ferox.

* * *

Sully whistled to herself as she paced across a Feroxi dock, tapping the toes of her boots against the occasional plank to evaluate their make. She had intended on using this spot to train against Stahl, but after being interrupted by Robin's return, they had never begun their duel. The open space granted by the empty pier would be perfect for a fight.

"So, you got some kind of vendetta against me?" Sully asked spoke to her companion without looking away from the pier.

Kjelle shook her head, though she knew Sully would not see her. "No; all I wanted was a duel. I heard that you're strong, so I wanted to see for myself. We need to talk later, but for now, this is all I could ask for."

"Ha, well, you heard right." Sully grinned, a confident fire lighting in her eyes as she faced Kjelle. "Just so you know, Stahl's probably somewhere nearby, waiting to give us some vulneraries. You ready to get into this?"

"If you want to explain why I'd have a vendetta, sure." Kjelle shrugged as she pulled out her spare lance. She would use the enchanted version she held close, but had decided not to use any magic. This would be a fair, honest duel.

"You singled me out and issued a challenge. Not many people are that straightforward." Sully said. "I can see that you're one of the time travellers, too. I assumed I'd done something to piss someone in the future off."

"You're starting to believe all of that?" Kjelle asked. The news made her happy, hopeful. Perhaps Sully would soon recognise her as her daughter, as Kjelle had desired.

"I don't care in the slightest." Sully shrugged, dashing Kjelle's hopes. "Whether you're from the future or not, my opinion of you won't change. Your past isn't gonna detract from how well you fight."

"Sounds good by me." Kjelle frowned away her disappointment. At least Sully's answer was not an outright denial of the absurd reality in which they found themselves.

Sully grinned and drew her lance. A sword remained on her hip as a last resort. "On you. I'm excited to see how well a time traveller can fight, but I get the feeling that I won't need much to beat you."

"We'll see about that." Kjelle reciprocated the grin. This was her mother, who had stories of her strength and heroism sung year after year. There was no way to not be excited about dueling such a remarkable warrior.

Kjelle pulled out her enchanted lance and jammed it into the pier. She may want to use it as a last resort. She plucked her tome from the depths of her armour and tossed it to the start of the pier.

Sully watched with one eyebrow raised as Kjelle tossed the book away. "You have a tome? Didn't you say you were a knight?"

"So?" Kjelle asked as her grin grew at Sully's surprise. Learning magic was worth it if so little as an implication of casting spells confused opponents.

"Kudos to you." Sully shrugged, then eased herself into a relaxed stance. "I could never wrap my mind around those things. There's a lot of garbled nonsense in 'em."

"It's not that bad." Kjelle spoke through a smug smile as she tried to forget how long it had taken her to cast a single spell. "If you want, I can show you a bit of the process. You'll learn in no time with the right instructor."

"I'll have to see how good you are first." Sully said. "You gonna start this, or stall for the rest of the night? Come on, I'm getting impatient."

Kjelle eased out of her stance and walked up to Sully. If her training against Robin was any indication, the Shepherds were all beyond capable with their weapons of choice, and would have the calm disposition to match. The only way to beat them would be through sheer might or to match their confidence.

Sully's grip on her weapon wavered for a split second as her brow furrowed. She was uncertain as to whether their fight had begun, considering how casual of a gait Kjelle held.

That expression snapped into a gritty smile as Kjelle brought her lance into an abrupt stab, slow enough that Sully was able to deflect the hit sideways. Kjelle had never intended for the attack to connect; she wanted Sully to be prepared to fight. She knew that this grace was a recent addition to her mannerisms - her opponent's failure to respond would in the past have been their fault alone.

Sully's deflected the attack, and the swipe that followed. She pushed against the strike with the length of her lance, giving herself enough space to evade another stab.

Without breaking the momentum of her deflections, Sully brushed the next swipe aside, though Kjelle's sheer momentum staggered her footing. Kjelle's expression lit up at the advantage - she was close to proving herself a threat against so significant an opponent.

Sully then launched her counterattack, striking out with her lance before Kjelle could move. The head of the weapon jabbed into Kjelle's shoulder guard, gouging into its metal surface.

Kjelle cursed for having left herself open. There would be more bruises than that on her skin by the end of the day, of that she was certain. She had thought herself fast, but she was too slow to escape Sully. The paladin was deserving of all the prestige Kjelle had assigned her.

Another strike hit Kjelle's opposite shoulder in the same spot, and she again cursed. Kjelle brought her lance up to defend herself in time for another strike, deflecting a third stab away from her chest. She spun the butt of her weapon down onto the hilt of Sully's lance. Sully allowed her lance to slide to the limit of her grip to avoid a counter.

Kjelle whipped her lance around to punish Sully's restraint. She slammed the bottom of her lance up into Sully's chin, cracking the older woman's head back with her utmost strength. Kjelle instantly regretted her action.

Sully stumbled backward, one hand finding its way to her jaw while the other held tight to her lance. She wiped her chin with her free hand and smeared a small trail of blood over to her cheek. A significant welt was forming where she had been struck. Kjelle's eyes widened and her entire demeanor weakened before she caught sight of Sully's feral grin.

Enlivened by the danger of their fight, Sully leapt into combat without taking more than a moment to compose herself. She struck against Kjelle, jabbing and slicing with her lance in aggressive attempts to break the time traveller's guard.

Much to her own surprise, Kjelle was able to block or evade every strike regardless of their blinding speed, though she failed to find room to counterattack. She took confidence in her own ability and that of her mother. Her smile reformed as she jumped backward out of Sully's reach.

"Ha! You know, I didn't think I'd actually-" Kjelle began before being cut off by an impact from Sully's lance. The weapon had been thrown into her chest, sending her staggering. The message that she needed to stop talking and fight was clear.

Sully closed the distance between them as she drew her sword. She sliced once at Kjelle's head, driving her back enough that she could retrieve her lance.

Kjelle refused her the opportunity, having understood her intentions. Before Sully could reclaim the fallen lance, Kjelle hopped forward and struck downward with her lance, stabbing into the hardened wood of the pier between Sully's outstretched hand and the hilt of her lost weapon.

Without missing a beat, Sully darted her sword up toward Kjelle's head, acting as though she had intended to lure her foe. The hit did not connect, as Kjelle was again fast enough to dodge. Sully allowed the strike to follow through enough that her entire upper body was left undefended.

She never gave Kjelle the opportunity to counter, though, as her left hand swung up from her sword, into Kjelle's cheek.

The hit whipped Kjelle's head to the side as her legs crumbled. She collapsed to the ground, landing on her knees with one hand outstretched. The other hand reached up to cushion her cheek. Her lance had been pried free of the pier and rested in her unused hand.

Kjelle tightened her grip on her lance as Sully advanced on her. As soon as Sully was next to her she whipped the weapon around, catching the paladin in the knee. Sully was thrown off by the hit, her feet coming clear of the pier and her shoulder being the next part of her body to touch solid wood.

Her head then slammed against the dock with an unpleasant crack. Kjelle stood and lunged for another attack. Sully pushed through the pain splintering through her head and kicked her feet into Kjelle's armoured stomach, sending her reeling back several paces. Sully used the space she made to stand, as well as pry Kjelle's lance free from her wavering grip. She then stepped past Kjelle and pulled her enchanted lance out of the pier.

Kjelle's expression morphed into a frown as her situation worsened, though she remained far from declaring defeat. Her face then distorted in shocked horror as Sully turned and threw lances, sending them flying into the cold Feroxi sea beyond the edge of the docks.

"No! What the hell are you doing!?" Kjelle shouted, her horror, rage, and shock claiming all the space in her mind.

"Do you need a weapon to fight?" Sully scoffed. "And here I was, having a good opinion of you after so little…"

Kjelle's array of disgusted emotions all joined into a singular boiling rage, born of both her desire to win and the loss of her beloved weapon. She leaned forward and began to charge Sully. A sharp wordless scream escaped her throat as she thundered across the dock.

Sully shook her head and sighed. Kjelle's blind rage would do nothing to win their duel. She should know, she had used such ineffective tactics herself numerous times in the past. Sully calmed her stance and prepared to step aside as Kjelle neared her, knowing that her timing could be far from perfect to evade such a poor charge.

Memories of how Robin had dodged, sidestepped, and blown her aside raced through Kjelle's mind. She knew that Sully was about to perform the same causal maneuver, and so she stuttered on what should have been her last step before making contact. Sure enough, Sully made to sidestep her charge, but Kjelle shifted her entire weight onto one foot and rocketed sideways. Her arms swung around Sully's back as she brought them both to the ground in a brutal clash.

Kjelle's momentum carried her into place atop Sully. She kneeled on the other woman's stomach and squirmed her arm out from underneath her to slam it down on the paladin's chest.

Winded by the first hit, Sully suffered through the punch. She then swung her own fist at Kjelle. Kjelle raised her forearm to block the hit. Before the punch had landed, Sully was pushing with all of her might against Kjelle's lower body, rocking from side to side to destabilise her opponent.

Kjelle remained in place, and brought her fist down onto Sully's cheek. She remained enraged over Sully's carelessness with her prized weapon, but at the same time, she knew that she was close to victory. The reality of her defeating her legendary mother was tangible.

That thought disturbed Kjelle. She did not want to defeat her hero, to prove herself as superior to her perceived pinnacle of strength. Kjelle felt weak - she kept losing to Robin, she had never bested Lucina, she had once experienced difficulty in defeating risen and bandits. There was no way she was strong enough to overcome a living legend.

Sully worked one of her legs out from underneath Kjelle and delivered an intense kick to her core. The hit was powerful enough to force Kjelle back, but not off of Sully completely. Sully worked this to her advantage by spinning her body, twisting Kjelle to the side and reversing their positions so that she would now be atop the time traveller. She then planted her legs in a similar kneel to Kjelle and prepped for her own sequence of relentless hits.

Uncertain of what would come next, Kjelle crossed her arms in front of her face and braced for the worst. Sully cracked her fists against her guard twice before accepting the folly of such action, at which point she leaned back and pushed against Kjelle with the might of her entire body. Her push sent the time traveller's head out over the side of the dock.

Kjelle angled her upper body toward Sully. There was no way her advantage had been squandered in so short a time. Sully scrambled to a stand. As soon as Kjelle had raised her head, Sully lifted her leg up high and smashed her heel down between her daughter's eyes.

Kjelle's head snapped back and went numb. She was left with no recourse beyond lying limp on the pier. In a few short seconds, as she began to recover feeling from the adrenaline coursing through her, another push from Sully sent her tumbling into the frigid water below the pier.

Darkness enveloped Kjelle as she plummeted deep into the murky waters of the Feroxi sea. She would have been annoyed, were she not furious and in immense pain. This situation was all too familiar for her liking.

Nevertheless, she remained calm. No good would come of futile struggling. Loathe as she was to admit it, Kjelle knew that she had lost, and that she was now reliant on the help of someone else to help her. As Robin had so often done.

Atop the pier, Sully took several moments to herself reserved for heaving breaths. She wiped her blood away from her face, caring more for how it tickled warm against her skin than for her appearance. Sully soon managed to calm herself, at which point she was left to wait with growing anxiety for Kjelle to surface.

After a few too many long seconds of waiting, Sully began to pace back and forth along the pier. "Hey, lady? Er… Kjelle?" she called out, having to wrack her brain for the name. "Come on, I didn't hit you too hard, right? Kjelle?"

Her pacing picked up as she received no response. She shifted her weight across her feet, struggling to come to terms with the fact that she may have to swim to save another person. After biting her lip and leaning over the edge of the pier, Sully shook her head and backed away toward solid land, a near-imperceptible cold sweat breaking out on her shivering skin.

"Hey, Stahl! You're out here somewhere, right? Waiting to come and clean up, like usual?" Sully shouted to the streets of Port Ferox as she walked away from Kjelle's location. "You saw what happened, right? Get out here and help!"

* * *

Robin pushed his way through the door to the inn's pantry. He closed the door behind him before wiping away his tears. He was touched by how sensitive Chrom and Sumia were being, even if he did fear what may happen to them under his inconsistent instruction.

Though he welcomed the dark embrace the secluded pantry offered, Robin soon ignited a small ball of flame and hovered it next to his torso to light the room. He walked himself in meaningless patterns, struggling to contain his emotions. Part of him felt as though things would turn out well so long as the people he cared about believed in him.

He managed to compose himself enough to be presentable again, and made to return to his waiting friends. A smile of once unknown happiness was in place on his features. It died the moment he spotted Marth - Lucina - dropping down from atop a high shelf, blocking his path to the door.

"You- you're… Lucina." Robin stuttered dumbly. Though her presence was inexplicable, something else tugged at his mind. He creased his brow as he tried to trace her current position to her hiding spot. "It was so dark in here. Where… how did you…?"

"Hello, Robin." Lucina greeted him as though nothing were out of the ordinary. "I take it you learned my name through my associates?"

"Uh, your friends, yeah." Robin nodded. "Why are you…? When did you get here?"

"Today." Lucina said in her same even tone. "Minutes ago, as a matter of fact. Do you mind bringing me up to pace on what's happened since the end of the war?"

Robin blinked at her nonchalant demeanor, then narrowed his gaze on the sword at her side. He got the feeling that Lucina was not yet intent on attacking him, but also felt that she would be a danger to underestimate.

Lucina followed his gaze to her sword, but made no movement toward the blade. Instead, she raised an eyebrow in Robin's direction, as if evaluating his next move. Robin made to reach for one of his tomes before realising that his own assumption was wrong.

She was not evaluating him - rather, she did not understand why Robin was on edge. There was an uncomfortable curiosity in the way she regarded him. On top of that, there was an underlying tension to everything she did, and Robin knew her secondhand to be a more than capable fighter.

"Ah, haha, sorry, I'm a little jittery. That, and used to time travellers attacking me as soon as they get the chance." Robin laughed and failed to put Lucina at ease.

"Do you understand why they were trying to kill you?" Lucina asked, her words direct and blunt.

Robin nodded. "Yeah." he said, but then allowed a hopeful smile to overtake his features. "There may be ways to work through this, though. Everyone is being helpful, and is trying to understand, and… and I think they want to help. I feel like we can get through this if I have their support."

"Okay." Lucina nodded, catching Robin again off guard.

Had she always been like this? He had not noticed it during their brief meetings before, though back then he had not been clued in on her abrupt, duty-bound nature. He had also been preoccupied with keeping everyone in the Shepherds alive.

"Um… you don't have Falchion." Robin observed as dumbly as when he had first spoken, pointing to the unassuming sword on her hip. "I heard you were supposed to have it. Because, you know, you're Chrom's daughter, and everything."

"It was lost to my original time." Lucina said, her neutral tone indicating that she was not keen on speaking about the matter. Or so Robin thought. He was incapable of identifying any emotion underlying her words. "I was informed that it may now be here, with the Shepherds. Is that true?"

"I heard Cordelia mention something about it, I think." Robin shrugged, maintaining his plausible deniability. "You, ah… don't seem fazed by this. At all."

"Why would I be?" Lucina asked with a tilt of her head. She had yet to raise her voice or show any sign of hostility, to the extent that it disturbed Robin. She was supposed to be the person most driven to destroy him, yet she was refusing to live up to her acclaim.

"Well, you know, because… ah…" Robin stammered in a struggle to find words. "Ha, sorry, I'm a mess. I was crying a second ago, and my nerves are still getting the better of me. Pardon any mistakes in my judgement."

"You were crying?" Lucina asked, again with nothing but a genuine unnerving curiosity.

Robin was both offended and confused. If it were anyone else, he would assume they were mocking his disheveled state, but Lucina spoke in such a way that he believed her to have misunderstood something.

"Yeah. Yeah, I was." Robin admitted. "I came here to have a moment to myself. I, uh, guess that doesn't matter, now that you're here. Do you want to meet your parents?"

"Yes." Lucina nodded and proceeded to do nothing, again confusing Robin.

"Do you want to go see them right now?" Robin proposed.

"For now, I'd like a summary of events that occurred in my absence, and of any future plans you may be willing to disclose. I believe it may be time for me to join the Shepherds." Lucina said.

"Following in the footsteps of your friends, eh?" Robin smiled away the chill of Lucina's words.

"I have no other course of action now." Lucina spoke without reciprocating his grin. "I had intended to maintain my secrecy, but that's no longer an option."

"If you want, I won't tell anyone about seeing you." Robin offered. "You seem more level-headed than anyone I've met. Honestly, it's to the point where it's weird. I feel like I can trust you, despite that, after everything you did for us during the war against Plegia."

"You're headed to Valm for war, no?" Lucina asked, not waiting for an answer before continuing. "I can't remain hidden and follow the Shepherds to a different continent at the same time."

"What was your original plan, then?" Robin asked. "You couldn't have intended to stay hidden forever, right?"

"I had intended to locate my parents, help them if necessary, and save this world."

"What stopped you?" Robin asked. Her voice still refused to give any indication of emotion.

Lucina tilted her head. "I don't understand."

"You would have saved everyone by killing me when we first met." Robin's voice fell grave as he explained himself. "Why didn't you?"

Lucina shrugged. "You turned around."

Robin blinked as her words settled in his mind. His brow then creased in concern as his eyes wandered again to her sheathed blade. He had been thinking of their first meeting in the forests of Ylisse, but she had assumed different. A chill ran down Robin's spine and forced him to shiver.

In that moment, Lucina became a more credible threat than any of the time travellers Robin had faced. She was so casual about killing him; the complete opposite of how heated Kjelle once was, or of the desperation in Noire and Nah. Lucina was in no way vicious or judgemental. She was dangerous.

As with the last time Robin had come close to death, he began to feel insecure. He feared for his life and his future. Now, he knew that there was reason to be afraid, that he wanted to live to help his friends and to grow alongside them, an ideal he had so long ago forgotten. Lucina did not care, and that shook him to his core.

She was senseless, but sensitive. Her entire demeanour was a disturbing contradiction of itself. Had she trained on how to act normal? Robin had assumed as such after hearing about the princess from Kjelle, about how every smile she made was the same, but now he believed there something far deeper at play. It felt to him as though Lucina was outright incapable of processing emotion. Robin shuddered at his memories of the grey, of how they had perverted his senses into something beyond recognition.

"Er… haha, right. I suppose I'm lucky, then?" Robin laughed upon realising that he had held silent far longer than could be considered normal. "Are you going to try to kill me?"

Lucina shook her head. "Not while we're at war."

Robin raised an eyebrow, but accepted the leniency she offered. "Um… thanks? I think? I'll have Cordelia, Frederick, and some of your friends catch you up to speed. Might be easier that way. Regardless, I'm sure you're dying to meet your parents, so let's do that." he gestured toward the door.

"I assure you, I'm very much alive." Lucina said, her monotone voice almost making Robin believe that she was telling a joke. She was serious, though, and so Robin had no idea of how to respond.

"Of course. Let's go anyway." he said, losing further track of how he should be acting in her presence. Lucina's lack of informal responses made speaking to her difficult.

There was more to it than that, though. Robin was certain. There was some other factor at play in Lucina's demeanor, something that reminded him far too much of the grey. He felt a personal obligation to uncover that factor.

"Hey, Lucina?" Robin said, stopping the princess before she could leave the room. "Could you do me a big favour and smile?"

Lucina blinked and did nothing. "I don't understand."

"Not gonna lie, you're intimidating." Robin said. "I don't think that's what you're going for, so it'd help if you smiled - it'd make you more approachable, you know? We don't have to get along, but-"

He stopped speaking when Lucina smiled, ending his need to over explain. Her lips curled into an expression that was equal parts beautiful and disconcerting.

"Are you more comfortable now?" Lucina asked, her smile dying immediately, as though an invisible switch had been flipped.

"I… uh… yeah." Robin stammered out. "Yeah. Shall we?" he gestured again to the door at Lucina's back.

"Do you need more time to yourself?" Lucina asked, sounding neither caring nor uncaring.

"No, I'm fine." Robin asserted, hoping that his voice did not betray him. "You should get to seeing your parents."

Lucina nodded, and turned to leave the pantry. She never lost her confidence in any action she took, and never once did Robin get any indication that she feared him, as so many others had. That alien lack of fear disturbed him as much as fear itself.

Robin followed her out of the room, surprising Chrom and Sumia when he emerged with another person. Lucina was smiling as she introduced herself to the two royals, and all throughout her brief explanation of her lineage.

A shiver worked its way over Robin. Her smile was the exact same as before.

* * *

As soon as Kjelle's head was pulled above water she was scrambling her way up the beach, heaving and coughing. Sully moved past her to guide Stahl to the safety of dry land. Though he had saved her life, Kjelle was mad about Stahl receiving such attention from Sully.

"Gods, you didn't make that easy." Stahl heaved as he struggled to normalise his breathing. "You should learn how to swim. The both of you." he nodded to Kjelle, then Sully.

"I was pulling my weight back there. All I needed was a little help to get going." Kjelle defended herself. "You should try learning wind magic. It'd make saving people a hell of a lot easier."

"Hey, you're the one who needed help, not me." Stahl reminded her. "You should take your own advice."

Kjelle paused for a moment and looked out toward the sea. She almost wanted to leap back into the waters to test her magic, regardless of how idiotic she knew such action would be. Perhaps it merited more thought were she to come into possession of a wind tome.

"It's a good thing you were creeping around again, Stahl. You saved her." Sully said, breaking Kjelle's idle thoughts. "Still, you shouldn't be doing that. It's weird as hell."

"I wanted to make sure you were okay, that's all." Stahl said. "You ran off to fight some interloper from the future; was it possible for me to not be concerned?"

"What about all the other times you've done this?"

Stahl sighed deeply. "I care about you, Sully. A lot. I don't want to see you get hurt, and it'd kill me to know that something happened while I was away. I know I'm being way too protective, but I don't want to lose you."

Sully smiled and stepped toward Stahl, planting a gentle kiss against his lips as her hands traced over his shoulders. "I know you care about me. I care about you, too. Just don't start thinking that I can't handle myself."

Kjelle gagged at their brief moment of intimacy. She barely knew what Sully was like, but the paladin was nevertheless her mother, who she had once known to be near inseparable from her father. To see her with Stahl was perverse. Regardless, Kjelle restrained herself from doing anything that would alter their relationship.

After a short moment more in each other's embrace, Sully and Stahl both turned to Kjelle, their hands now locked together. Kjelle was thankful that their hand holding appeared to be the current extent of their intimacy.

"So. I won." Sully grinned, and Kjelle frowned. She was unable to contest the claim, but her loss by no means settled well. "You put up a hell of a fight, though, especially toward the end. What was the deal with that?"

"Did you find my lances? The ones Sully threw away?" Kjelle asked Stahl, ignoring Sully's question.

Stahl shook his head. "Sully mentioned them, but I couldn't find anything. Sorry."

Kjelle sighed, starting off morose before becoming frustrated. "Damnit! One of those was special - an enchanted gift from a friend. I'm going to need another. Ugh, this shouldn't have happened."

Sully winced as Kjelle's dismay made itself known. "Damn, I'm sorry. I didn't know it was special. At least it doesn't sound irreplaceable."

"Yeah, I should be able to get another." Kjelle sighed, already planning how to go about asking for a second enchanted lance while saving face. She then paused for a long moment. She was distraught over the loss of her weapon, something that had taken Robin few resources and little effort to create. Why did a mere lance mean so much to her?

"Still, I'm sorry." Sully continued to apologise. "You've lost a lot. I didn't mean to contribute more. I'd be happy to pay for another, on the one condition that you come back and show me how you fight with it. How about it? Another duel, as soon as you're armed?"

Kjelle broke out in a wide smile. Sully was proud of her ability. "I'd love nothing more. Don't worry about paying, either. I can cover it. More duels with you is a better payment."

"Glad to hear it." Sully grinned. "Now, there was something you wanted to chat about? Something important?"

"Er, yeah, there was." Kjelle said, offset by Stahl's presence. She resolved that the Shepherd was of negligible consequence. Regardless of the significant matters she was about to share, she in no way expected a tearful reunion. Both Sully and herself were tough. There would be no overbearing emotion from either of them.

"And that would be…?" Sully prompted, waiting for a response that Kjelle hesitated to give. Stahl shifted from foot to foot, sensing that his presence was no longer desired, but he was held in place by Sully's grip.

"Um…" Kjelle stalled further as she struggled to begin. "Well, this isn't my normal armour. I mean, it is now, but it wasn't a while ago. Mine used to be lighter and red." she tapped her chest piece.

"Okay…?" Sully furrowed her brow, uncertain of what mattered about her armour.

"That set ended up getting so damaged that I couldn't use it anymore." Kjelle explained. "I had to be fitted to use this. The old armour isn't in my possession anymore, despite how much it meant to me. I would hide in it to feel secure, to pretend that everything would be okay, but I was still fine with letting it go."

"Uh… okay?" Sully acknowledged her words, though she still struggled to piece together why they mattered. "Was this armour an heirloom? Ah, hell, are you trying to get metaphorical on me? I hate when people do that."

Kjelle shook her head and found that she could no longer meet Sully's gaze. "The armour mattered because… because it was yours. From the future. You were the hero I looked up to, who I could pretend would be there to save me, and who could set the world right. You're my mother."

Sully was caught off guard. At least, Kjelle assumed that to be the case, as she had screwed her eyes shut in anticipation of what would come next. There was a high chance Sully would accept her, but there also existed the possibility that she would be rejected, that Sully would want nothing to do with her. The latter thought stung at her heart.

Boots again shifted in sand, this time from both Sully and Stahl. Kjelle grew fearful the more time passed. Sully was the one to break their uneven silence.

"Well, shit. I'm sorry. Again." the paladin said. "Guess it doesn't matter too much now, though, huh?"

Kjelle's blood ran cold as her eyes snapped open. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"I died in your time, didn't I? Everyone did." Sully explained. "I wasn't able to help you, or to protect anyone. Doesn't sound heroic to me."

"You did, but… that doesn't matter. You're here now." Kjelle said, resisting the sting of tears in her eyes at the same time. Now was the time for things to be set right. The two of them could work together, as a family, to avert the catastrophes that laid waste to the world. Exactly as Kjelle had imagined.

"Damn…" Sully cursed as she breathed out. "I don't know how else to tell you this, Kjelle, but that means that your mother is dead, too. I don't know what you were hoping for here, but whatever it is, it's not me. I'm not your mother, and I sure as hell won't be dying anytime soon, or having a kid."

Kjelle's blood froze in her veins. Her greatest hope had been ripped away. Her mouth fell open, and nothing she did could stop her tears from stinging her face. "You… you… what?"

"You're one hell of a fighter, Kjelle. There's no way I can see you as a kid." Sully said. "You need to let go of the past. I'll be here for you as a rival and a friend as much as you want, but not a mother."

"You… you aren't going to…?" Kjelle began before finding it hard to speak. Her world teetered for an instant, the water in her eyes blinding her as she was compelled to fall. She questioned in silence when she had grown so sensitive before cursing herself and forcing her strength to remain.

"Er… Kjelle, was it?" Stahl spoke up, his voice a thousand times more caring than Sully's. "Are you feeling okay? You look unwell."

"I… I don't…" Kjelle stammered. Everything around her, the last of the ideal states she had imagined, were crashing down. Her mind fogged and her muscles weakened. She felt as though she may soon vomit. How had everything gone so wrong in so short of a time?

"Shit. You wanted a mother, didn't you?" Sully asked, an odd amount of disdain suffocating the compassion that should have been in her voice. "I can't be that for you, Kjelle. I'm not your mother. It doesn't matter if I look like her, sound like her, act like her, or whatever; I'm not her."

"I… I… okay. That's okay." Kjelle's voice wavered with every word. She took an uncertain step forward and tried not to shake. Then, she took another step, and forced herself to walk despite the weakness building in her legs. "I… I need to go. Bye."

She brushed past the two paladins, making her way back toward the familiar inn on the opposite side of the city. Her breath caught in her throat as she passed them, and refused to stabilise as she continued walking, her tears now threatening to stream free down her face.

Stahl reached out his free hand to stop her, but was held in place by Sully, who shook her head with a remorseful force. There was nothing they could do, or rather, nothing they should do. They were not Kjelle's family. This was a more personal matter than companions met in the last few hours could handle.

Kjelle continued on through Port Ferox, losing more of her sight and the strength in her legs as she went. In that single instant on the beach, everything had been ripped away from her. There was no mother she could find, no more family she could seek out and save. The last vestiges of her selfish desires to avert the future's tragedies had been cast away.

She lost track of how far she walked, and failed to keep track of the buildings and people she passed. Her chest tightened as a cold, horrified sweat broke out over her body. To her, these were the losses that deserved to be cried over, before they could fester into something worse.

However, Kjelle knew that Lucina would never have cried. The paragon princess of her future, ever superior to all of her friends without the intent to be so, would remain strong.

This was the sole instance in which Kjelle found herself not envious of Lucina.

A familiar visage manifested at the edge of Kjelle's watered vision - a welcoming cloak of intricate design that promised understanding, and a shoulder to lean on. To cry on.

"Hey, Kjelle!" Robin called out to her, and only then did Kjelle realise that she had not heard much of anything since leaving Sully. His voice was more than welcome. "I've been looking for you. There's someone you-"

He was cut off when Kjelle buried her head into his shoulder, wrapped her arms around his torso, and squeezed him tight. Robin tensed in surprise, but he moved his arms to embrace her when she began to shudder against him.

"I… Robin, I…" Kjelle tried to say, her voice wavering worse than before. She failed to get anything out before breaking down into tears. Her grip around Robin tightened as she buried her head further into his shoulder, letting her tears flow onto his cloak.

"It's okay, you're okay." Robin said, his voice soft and uncertain of how to proceed.

Kjelle's legs gave out underneath her, and she pulled Robin down as she fell into him. Robin knelt and held Kjelle close, preventing her from falling to the ground.

For now, he cared not about what had caused Kjelle's tears. All that mattered was that he did everything possible to be certain she was okay in this lone moment.

* * *

 **I don't know why I spent so long editing this chapter, but I did. Something about it wasn't sitting well with me for the longest time, but I couldn't tell what, and now I can't tell what was bothering me about it.**

 **Lucina is going to be a strange character in this story. Her personality is being exaggerated in the most negative way possible to make her a proper counterpart to Robin and Kjelle. It can be strange at times, but I hope that all of you reading enjoy it anyway.**

 **Status: As of 22-08-19, I'm on chapter 38. All of my free time in the past two weeks has been consumed by the most frustrating things possible, including constant travel and filling out the same few forms again and again. Fun times.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	33. Chapter 33

A soft golden light shone into the grandmaster study of Ylisstol's castle, revealing the full extent of Morgan's excited battle plans. The young tactician was intent on planning for any eventuality, including a conflict between warships at sea. Lucina had offered counsel whenever possible. However, most of Morgan's strategies were to the point where Lucina could not follow their grand design.

"Do you see, father? Do you get it?" Morgan hopped up and down as she held the map up for Robin to read.

Robin continued to pen a droll missive as he glanced at the parchment. "It's very pretty, Morgan, but I have to work. Can you show it to me later?" he asked, his voice not quite cold but in no way warm.

"It's a good plan!" Morgan pouted and planted the map atop Robin's desk, eliciting a deep sigh from the older tactician. "Look! If they've got less ships than you, you could lure them out into secure areas with skeleton crews! If they outnumber-"

"Stop this, Morgan." Robin sighed and slid the map back to his daughter. "We're leaving for Port Ferox tomorrow. If you want everyone to return home safe, you can't waste my time."

"It's not a waste!" Morgan shouted, and again raised the map toward Robin. "Look! If there are more ships than you have, you can use wind magic to shred the canvas of their sails. They'd have to slow down, giving you an advantage. From there, you could hit the ship's hulls with strong fire magic, either burning them up or making them leak. Valm uses armour and mounts a lot, so they wouldn't be able to-"

"That's enough, Morgan!" Robin cut her off with a sharp shout. Tears sprang to life in the young girl's eyes, and Robin recoiled. "I… I didn't… ugh." he sighed, and waved to the map. "Explain how we'd get soldiers to traverse the ocean. How we'd counter any Valmese mages. How any of this is practical."

"Well, you… you could use mages." Morgan said, blinking away her fledgling tears. "They could set wind magic seals over flying mounts, allowing them to travel underwater as easily as the sky, or modify their armour to-"

"That's not possible, Morgan." Robin again cut her off, though this time with a more subdued tone. "The magic required borders on insane, and no one could be trained to use it in time, let alone in conjunction with another soldier. We don't have Plegia's dark fliers, either - we'd need to train up soldiers from scratch. No one would be able to do this."

"But… but you're the Shepherds!" Morgan contested him. "There has to be someone who can do this! You could pair Miriel and Ricken up with Cordelia and Cherche, and have them go underwater paired to make the attack. It would keep a lot of people safe!"

"We would need Miriel and Ricken to keep their ships at bay with your wind attacks, Morgan." Robin reminded her. "We can't take away our greatest mages to handle a suicide mission."

"It isn't a suicide mission, and you wouldn't be diverting them from anything!" Morgan continued to argue. "The Shepherds have the skill to pull this off! Once the ships' sails are destroyed, you wouldn't have to worry about-!"

"Morgan." Robin said, commanding her to be silent. "I'm a strategist with years of experience. If there will be a battle at sea - which there won't - I'd be able to devise a plan better than these untested means. No offense."

"Things have to be changed up. You have to be capable, but unexpected." Morgan continued to argue weaker than before. "If not, then people will predict what you're going to do, and they'll use that against you."

"Do you think me incapable of my role?" Robin asked, a gentle laugh positing the query as a joke. Lucina sensed malice hidden beneath his words all the same.

"No, I… all I want is for you to be safe. To come home after this." Morgan said.

Robin laughed again, and his usual malice was absent. "I'll be okay, Morgan. I promise. Just for you, I'll make sure to get home as soon as possible, okay? I wouldn't want to miss out on any of your new strategies!"

Morgan's expression lit up. She raised the map toward him again, holding it for his appraisal. "Will you take this with you, then? Just to be safe?"

"Sure, Morgan. I'll take it." Robin smiled as he reached for the parchment and stuffed it into a pocket of his robes.

Nothing in the world could compare to how bright Morgan smiled in that moment. Lucina was in part jealous of how the young tactician grinned. Her smile was one that spoke of something warm.

"Make sure you create a bunch of better and better plans, okay? You have no idea how much they'll help me." Robin said, and Morgan's smile beamed. Lucina no longer knew whether to be humbled or revolted by the sight.

"I'll make one for every battle you could ever get into! I promise!" Morgan's glee carried into her voice.

"Will you be there to help her, Lucina?" Robin asked, bringing the silent princess into the conversation.

"Huh? Uh, I suppose so. There won't be much for me to do, as long as Exalt Emmeryn or lady Phila is around." Lucina said. Both Robin's and Morgan's expressions brightened at the notion of her remaining with the young tactician.

"That's good. I'm glad she'll have someone to spend time with." Robin said, his smile then fading as he looked back to his daughter. "Listen, Morgan, I'm sorry about this. About having to go away and do something so dangerous, about leaving you here in secret, and so much more. This… there should have been another way, but…"

"It's okay, father." Morgan reassured him, her smile yet to fade. "I know that whatever you do will be for the best. I love you, so just come home safe, okay?"

Robin laughed without opening his mouth. "I've promised as much, Morgan. Although, I could promise it to you as many times as you want. To make sure it gets across. I'll come home safe."

He patted Morgan on the head before pulling her into a brief embrace. Lucina could tell how much the two cared for one another. She still did not know whether she should envy them.

Robin broke his embrace with Morgan to lean back in his chair and sigh. He then separated the papers he had one his desk into two piles, shoving one into one his desk's top drawers while picking the other up in his free hand. Then, he rose from his desk with another sigh, and walked toward the door.

"I'm sorry, Morgan, Lucina; I know I said that I would supervise you, but I have to go finalise a plan with Chrom." he said. "This may take a while. Don't worry; Flavia will be here soon, and I'll make sure she looks after you I don't think you'll have any trouble taking care of yourselves in the meantime?" he asked, and did not wait for an answer.

Morgan opened her mouth to stop his sudden departure, but caught herself before she could form a statement. She instead offered a meek "Goodbye, father," and allowed Robin to depart.

"Why are you leaving?" Lucina asked in Morgan's stead, stopping Robin in the doorway out of the study. "It sounds like you want to stay here with Morgan and Flavia, and not have to fight. Why go to Valm?"

"Because, I…" Robin began, pausing when he realised that he held no reason for his actions. At least not one that would be justifiable to anyone but himself. "Because… because I want to." he shrugged, his cold malice having returned.

The grandmaster exited his study after a final brief pause. Morgan smiled as he left, the expression lingering after the door between them had closed. "He took my plans with him. That's why he has to go see Chrom." she explained to Lucina with her bright smile.

"Ah. I understand." Lucina said, knowing that Morgan was convincing herself. She did not want to bother showing the young tactician how Robin had shoved her plans into the pile in his desk.

Morgan clapped her hands together and returned to Lucina's side. More maps and strategies appeared from within her cloak a few short seconds later. "Well, we'd best get started on some more plans, eh? The faster we get them done, the safer everyone will be!"

"Of course. If you need my help, I'll be here." Lucina said before burying her head into one of Morgan's thunder tomes. The princess had, for as much tactical training as she was receiving from Frederick and Phila, little grasp on the concepts Morgan sought to employ.

"Got it!" Morgan beamed and scrolled across the page before her with countless small notes. Her quill slowed to a halt, then fell to the page as her expression grew serious. Then, she smiled bright again, with all of her radiance now directed at Lucina. "Thanks for this, by the way. For being here."

"Where else would I be?" Lucina blinked and tilted her head in genuine confusion. There was no reason at present to be anywhere other than the grandmaster study.

Morgan beamed brighter and resumed writing her strategy. "Thanks, Lucina. Again."

A small frown creased Lucina's features as she returned to Morgan's tome. She could not understand the other girl's happiness.

* * *

Kjelle wiped away the last of her tears before blowing her nose into the shirt she had found in Robin's room. She sat now at the edge of his bed, wondering how she could still be expelling anything so long after breaking down on the streets of Port Ferox. In Robin's arms.

Her face reddened at the memory, though it remained hazy in the face of all else that had happened. She could scarce recall moving out of public and into the inn. She did remember how Robin had sat with and comforted her at length. Kjelle folded her impromptu tissue and wiped her face anew with a clean side, as if doing so would mitigate the heat gripping her cheeks.

Why had she been so willing to expose her emotional weakness to Robin, to collapse even knowing that he would assist her? Kjelle did not know, and any answer she considered was not one she wished to think about further.

The door to the room opened, and all of Kjelle's thoughts dissipated. All that mattered now was that Robin was with her again.

"Hey, I'm back. I got some-" Robin closed the door behind him before looking at Kjelle, at which point he scrunched his face up in disgust. "Is that one of my shirts? What are you doing?"

"I couldn't find a tissue." Kjelle explained easily as she set the used shirt down on the bed. She made sure there was enough space for Robin to sit by her side. Her voice had become hoarse, but was recovering well, and was leagues above the few hitching words she had been forming within the past hour.

"Did you bother checking anywhere, or did you jump straight to my shirt?" Robin asked with a sigh. He carried two plates loaded with food in his hands, supporting both in a precarious position on one arm. He set the plates down on the nightstand next to the bed, then sat next to Kjelle.

"Where are they, then? The tissues?" Kjelle asked.

Robin shrugged. "I don't know; this isn't my room. Chrom and Sumia are letting us use theirs until I can get us some booked."

"Why is one of your shirts in Chrom's room?"

Robin paused for a long second before his expression devolved into a scowl. "Stop asking questions."

Kjelle rolled her eyes and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees as her hands supported her chin. "So, ah, they know we're in here? Did they see me… you know…?"

"Bawling your eyes out and wiping your nose with my shirt?" Robin finished for her, intending a joke but wincing when Kjelle's expression soured in dismay. "Er, sorry, it wasn't that bad. Yeah, they saw. They aren't ones to gossip, though."

"Good, good." Kjelle nodded along, though her unease was blatant. It would be all too easy for anyone to misinterpret what had happened. She took a deep, pensive breath before continuing, "Thanks for this, by the way. I think I'm starting to feel better."

"Are you up for talking about it yet?" Robin asked, his tone tentative.

Kjelle nodded once, and found herself searching for the image of Robin's face from the corner of her eye. "Sully doesn't want anything to do with me. As a family, at least, which is what I wanted. I've lost my parents, even though they're alive, and despite Sully being so close by."

Robin took a long moment to process what had been said before shaking his head. "I don't know what to say. I know you cared a lot about your parents, about keeping them safe and together, though I haven't been supportive on that front. I'm sorry for that. Will you keep trying to make Sully see you as her daughter?"

Kjelle paused for a long moment, but shook her head. "Her choice is made. Nothing I do can change that. If I could, I wouldn't be able to see her as the mother I knew."

"In other words, no matter what happens now, you've lost your mother." Robin shortened what she was saying, sounding more analytical than he would have preferred.

"Yeah, that's it." Kjelle sighed, dejected enough to make Robin wince. "I'm not sure what to do now. There's no point trying to gather a family that doesn't exist, so… I won't. That means no parents, no happily ever after once this is over, nothing. It makes everything I've done feel so pointless."

Robin's wince developed into a pained frown as Kjelle continued. Parts of what she said sounded all too familiar. "Even if she technically isn't your mother, Sully is still someone worth saving. All of the Shepherds are. It's still within your capability to help them. Isn't that what you always wanted?"

"I wasn't that selfless." Kjelle shook her head. "I wanted my family. My friends. I didn't care much about everyone else. Even now, I feel like I want things for myself more than anyone else. I want to be strong, I want my mother and father, I want to save you and the world. Everything else is an aside."

"I don't think you're being true to yourself there." Robin argued in an effort to console her. "Everything you wanted to do - protect the people you care about, save the world, grow stronger - it helps way more people than you alone. You must've seen that by now."

"I've helped people a few times, in small conflicts that pale in comparison to a war. I suppose I'll have to prove myself now that things are getting serious, huh?" Kjelle said, brightening as a tiny smile returned to her face. "Thanks, Robin. Talking to you always makes me feel better."

"Glad I could help." Robin smiled back to her. He chose to ignore how his chest warmed at her happiness.

Sensing that their conversation was nearing its end, Robin reached for the plates of food he had procured. Kjelle took the offered dish and picked at her food before setting it on her lap and flopping backward onto the bed. She stretched her arms outward, surrendering herself to the softness of the bedspread and the newfound warmth of the room. Despite all that had gone wrong in the past few hours, everything felt right in this lone moment.

"Do you mind if I lay here for a bit?" she asked Robin, though she was uncertain of why she did so. It wasn't as though she was extending an invitation for him to do the same.

"Knock yourself out." Robin said, fixated upon his meal rather than her. "Chrom said we could use this room as long as we wanted - one of us could even use it overnight, if we so desired. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what he was saying…"

"I'll figure something out. Wouldn't want to impose on royalty." Kjelle yawned, her body accepting the downy softness of the bed despite her words. "So, you have any plans for tonight, or…?" she began to ask, only to realise that she had no idea where she was going with the question.

"Mm, that's right, I scheduled an urgent meeting for… right now, technically." Robin said through a mouthful of food. He set down his plate and rushed for the door. He paused before going far. "Are you okay to be on your own for a while?"

"Do you have to ask?" Kjelle asked in turn, feigning much of her insult.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Robin insisted.

Kjelle closed her eyes for a long moment. She failed to muster enough faux anger to hide her tiny smile. "Go to your meeting. It sounds important."

"Come find me if you need to. I can always make time." Robin smiled before making his exit.

Kjelle sighed, her smile persisting on her face as Robin left, taking a significant amount of the room's warmth with him. She did not notice how he had stopped in the doorway and had back to face her.

"Also, Kjelle…" Robin said, his tone falling serious. "Once you're feeling better, you should go to the main lobby. After that, make sure all of your gear is in order, and that you're ready to leave. The war against Valm starts tomorrow."

Kjelle's mouth fell open, though she managed to regain her usual demeanour an instant later. She said nothing to stop Robin before he left. Instead, she studied the ceiling above her, staring at nothing.

An unwelcome chill swept through the room as the last of its warmth was sucked away. Vile, comfortless heat bombarded Kjelle's mind as she struggled to accept the reality of the Shepherds' most gruesome war starting anew.

* * *

Cordelia ran an armoured finger over Robin's proposed naval strategy. Her head waved from side to side against her better composure as she did so. So far, her day had been composed of a hectic reunion, an impromptu trial for war crimes, and damage control for a raging Manakete. Now things had somehow become worse.

The dark flier stood before a table that had been brought to her and Frederick's room - one of the few that remained undamaged on the lower floor. On the table was a single small map showing nothing more than the coasts of Ferox and Valm, as well as the vast expanse of barren sea between them. Atop the map sat a crumpled piece of paper Robin claimed to represent the Ylissean-Feroxi forces.

"I understand that you're the most qualified to say we're capable of this, but are you insane?" Chrom spoke up before anyone else, addressing Robin.

The grandmaster huffed as he set a stack of tomes on the Valmese side of the map to represent enemy forces. "This'll work, Chrom. Trust me. Walhart is a threat that needs to be addressed. Plus, there are some answers waiting for me - us - in Valm, answers that require us to be on the continent."

"Have you ever waged a naval battle before?" Sumia frowned at the stack of tomes Robin had set on the map.

"I've studied them before." Robin attempted to wave her worry away. "Besides, the whole point of leaving tomorrow is to prevent a naval battle. As you can see, the Valmese outnumber us by a factor of four tomes to one sheet of paper, meaning we'd be destroyed in a direct battle. Same for a war of attrition. We need fast plans and sudden strikes to win this."

"I understand what you're saying, but this is dangerous. They may have ships in the water as we speak." Chrom argued.

"I concur." Frederick said, his pride in his Exalt's newfound caution shining through. "Perhaps with greater resources we could manage, but Valm has in their possession warships and soldiers that dwarf our own. The Shepherds have yet to face the likes of these reported dark knights, as well as Valm's organised cavalry and flying forces."

Robin paused for a long moment before nodding to himself. "We can handle it. We always have, and we always will."

"Until we can't anymore…" murmured Sumia.

"Aren't we likely to run into their warships no matter when we depart?" Cordelia asked, running invisible numbers through her head as she tried to piece together a strategy of her own. She turned toward her gathered companions, her lack of success written across her face. "Fighting the invading force head-on would be nothing short of a death sentence, no?"

"That's why we need to arrive in Valm before the ships get in the water. That's why I want to leave as soon as possible." Robin said. "We can't fight warships head-on, regardless of how capable the Shepherds are. Everyone has limits. Instead, we need to debilitate the ships to prevent an invasion, and then take down the empire from within Valm."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Frederick asked.

"I haven't gotten that far yet." Robin admitted with a shrug. "This is all kind of last minute. I hadn't exactly planned for much here, but this should work."

"There has to be a better strategy. Something a little more sensible." Cordelia frowned.

"What if we bait out an invasion, then control how and where their ships land?" Sumia proposed. "We could choose our battlefields, and ensure that we don't have to face too many soldiers at a time."

"There's no way we can stop their ships from laying anchor, or from just ramming themselves into land. Their numbers will ensure that some get through any defenses we establish, and then everything would go to hell." Robin shook his head. "Their air units would also invade without need for their ships to dock. We'd have to split our forces far too thin."

"What about getting soldiers and warships from Plegia?" Chrom asked, his gaze falling grim as he took in Robin's disparaging map. "We could host a proper naval battle, should you be up to making the strategy. That would prevent an invasion force from nearing land."

"Could our forces, regardless of number and armaments, manage a battle at sea?" Frederick asked Robin, seeing with him some of the holes in Chrom's plan.

"In ideal conditions? Sure, why not?" Robin shrugged. "Our conditions aren't ideal, though. We have less than a fraction of the experience of the Valmese soldiers. Their navy may be recent, but they're masters at sea compared to anyone on our continent."

A heavy silence hung over the room as everyone attempted to brainstorm a better plan. Save for Robin, who waited to defend any of his strategy's finer points. Chrom was the one to break the silence by taking a deep, pensive breath.

"I'll trust the plans you've formed, Robin. I assent to setting sail tomorrow morning."

"Milord!" Frederick gasped in shock, his pride dwindling. "There must be a better way to address the coming conflict! All we need is time and resources."

"We don't have either." Robin reminded him. "Our only remaining source for troops, funds, and supplies is Plegia. A nation whose leaders were murdered by friends of two of our own rank won't be keen on lending aid."

"Two of our…? Are you suggesting that we bring the Khans with us to Valm?" Sumia asked. "Shouldn't they be facing some kind of trial soon?"

"They're far better use on a battlefield than a dungeon." Robin dismissed her worry. "Besides, I understand why they did what they did. Not many will, and it's still a crime, but I get their reasoning. They wanted to help us."

"I suppose Ferox would be more respectful of our cause than Plegia." Cordelia said, more ideas working their way through her mind before she shook them away. "Fine. If this is the best way, let's do it."

Robin nodded, counting her affirmation alongside Chrom's. "So? What do you say?" he turned to Frederick and Sumia.

Sumia shifted her weight between her feet before resolving herself with a deep breath. "If you think this is for the best, then I trust you. I assent." she said, finding her confidence as she went.

"I must advise against this course of action with every sensible fibre of my being." Frederick informed Robin. "However, should you know that this strategy will yield the highest chance of success and will best keep the royal family safe, I will confirm my wholehearted participation in and support for this campaign."

"Yes!" Robin cheered. This had somehow been one of his easier attempts at winning them all over, considering how at least one of them tended to remain obstinate against whatever strategy he devised. Granted, that would often lead to a superior rewrite, but Robin was confident in his current aim. "I assure you, Frederick, this is the best plan I have. Short of gathering a fleet of our own, it's the best we'll get."

"Then I would suggest we notify the Shepherds and make preparations immediately." Frederick nodded to the grandmaster, his stony expression never showing a hint of satisfaction.

"Sounds great!" Robin exclaimed without realising how enthusiastic his voice had grown.

"However, before then, there is one more matter to which I must attend." Frederick said, then from behind his large form produced a wrapped and bound blade.

The great knight undid the covering to reveal Falchion - the Falchion of Lucina's future. Robin was surprised at his own ability to make that sudden connection, and to remain calm about how Frederick had somehow acquired the legendary blade lost to time itself.

"Your divine armament, milord." Frederick knelt on one knee and bowed his head, holding the sword out flat for Chrom to take.

Chrom blinked and glanced to his own Falchion, where it rested in its scabbard at his side. "Uh… Frederick?" he began, willing the great knight to rise and end his awkward display. "You can see that I have my Falchion with me, right? This not mine, if it's even a Falchion at all."

"Were you carrying that this entire time? How did I not…?" Robin questioned both Frederick and himself.

"Could that be Lucina's?" Sumia suggested. "She mentioned having one in her time, then losing it. Could this be hers?"

"Please, milord, take the sword." Frederick insisted, refusing to so much as glance up at his friend and liege. "When I was presented with this, I had assumed the worst - that I had failed in my duties as a knight. Prove me wrong."

"I'm holding Falchion, Frederick. My Falchion. The real one." Chrom said, drawing the blade to make his statement true.

Frederick refused to move. Chrom sighed and shook his head, then stepped forward and took the future Falchion into his free hand. He weighed the two swords and, based on the disbelieving expression he wore, found the two to be identical. He placed his Falchion back in its scabbard before stepping away from Frederick, who rose to a prompt stand.

"I suppose I'll take this to Lucina, then." Chrom said. He scratched the back of his head before shrugging, his course set despite his friend and protector's questionable behaviour.

"Do with your blade as you please, milord." Frederick smiled. Chrom frowned at the repeated use of the title, but made no mention of his discomfort.

"And here I thought my relationship with Chrom was strange…" Robin muttered under his breath.

"Mind if I ask you something, Robin?" Cordelia approached his side and whispered, setting him on edge as he feared that his murmurs had been heard.

"I, ah… no?" Robin stammered. "I mean, yes, I don't mind if- er, no, I… what's your question?"

"Who's Lucina?"

Robin blinked as his mind became at ease. "Ah, right, you've yet to meet her. She's Chrom and Sumia's daughter from the future - one of them, at least. She has the brand and can use Falchion. She's still down in the main lobby; how did you miss her?"

"Did she have long blue hair?" Cordelia asked. "All blue clothes, too? Oh, gods, I hope Chrom didn't pass down his sense of fashion."

"Yeah, that was her. Quiet, but difficult to misd." Robin confirmed.

"Right. Blue hair means royalty; that's easy to remember." Cordelia said, nodding once to herself before breaking from Robin's side. "Thanks. I suppose I should go introduce myself. Is she joining us for Valm?"

Robin nodded, and found that he had to suppress a smile. He was uncertain why. "Count her as a Shepherd. From what I know, she'll be an exceptional one, too."

"Noted." Cordelia nodded again, then smiled to him as a goodbye, and made her exit from the room. She tried to pull Frederick out with her, but the great knight refused to move.

Frederick stood in place, remaining stationary as others departed. He kept smiling as Chrom gave him an awkward thumbs up, struggling to find a means of how to depart, and then left. Sumia, too, awkwardly left, leaving the knight commander alone with Robin.

"Um, Frederick?" Robin stepped in front of the man and waved a hand before his eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Savour the moment, Robin. Savour it." Frederick said, his voice bordering on wistful. "All is right with the world once again."

"Er, right. Of course." Robin acknowledged him before stepping away to tend to his strategic materials.

Frederick persisted in his efforts of remaining stationary.

"Hey, Frederick? Can I say something to you?" Robin asked without turning away from his map, not daring to look the great knight in the eye.

"Hm?" Frederick hummed, doing little more than confirming his presence.

"If I ever seem like I'm enjoying this war, that means I've gone too far. Should that happen, I'd need to be stopped."

"I understand." Frederick spoke without missing a beat. He replied so fast and with such confidence that Robin doubted he had processed the veiled request.

"Thanks, Frederick. I'm glad you understand." Robin said, resolving to not extend their uncomfortable situation any longer. He finished gathering his supplies and exited the room, leaving Frederick to stand and grin alone.

* * *

Kjelle took more time than necessary to finish her meal. Whatever was waiting for her could be pushed to later. She knew that was the least productive way of dealing with everything that had happened, but it was the method she chose all the same.

After clearing her plate and pushing herself up from Chrom and Sumia's soft bed, Kjelle took some time to stretch her muscles and ensure that her appearance was acceptable. She cared little for how people saw her, but no one had to know that she had bawled her eyes out. The contradiction in her belief was one she chose to disregard. Robin was one of the few, if not the only person to whom she could show that side of herself.

A knock sounded on the door before Kjelle could open it. Kjelle rushed to the door and swung it open, a smile forming on her features without her intention.

Stahl's met her with a warm yet uncertain grin. Kjelle's pleasant conviction soured, and she turned to retreat into the room, leaving the door open.

"What do you want?" Kjelle asked Stahl without bothering to face him. She knew not why she had been so excited to have company, but knew that she would never have wished for Stahl's presence.

"Hello, Kjelle." Stahl greeted her, his voice calm. "I'm sorry about what happened earlier today. Sully can be a little rough around the edges, though I guess you'd know that better than anyone, huh? Do you mind if I come in to chat for a little while?"

"Knock yourself out." Kjelle permitted him with little effort, placing her focus instead on splaying out once more across the royal bed. Her uninviting air did nothing to impede Stahl's collected demeanour.

"Thanks." the Shepherd stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. "So, it's plain to see how great of an impact Sully's words earlier had on you. That was a lot to take in, wasn't it?"

"What are you playing at?" Kjelle asked him defensively.

"Nothing at all; all I want is to talk." Stahl raised hands, as if doing so would defuse Kjelle's vitriol.

"Then talk." Kjelle said, her words short and crass. She had no reason nor a desire to spend time with the paladin.

Stahl sighed, but nodded to her words. "I know that things are difficult for you right now, Kjelle. Your original mother has passed away. I can assume the same for the future version of myself. This version of Sully isn't willing to act like a mother. That's her choice, though, and it needs to be respected. She sure as hell won't let you contest that without a fight."

Kjelle's ears perked up at the mention of winning her mother back through combat, but she dispelled that line of thinking before it could get out of hand. There was nothing good to come from forcing someone to act through overpowering might. Robin had shown her as much many times over.

"I also need you to know that I can't act as your father." Stahl continued. "You're your own person now, and there's no way I'm going to be able to see you as my kid."

Kjelle blinked, opened her mouth to correct his errant assumption, then closed it when she decided to not bother. She had never had the time to inform anyone in this time but Robin that Donnel was her true father. Stahl and every other Shepherd would have no reason to doubt that their pairings were the same as her future. None of them so much as knew of Donnel's existence.

"That said, if you ever need support, I promise to do my absolute best." Stahl said, a unique conviction lining the calm of his voice. "Dont expect anything world-class, but I can tell you've faced enough in your life. If you want to hold on to your memory of the person I once was for a little while longer, then I understand."

Kjelle blinked again, surprised by his sentiment. Compared to Sully and Donnel, what he was offering was remarkable. For a moment, she almost wished that Stahl was her actual father.

"That's generous of you, but…" Kjelle began to shut him down, then found that she was incapable of doing so. He was too welcoming, too pleasant to be discarded in such a rude way. She would be certain to curse Robin later for making her so emotional as to allow paltry smiles to alter her course of action.

"You don't have to say or do anything right now." Stahl reassured her, his easy smile once again upon his face. "I wanted to get that out there, that's all. I'm here if you need me. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure." Kjelle dismissed him, now as a means of not having to think on his offer. It was enticing, despite her wishes to have her family together.

"Well, that's all I wanted to say. It was nice to meet you, Kjelle, and I hope that you manage to find everything you're looking for in life." Stahl continued to smile as he shuffled back to the door. "Take me up on the offer if you ever need to, okay? I won't mind at all."

"Okay." Kjelle acknowledged the offer without any complexity. She watched him with a mixture of curiosity and confusion, and found no courage to tell him of their lack of relation.

Stahl gave an awkward wave before exiting the room, once again closing the door behind him. Kjelle was left to watch the space he had occupied as her disorientation refused to ebb. She sighed and rose from the bed, resolving to set her thoughts aside until she had tended more pressing matters. With any luck, her subconscious would sort out her desires as she prepared for war.

Kjelle collected hers and Robin's plates and left the room. Her first priority would be to check the Shepherds' supplies, to find out what manner of equipment she could utilise. Weapons, potions, items, and armour were among her top priorities. An inevitable bout of training would follow soon after.

Upon descending to the inn's main lobby, Kjelle was stopped in her tracks by a glimpse of blue. She did a double take as she recognised the face attached to the unique palette. Her dear friend and greatest rival.

Lucina was sat at a table off to one side of the inn, both of her hands clasped around a cup of water. She said nothing, her gaze having locked itself onto Kjelle, and when the knight faced her in shock, she did nothing. The princess remained seated at her table, giving no indication of moving.

Kjelle gawked. She dropped her plates on the nearest table and dashed over to her old friend, far more invigorated than she had thought possible for the day. Lucina gave her no reaction.

"Lucina! You… what!?" Kjelle shouted as she tried to rationalise her friend's unprecedented appearance.

"Hello, Kjelle." Lucina gave her friend a smile that was all too familiar. She then said nothing, leaving them in a silence that grew long.

Hundreds of questions rushed through Kjelle's mind as she struggled to understand why, how, and when Lucina had appeared, and what her presence entailed. She could think of no answers within the rapid turmoil of her conscious thoughts.

After the silence between them had grown too long, Kjelle spoke again. "What are you doing here? When did you get here? Why now?"

"I had intended to check on the condition of this time's Chrom and Sumia, and to kill Robin." Lucina answered her, retaining a perfect sense of serenity. "I arrived a few hours ago. You passed by me as you were crying; did you not notice?"

"I wasn't-!" Kjelle made to refute her moment of weakness on instinct, only to realise that she would be incapable of doing so. Not when her accuser was Lucina. Kjelle brought a hand to her fuming forehead, hiding her shame, and the pain of her silenced indignation. "You saw that, huh?"

"Mhm." Lucina replied without inflection. "As for why I'm here now, I believe that was answered by my first statement. However, if it referred to why I'm at this table, it's to await your appearance, that of Cordelia and Frederick, and of our friends. I must learn a great deal about these past months before I can participate in the Valmese war."

Kjelle gawked at Lucina, though her expression soon morphed into a grin. Though the princess' resolution to join the Shepherds was sudden, having her as an ally would be enough to propel anyone to greater heights. Kjelle would be certain to make good use of the opportunity presented to her. She felt in no way threatened by Lucina's off-putting presence. Not at all.

"So, have you tried to kill Robin yet, or…?" Kjelle trailed off as she sat down across from Lucina. Either the princess had failed, or she had yet to make a move. Kjelle knew not which possibility was worse. Though, given that Robin appeared to be in fine condition, she could assume that Lucina had yet to seek his death.

"An opportunity presented itself, and I drew close to dealing a lethal blow." Lucina said. Kjelle's gut twisted at her words, but she took solace in knowing that Robin was alive. He had to be. They had spoken together mere minutes ago.

"But you didn't do it?" Kjelle asked. The thought of Lucina failing to fulfill her objective was as impossible as the thought of Robin dying.

"I lost the element of surprise, and he didn't incite conflict." Lucina said. "There was no battle to be held. Furthermore, I still had the matter of verifying Chrom's and Sumia's condition. So, no, I didn't do it."

Kjelle nodded as Lucina spoke. There had yet to be a fight between the royal and the grandmaster, a thought that relieved her as much as it was terrifying. She had no idea who would win such a matchup - Robin had the advantage of magic and tactics, but Lucina was the most capable fighter Kjelle had ever seen, bar none.

Lucina again made no effort to continue their conversation, giving off an air of disinterest for all that happened around her. Kjelle forgot how often the noble would slip into and out of being personable. It was as though a switch was flipped inside her whenever a mission was introduced, and then she would express conviction for that task alone.

"Are you planning on fighting him?" Kjelle asked when she once again realised that Lucina had no desire to carry their conversation.

"Should the opportunity present itself." Lucina gave an answer that, to Kjelle, was in no way satisfying. She once again fell into an obstinate silence.

Kjelle allowed a moment to pass before sighing, her mind made before she could consider what to do. "Listen, Lucina, this might sound crazy to you, but hear me out. I don't want to kill Robin yet. Maybe ever, if that can be done. He… I think he's the Robin who became Grima from our time, but I think he hated what he did and is trying to avoid it happening again. Please, trust me on this, and don't try to kill him."

Lucina watched her in blank silence for longer than Kjelle could remain comfortable. She felt as though the princess' gaze was boring fiery holes into her body through sheer fury. Lucina never expressed much emotion, but it could be inferred with ease. What else could she, someone who was so dedicated to killing Robin and averting the catastrophe of their time, be presumed to do?

After tilting her head, failing to understand the distress that overtook Kjelle's features, Lucina nodded. "Okay. I understand. For now, I won't kill Robin, whether an opportunity presents itself or not."

Kjelle blinked and stammered for words. "You… what? Seriously? You, of all people, are going to give up as easily as that?"

"Would you prefer I not?" Lucina asked. The question was not a test; her confusion was genuine.

"No, no, that's fine." Kjelle stopped her. "I hadn't expected to win you over. At all. Before when I told people this, they didn't trust Robin, and still wanted to kill him. Not that I can blame them. He did some messed up stuff."

"Yet you said he was now acting to avoid anything of that sort." Lucina raised an eyebrow. "As long as he acts toward that end, I see no reason to kill him. Besides, if he is the Robin from our time, he may be needed to kill Grima. There's a caveat to the divine blood borne by dragons, where they're effectively immortal so long as-"

"They can be killed by people who share their blood. I know." Kjelle cut the princess off, smiling inward at her own ability to prove herself to Lucina. That inward smile became a frown as she recalled one of the many reasons Robin had been so disturbed over their journey together. The primary reason he had believed his elimination necessary for the Shepherds' survival.

Kjelle bit her lip as she considered whether or not to tell Lucina of Robin's malice and the supposed death of Grima. To conceal such information may lower their standing with one another, a thought that made Kjelle's skin crawl more than it should have. On the other hand, telling her could lead to Robin's demise.

Lucina tilted her head as she watched Kjelle's face contort. She could never begin to understand the strange ways people acted, how they could seem so pained without being struck.

"Listen, Lucina…" Kjelle began with a sigh as she unclenched the stiffened muscles across her face. "Once all the fighting is over, are you going to kill Robin?"

"Should it be necessary, yes." Lucina answered in a calm, almost thoughtless voice.

"What if there's more fighting afterward? What if he's still useful, or if he proves that he doesn't have to die for everyone to be safe?"

Lucina blinked once. "I fail to see your point. Robin needs to be eliminated. That's a part of our mission to save this time."

"Yeah, I know - protect the Shepherds and kill Robin." Kjelle exhaled as a frustrated pain throbbed at the forefront of her mind. She knew her mission, yet its completion had become so complicated. "I think there's a place for us here. All of us. Things haven't turned out like I'd wanted. However, I still think that everything in this time can turn out better than we'd hoped. For Robin, too."

"Hm. I think I understand." Lucina said, her face contorting in pensive thought as she bit her lower lip and tensed her jaw. Kjelle felt as though she was looking at a mirror of herself from moments ago. "Do you mind if I take my time to consider this proposition? Perhaps evaluate him over the course of the coming battles and decide from there?"

"Go ahead. Take all the time you need." Kjelle nodded. Robin now had more guaranteed time alive - time they could spend together, growing stronger and helping one another when they stumbled. A smile blossomed across Kjelle's features.

Lucina yet again regarded her in curiosity. Kjelle's expression had brightened in an instant, as though she were happier than ever before. Lucina's face fell into an instinctive neutrality at the sight.

Kjelle rose from her seat, knowing that she now had all the time in the world to catch up with Lucina. They could duel, fight, and grow together as they had always done, and now Kjelle was willing to try talking to the princess without a weapon in hand. That thought would have been alien to her mere weeks ago.

"I should leave you to your… uh, water." Kjelle said as she rose. "I need to go take care of some stuff, but knowing Cordelia, she'll be here to explain everything soon. I promise to be back - and to bring some vulneraries. We've got to be ready for shipping out tomorrow, and there's no way I'm passing on the opportunity to get in a quick duel with you."

"Of course. I'll see you soon, Kjelle." Lucina said, nodding to the knight's back as she exited the inn. She continued to watch the space Kjelle had left until her fellow time traveller frantically reentered the building.

"Actually, put a hold on that duel!" she shouted at an unnecessary volume. "I've got some awesome tricks up my sleeve, but it'll take me a little while to get everything ready! Until then, we can take the time to catch up, okay?"

"Okay." Lucina agreed without issue. She would not object to such an inconsequential matter. Nothing she did until after the Valmese war mattered, beyond protecting the Shepherds.

She again watched Kjelle's retreating back as the knight made her exit. Her expression grew cold.

For the first time in years, the muscles in Lucina's face pulled into a natural frown.

* * *

 **I should really be prefacing the flashbacks and normal scenes with blurbs that detail their time and place, but I started off not doing that, and I want to be consistent. That's a small amount of discipline I can still retain.**

 **Lucina's foil-ness to Kjelle is kinda difficult to show, especially before Lucina starts to take her more defining actions. I'm trying to have it be the emotionally developing/developed Kjelle v.s. the emotionally undeveloped Lucina, so hopefully that's coming across well enough. if not, feel free to tell me how to improve. Feedback is always super appreciated.**

 **Status: As of 15-09-19, I'm on chapter 38. I really wanted to get to chapter 39 before posting this, because chapter 38 shouldn't be taking me this long, but here we are. I feel like I'm writing the most interesting part of the story, but it's still so difficult to get it right.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


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